Evening Star Newspaper, May 21, 1933, Page 23

RUSSIA ‘HALTS MIGRATION - IN WAR AG Passport System Us Out of Crowded Cities and on Productive Soil. AINST FAMINE ed to Keep Farmers THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. €, MAY 21, 1933--PART TWO. - ILATINS ECONOMIC TALKS HERE EVIDENCE ‘NEW DEAL’ Gangs to Battle Crime Much May Be Accomplished in Curtailing Criminal Activities Through Work of Prevention Bureaus. BY FRANK HARREL. | wanted to go to trade school and how Conversations of ITW(; Positive Results Expected From South American Diplomats and Roosevelt. | he was taking up boxing seriously. His instructor is the crime prevention officer. The practical side of the story is; | that there hasn't been a case of ju-| T is the man in prison speaking. “For a while my life was made : up of constant efforts to avold " A | the truant officer. When I was 8 . 3 2 BY GASTON NERVAL. PECIAL representatives from sev- eral Latin American countries | trophic decline in inter-American trade. | Yet, the delegates to the Pan-American Conference knew that the Government BY ALEXANDER NAZAROFF. tion of the Ukranian peasants to the Caucasus reached its climax. The hun- TRANGE and momentous events I have recently been taking place in Russia. It is not easy to grasp them or to visualize their pos- sible consequences. It is obvious, however, that the country's tempera- ture is rising and that it is desperately battling with a grave and acute disease. ‘What strikes the observer's attention first is this: During the last few years, and especially in 1932 and 1933, the; Soviet Union, to a large extent has been transformed into a nomadic country. As though seized with some strange mass insanity, millions of its people, formerly firmly settled, suddenly have been up- rooted, torn from their accustomed villages and cities and set in motion by some invisible force. Without explanation or notice, work- men leave their factories by the thousand, flee from one industrial area to another and, before they have had time to settle and find employment in the new area, they are off again to still other cities and areas. These mi- grations hopelessly disorganize indus- trial production; having no time to ac- gry invaders drained the food reserves even of the comparatively well-off Cau- casian districts, They plundered the crops in the flelds at night and bar- tered their last belongings for food. In some towns local authorities placed | | armed pickets at highways to turn back | the invaders. Skirmishes occurred, and ! there were casualties, but this could i not_keep the invaders out | _Then, last Fall, when the Northern | Caucasus was stripped of food. both the | invaders and the netives began to! | migrate farther to the east—an army of | | hungry men, women and children. i This Winter and Spring have been | even worse than last Fall: the inade- ! | quate reserves of food left from last vear's crops were rapidly being ex- | | hausted. And this applies in_equal | degree to the Caucasus, the Ukraine, and the Volga regions. i Recently. a German colonist wrote | | to the Kolische Zeitung from a viliage | in one of the Vo'ga provinces : “Famine has reached here in such proportions that one can bear it no lenger. We eat cats, dogs and the rot- ! quire experience in any line of industry, the “nomads” work badly, wreck valu- eble machines and prove to be infinitely mere harmful than any “English sabotagers.” Restlessness Reaches Climax. Still more alarming, in a sense, is the newly developed nomadism of the Rus- sian peasant. Since 1929 peasants have been abandoning their farms and flock- ing in masses to the cities in search of “industrial work. Yet it is only re- cently that their restlessness has reached its climax. At the beginning of 1932, a mass exodus from the Uk- raine took place. About 2,000,000 geannts left that country. Traveling. ag and baggage, on foot, by rail and by boat, cdngmiing l;nim nng murrmd lsml; | tions, dying in large numbers from lack great harm to the iculture in the of food, exhaustion and infectious dis- | Ukraine, in the Northern Caticasus and eases, and yet pushing on and on, they in White Russia. Seventy plotters, the —or most of them—swept east, to the | announcement stated further, were ar- Northern Caucasus. And only four Or |rested; 35 of them were shot, and the five months later a similar exodus be- | rest sentenced to prison or banichment. gan from the Northen Caucasus 0 Thus, in its fashion, Stalin’s govern- ‘Turkestan and Siberia. ment apologized to its subjects for the But such nomadic movements are by | famine: It blamed the results of its no means confined to these TeZIons. own misdeeds and blunders on the “Herd” railroad wagons of all RUSSI&N |charms of a sorcezer, and solemnly trains are overcrowded. All of Russia | burned this sorcerer on the pyre. seems to be rushing somewhere—| The object of the recent measures chiefly to the cities. As some one has | intended to “tie down" workers and said, it is “the second great migration | peasants is obvious. In the first place, of peoples.” Agriculture is affected by it | the Soviets want to improve the deplor- s badly as industry; on thousands of | able living conditions of those workers collective farms there is an acute short- | who will remain in the cities and in- age of labor. | dustrial areas. In the second place, the The Soviet government has been migrating hordes of hunger-crazed alarmed by these facts for a long time. | peasants present a grave political dan- And recently it took rastic measures |ger. They may start rebelling and re- to_check them. i , | volting on a large scale. It is safer to Four months ago it decreed that|geep them out of the cities. every workman who leaves his factory | But will these measures work? without permission will be deprived of | The decree attaching workers to fac- his food card.. This is a serious threat. tories was published four months 2go; To have no food card with which 10 |yet during these months the fluidity of buy foodstuffs in governmental co- |jabor has increased. not decreased. operatives at low prices means to be| And as for the order keeping peasants ting meat of falln animals. Men | swell from hunger and fall from weak- ness while working in the flelds. Al the food there was in the village has | been taken away from us.” © “Plot” Is Uncovered. Officially the Soviet government does not admit the existence of a famine. | | Yet two months ago the Ogpu, the| | Soveit secret police, announced that it | | had uncovered an important counter- | revolutionary plot. The plotters, most of them important officials of the Com- missariat of Agriculture, it was an- | announced, has “caused the wrecking of | tractors, the overgrowing of flelds with | weeds, the deterioration of crops, the burning down of tractor-stations, etc.” And this, it was explained, had done doomed to starvation. Next, peasants, by a similar decree, were tied to their land; in keeping with this measure, peasant who abandons his collective farm has no right to join any .other such farm. But the Soviets have not stopped there. As a result of these recent mi- grations Russian cities have enor- mously expanded. And. quite recently, the Council of the People’s Commissars announced its decision to effect a re- | distribution of population unprece- | dented in extent and ruthlessness. | Millions of “superfluous” inhabitants | will be deported from large cities, from | important industrial areas and from | & 62-mile line along the Soviet Union’s | western frontier—even if such de- portation means loss of livelihood and starvation. Those who will be moved are the politically undesirable ele- ments, the members of the former priv- ileged classes and chiefly the peasant = ts” who have failed to be- “indispensable industrial work- g Passports #those permitted to remain in the cities. But the inhabitants of rural areas— the peasants—will receive no pass. ports. And thus they will be defi; nitely confined to their villages, for no one without a passport will be per- mitted to enter the cities. These measures gave a finishing fouch to the establishment of what may be described as the regime of state serfdom in Russia. Peasants and workmen now definitely cease to be freemen. Not only are they not al- Jowed to own property; not only can any portion of the fruit of their labor issued to | ut of the cities, where is the colossal administrative machinery nesded to !Drevent the gradual reinfiltration of the | deported millions? i Peace Without Plunder. There is only one way of tying peas- ants to their farms—let them work in| peace and do not plunder them of the fruit of their labor. Here, however, the | Soviet government finds itself in a vicious circle: Not to deprive citizens of their grain would mean that city workmen would starve. Can the Soviets find a way out? Much depends upon the crops which will be harvested this July and August. If they are good, Russia will pull | through. But if they fail, we may wit- ness next Winter a repetition of the terrible famine of 1922, which cost Rus- sia_more than 4,000,000 lives. ‘What are the prospects of these Tops? Although the Soviets have loaned to the collective farms a considerable amount of seed grain, there is an un. deniable shortage of that grain in many Iocalities; despite threats, peasants have | used part of it for food. Many tractors | are out of repair. And the horses are | weak and disabled. Peasant Looks to Fate. But the chief thing is the peasant. And he is depressed and bewildered by the profusion of decrees pouring from | Moscow. Seeing the incompetence of | the president of his collective farm, the | chaotic disorder and the red tape reign- ing on it, he gets lost. At moments rage seizes him. Then he wrecks the i years old I did my first job in the racket. - The big guys planned every- thing, and I only listened. These guys were only seven or eight years older than me and had all pulled off jobs before. . . . We all went to the butcher shop. My brother got & box and stood on it and tried the transom. It was too little for my brother to get through. Then I was thrilled when they said I'd have to crawl through the transom. That was the kick of my whole life. I was scared, but I was too thrilled to say no. “I got $4 and a lot of cigarettes. I et Jike a tig shot after that night, | and the big guys said I could go with thon every time they went robbing. | hey called me the Baby Bandit. g “Every time I ran away from the, reform schools I wen! ¢ back to the| cong's cld hangout. I never went to| Ty own home becatse my father would | report me to the police. I was never afraid of my pals. We were trusted pals nd never faild each other. . . 1y deei didn’t pay ded 10 quit Tobbing because | B-osides, I got in 2 mob | o ho were making | of 5l‘lrk-up guys Wl nc;gr many years investigators in our | Federn! avd Stats prisons have heard ctories like this, which was taken from actual prison records. They have heard them told by men in the death cell and by those condemned to an indefinite period of labor. Always they are the same—truancy or incorrigibility. minor offenses. reform school. release, gang ssociates, crime, prison. 3 ;‘:-fim investigators have collected ther facts: O Only a few weeks ago the Commis- | sion to Investigate Prison Administra- tion and Construction, appointed in New York State in 1930, made its final re- port to the legislature. It had examined 3.415 men received at the State prisons and at Elmira Reformatory during 1931, Among its conclusions were: “Negfly 80 per cent (of the inmates) had known criminal records averaging four previous arrests to each man....It is evident that previous contacts with the police, the courts and with correc- tional institutions failed to deter these men from commiting new crimes, since two-thirds of them had already rerved sentences in city, county or State in- itutions.” s"t‘l.‘l'l!l'! are other facts: A study of the careers of 509 inmates of the Massa- chusetts Reformatory showed 77 per cent had experience in delinquency prior to the age of 17 years; 92 per cent be- fore the age of 19, and 98 per cent be- for the age of 21. In a study of delin- quents it was shown that the first step was truancy. Boys and girls between | 16 and 21 commit nearly half the felonies—major crimes—in New York | City. § | Dy'loulh of statistics—but there are more! All proving the same thing— that the progress from truancy to prison is straight and uninterrupted, conditions being favorable, this progress is helped rather than hindered by frequent incarcerations in reformatories and other corrective in- stitutions. In other words, the statistic: prove that-in the case of the majority | of the inmates cf our penal institutions— the habitual offenders—there is a definite | criminal pattern. This criminal pflltfl'n‘ begins to form early in childhood. The | first symptoms of the disease which | ushers its victims almost unerringly to | the state prison, or perhaps to the death cell, are recognizable in the youngster on the street, and they in- crease in violence unless his environ- ment somehow is changed. Not so many years ago preventive medicine was a new thing. Individuals | contracted smallpox, typhoid, _yellow | fever, languished and died. Doctors | did their best, but their efforts were confined to those already ill. However, | preventive medicine had and is having its day, and we no longer fear pesti- lences and plagues. Crime Preventives. ‘What about crime preventives? Can | the force of the crime waves whlchi sweep over our cities be mitigated by preventive measures? Can individuals forced by circumstances to dwell in crime-infested areas be inoculated against infection from the sources of crime? The answer is in the affirma- tive. It comes from the officials of | crime prevention bureaus which have | been established in twelve American | cities, ranging in size from Berkeley, | Calif., to New York City. The latter | has the oldest and perhaps the most and that that are | venile delinquency referred to the bu- GOOD GANGS ARE BEING GROWN TO TURN EMBRYO CRIMINALS INTO WORTHWHILE BOYS. ~—Painted for The Sunday Star by Russell Sambrook. co-operation of the various municipal | about 35 a month. The particular ob- welfare, medical, psychiatric and char- | ject of his attention was a gang of itable agencies, as well as the co-opera- | youngsters who frequented a pool room tion of the officials of public institu- | conducted by “the Chink"—an evil tions in the largest city in the world. |smelling, upstairs hang-out for neigh- borhood toughs. The boys, aged 14 to A Separate Unity. 21, were thought to have been the per- Although the bureau is part of the | petrators of a series of robberies in the Police Department, it has its own sepa- | section. rate organization. The city is divided | ‘The crime prevention officer imme- into divisions and_districts, each with |diately made his presence known tosthe its commanding officer, who is respon- | gang, offered to coach a base ball team sible to the director of the Crime Pre- | if one could be formed, and was just as vention Bureau. Separate records are immediately rebuffed. They had the kept of every case; statistics are com- | best base ball team in town, they boast- piled to guide its policies in the fu- |ed, and, besides that, nobody would have ture. | anything to do with a “flatfoot.” Then There ‘are approximately 250 persons | they lapsed into silen silence broken in the bureau and its activities extend | Only by an occasional “razzberry” when | to every police precinct in the greater | ‘Sottrell would pass them on the street. "% the Brookiyn water front | Rcbberies in the neighborhood contin- i",{nm;"’,f?,:?;’mh;. heer Is eoncerned | ued. It seemed to Officer Cottrell that with concerting a gang of embryo gun- men into worth-while members of a Boys’ Club. He is growing a good gang. | breaking up the criminal pattern in its | carliest formative stage. Up in Harlem | a crime prevention policewoman straightens out & complex family situ- ation which has caused Mary, aged 16, to leave home and live in a furnished room, paid for by a pool room loiterer. | Out in Queens County another officer from the bureau takes a crowd of neigh- borhood boys who play on the strest and puts them to clearing a vacant lot for a base ball diamond. On the lower East Side a crime prevention officer hears from parents that little Herman is incorrigible. He makes arrangements to have the child given psychiatric and physical examinations. Still another crime prevention officer lectures at a school in the Bronx, trying to co-oper- | ate with teachers in snatching the halo from the gangster's head and showing him to the children as the miserable, deluded. pathetic person he really is. Out in Prospect Park another crime prevention patrolman is coaching a base ball team, to enter it in the Police Athletic League—Pal, to the kids all over New York—and yet another is en- gaged in leading two or three members of the uniformed force into a side street pool room. They are bent on closing a place which has been definitely proved to be a crime breeder and a hangout for undesirables. Perhaps the most interesting of the bureau's activities, are its many success- ful efforts to grow good gangs. The | speed with which a crime prevention | officer converts a_ street corner gang, every member of which might be dragged into court and charged with juvenile delinquency, into a boys’ club | complaint of his father. he was facing about the toughest prop- osition in his career. But the way to victory was even then apparent. He appealed to the one sure instinct of the gangster—his combative- ness. The local boys’ club offered to co- operate in his plan, and offered its fa- cilities. The only problem was how to get the gang into the club and keep it there. The achievement of this result was a masterful example of strategy. Challenge Strikes Fire. Officer Cottrell took the best of the boys’ club athletes and formed a base ball team of his own, entering it in the Pal. The members were younger than the gangsters, but they played a very good game of base ball. His team func- tioning admirably. he issued a challenge to the gang: ‘“How about giving my kids a game? They'll lick the socks off you.” The challenge struck fire. In a few days the game was arranged. Luckily for Cottrell, his team won. It won the second match also, and in the meantime was developing into a leader in the Police Athletic League. The street corner boys began to realize that “the kids can really play ball," and at each following league match a large contingent of the gangsters was present to watch the game and inci- | dentally to cheer the boys' team on to victory. The battle was won. Two by two the lads voluntarily resigned their garg affiliations and came into the boys club. Only one remained—Stumpy, the leader who had been planning and exe- cuting robberles since he was 10 years old. Finally, Stumpy came in too—but only after he had been lodged in Ray- mond Strect Jail for a night on the His was a case. The punishment was |reau from this neighborhood in sev- | eral months. There are fewer chain store burglaries, and, most important, there is an extra large crowd of rowdy. well-ndjusted happy youngsters at the | boys’ club who are “going somew here”— |and they are not going to Sing Sing, | either. | Although it is daily converting em- | bryo gangsters into worth-while citi- zens, the bureau's activities are not con- fined to growing good gangs. There is | the work with the delinquent girls as | well. Take the case of Ella, whose name |1s fictitious, but whose condition was | almost nauseatingly real to the crime | prevention policewoman who took her |from a shack on one of the baches | mear the city where she had been the | constant companion of a gang of boys engaged chiefly in holding up filling station attendants on the outskirts of | the Bronx. Ella was a complete wreck, |in the full sense of the word when ap- |plied to human dereliction. She was | only 17, but she hadn't been home all Summer. |, There had been some difficulty with |the family. She was foreign born and had been in high school for two years. | She was trained in American ways; her rules of life differed from those of her parents, and since they themselves | didn’'t understand very well how to get alonz in a foreign country, the break between the girl and the only secure thing in her life, the family, widened. Presently she was staying out all night | and with the Spring she had taken up | her abode on the beach. There were no glittering jewels and fine silks for this gunman’s “moll.” There was a deserted shack on the beach and a dirty rm of the sea nearby, where she could wash her one and only dress. She was taken to headqyarters. She was asked about her parents, An ef- fort was made to reconcile them, but it availed nothing. She had left home and she could stay away. A physical examination showed a pronounced glandular disturbance and, therefore, emotional instability. An intelligence |test showed average mentality. Still the policewoman worked. She obtained a job for Ella in a laundry. She looked up Ella’s sister, who was married and | had a good home, and finally persuaded her to take the waif. Ella is there now. She still goes to the clinic for treat- ment, and her condition is greatly im- |proved. She writes the bureau that | she wants to go to night school and study to be a dental hygienist. This is only a dream, but it's better than dreaming of being a gunman'’s “moll.” Thousands of such cases are on record. A Brighter Spectacle. Turn for a moment to a brighter | spectacle. Last Fall 60,000 youngsters were gathered from one end of the city to the other, in busses chartered by the police, at the Yankee Stadium to wit- ness a ball game between the winning team of the PAL and the team from | St. Mary's Industrial School at Balti- {more. I have forgotten who won, but | that isn’t important. “Babe” Ruth was | there. and so were the “cops and kids,” | rallying_round as good pals should. | “Babe” Ruth played an inning with the Baltimore team and the youngsters squirmed and figeted on their seats as each ball was pitched to the mighty batsman. Little Johnny Spivack, from up in Throg's Neck, grasped the hand of a policeman standing near and said: “Do_you think he'll sock one, pal? Do ya, huh?” This “pal” idea really works, and while it is the primary purpose of the Police Athletic League we must. not | minimize the benefits the youngsters | get from playing in the open air and engaging in healthful competition with their associates, for activity of this na- ture makes them less liable to fall under the influence of neighborhood | gang leaders. Last Summer 4,483 boys played base ball in the PAL. There were 221 teams, made up of “regulars,” and 626 matches. All the team mem- | bers were lads whose only playgrounds were the crowded city streets. At- tendance at the games was estimated at 390,000—some parents, but mostly street associates of the players. In the Fall there were 104 PAL foot ball games and during the Winter in- | numerable basket ball matches. A po- |lice lieutenant has been goirg from 'precinct to precinct giving boxing les- sons. He is a former amateur cham- plon. This Summer the league is get- | ting the permission of swimming pool | managers to let the boys in free during ¢ two hours of the day. | | i S have been in the past few days, | or are at present. in Washington | discussing economic and com- | mercial _matters with officials of the United States Government. Following _invitations by President Roosevelt, which they were more than glad to accept, some of the larger southern nations have sent specially appointed delegates to the White House conversations preliminary to the World Economic C:nference in London. Others have asked their permanent diplomatic representatives in Washington to take on_this additional work. The Argentine mission, headed by Dr. Tomas Le Breton, foremost Argentine statesman and economist, and Argentine Ambassador Espil; the Mexican missicn, presided over by Dr. Alberto J. Pani, Mexican minister of finance: ths Bra- zilian Celegation, the ones from Chile, Peru, Cuba, Ecuacor, etc. have ap. peared in succession at the welcoming gates of the White House. Two Results Expected. which had invited them to Washington was a traditional advocate of that high- tariff system—the one responsible for it—and they knew the rules of hos- pitality. The picture has certainly changed, | when tcday the Secretary of State him- self is quoted as indicating “the willing- | ness of the United States to re-examine any commercial policies or methods of its own which foreign countries might consider unfairly restrictive of trade.” | Secretary Hull is further represented | as saying that he stands ready to revise “all sections of American tariff laws | that might be considered unduly preju- | dicial.” This announcement, coming on the | eve of the World Economic Conference and in the midst of the White House conversations with foreign representa- tives, is highly significant. Coming from Mr. Hull, a life-long advocate of low tariffs and a “sane and realistic inter- national co-operation in economic re- | lationships,” it should surprise no one. ‘He is only repeating the views he has | held and defended for years in Con- Out of these unusual conversations— | gress, though this time he is repeating cne more link in the chain of precedent- | them in an official capacity. And that breaking moves characteristic of the | indicates the magnitude of the change. new administration—two positive resuits | B are expected: | Change Not Personal. First, the suggestion of reciprocal bi- | It is not in the personal views of any fateral tariff arrangeri-nts and other |one man that the change has taken commercial accords designed to alleviate | place. It is in the economic philosophy the plight of inter-American trade; and, | of the Government of the United States Second.—Agreement or co-ordination | where the change lies. The presence of of views on the principal topics to|a statesman of Mr. Hull's school of be discussed at the London World | thought in the ranking post of the cabi- Economic Conference next month, so|net is only one more evidence of that that the American republics may be spared the embarrassment of supporting at London conflicting opinions on subject; of common interest to the Western Hemisphere at large. ‘The spectacle of these foreign mis- sions coming to Washington in search of a better economic understanding gives test:mony to the fact that, with the change of governmental regimes, a real departure in the external policies of the United States and in its tradi- tional attitude toward the rest of the world has taken place since March 4— & departure almost as radical as that introduced with astounding swiftness in domestic administrative matters. A ‘“new era” is, evidently, here. The term has been so frequently used, rather so misused, before by diplomats and | change. | Secretary of Commerce Roper is equally outspoken in his condemnation of past high-tariff policies. He says: “In spite of our efforts to deceive our- selves during the recent years, it is fundamental that we cannot sell goods to other nations without permitting | them to sell goods to us. There is no | consistency in a policy under which our | Government concentrates its trade-pro- motive efforts cn the exports 6f Ameri- can goods while placing every possible obstacle in the way of the imports that are necessary if our foreign customers are to be able to pay for our goods and thereby meet their obligations to us.” In_the meantime the President of the United States is endeavoring to obtain from Congress authorizati to empty-handed good-will emissaries that | alter “existing tariff rates by !:c;(:cu- it has lost much of its lure. Yet, this | time it seems that the “new era” is at last going to be taken out of subtlely worded dipicmatic speeches and after- dinner toasts and actually translated into deeds. Situations Compared. At least, all indications support this hope. Compare this picture of foreign representatives discussing in Washin; ton the terms of a “new deal” in ecc- nomic relationships with that of only two years ago when members of ths International Chamber of Commerce gathered in Washington and spent most of their meeting in a hopeless denunciation of high tariffs and trade barriers in the midst of poorly con- | cealed disapproval from Government ) quarters and almost open hostility from the larger section of the press. Or compare it with that other pic- ture, a few weeks later, when the former Argentine Ambassador, Senor Malbran, practically exchanged his post in Wash- ington for a frank, forceful criticism of highly protective—prohibitory, he called them—tariffs of this country, speaking before the New York convention of the National Foreign Trade Council. Pre- viously, official protests from many for- eigh governments, varicus Latin Amer- ican ones among them, had been re- ceived at the State Department for the | enactment of the Hawley-Smoot uflfll act, and had been filed. Or compare it with the picture of the Fourth Pan-American Commercial Con- ference, also held in Washington in | October of that year, denouncing high tariffs in low tones, out of respect for the hospitality of the Government which was its host and whose protective policies were well known. And finally substituting an ambiguous, mild recom- | mendation, suggesting indefinite tariff concessions in the future, for a prac- tical, specific two-year tariff truce pro- posed by some unsuspecting or “un- | coached” young delegate. Latins Were Resentful. The resentment created throughout | Latin America by the high rates of the | Hawley-Smoot tariff was already wide- spread. Their effects were already in | tive proclamation,” power to negotiate multilateral commercplgl mfls«l‘; the World Conference, and authority to make bilateral trade agreements on the basis of reciprocity. Also due to his efforts. a preliminary tariff truce until the meeting of the London Conference has already been agreed upon by the largest nations. Explicit in Address. As for the specific field of inter- President Roosevelt could not have been more explicit in his Pan-American day address when he declared it to be of vital importagce that the governments of the Western Hemisphere “take, without further de- lay, such action as may be possible to abolish all unnecessary and arti- ficial barriers and restrictions which now hamper the heaithy flow of trade between the peoples of the American republics.” It is true that it has taken a great deal to bring about this change—a con- tinent-wide denunciation of high tariffs, the formal protests of many govern- ments, the popular resentment created in some countries, a phenomenal de- - cline in inter-American trade to the figures of nearly 25 years ago and last, but not least, the repudiation of the economic policies of administra- tions by the electorate of the United States in an overwhelming and un- precedented manner. P But the change is here. The “new era” is with us. The “new deal” of President Roosevelt is being extended beyond the borders of the United States in a most eloquent way. Stu- dents of inter-American relations will recall that it was precisely upon the basis of economic understanding and commercial reciprocity, which the Roosevelt administration is now seek- ing, that the present pan-American movement was launched nearly half a cezl:rturg ago. the “new deal” is going to b back into play those almost Iorzo?t:g ideals, it will have done more for the success of pan-Americanism than all the meek efforts for political rap- prochement attempted in the past and more than all the meaningless “recom- American trade, be taken from them by Cm’"““‘mm'v{{'&c;r&rg::zrfidw' aealsfl!;;r{x};cl}zfic},memu of these agencies gang and sets them to playing basket | special It &5 heartening io know that the evidence. Economists on both sides of | mendations” of cne pan-American con- the feudal barons of Red Russia; not only may they b2 ordered to sow wheat instead of barley or barley instead of wheat, etc—now they lose even the Tight of freely choosing their plece of residence, the last earmark of freedom. Ever growing nomadism of the pop- ulation on the one hand, brutal at- | tempts to enslave that population and nail it to places and professions, on the other—such are the two factors struggling in the Soviet Union. What does this struggle mean? Famine Ignored Officially. The major fact lying behind it is the famine. America_and Europe have long ig- | hour. Thus their working day began at | grdinated. nored the fact that 1931-1932 and 1932- 1933 were famine years in the Soviet | Workers were supposed to sow the oats. |y, Union. This is only natural. Not a word has been officially spoken in Mos- fotten to sign the order for the deliv-{caces involved offenses ranging in seri- cow about the faminc Since 1929 or 1930 the Russian peas- | thal part of the work remained Un- |ropbery and hold up. An outline of the ants, exasperated by the violent col- lectivization of their farms and by the pitiless levying of grain needed for the financing of the industrialization have been killing and selling their cattle, reducing the area under cultivation and otherwise “sabotaging” the Soviets. In 1931 the results of this began to make themselves felt. Russia’s crops that year were a failurc—they sank about 15 per cent below the averag: of pre- ceding years. The ferile Ukraine where the grain collecto: dis played an especial was especially badly hit the cause of the zbove: ntioned migra- tion of Ukrainian peasants to the east. Compelled by the food shortage to eat & good part of their seed grain in 1931, the peasants had to restrict their sow- ings still further the following Spring, and the crops of 1932 were still more inadequr ‘e, sirking probabl: per cent below the average. This mcant disaster. And it was egain the as well as the Caucasus and the Volga regions, that suffered the mo: Sgecial reports received from the Northern Caucasus by Posliednia No- vosti, & Russlan daily in Paris, #cribe the situation in that country as Tollows: In some regions of the Northern Cau- casus ther2 has been virtually no grain since the Summer of 1932. Peasants drank “tea” mede of dried grass, ate ats and mice and used dried fruit as sugar. Thin, emaciated children, like little animals, grazed in the fields over- £rown with weeds trying to dig up stray potatoes or ears of corn. Many chil- dren last Fall had the typical appear- ance of famine sufferers. Last Fall, too, rioting began in the Caucasus. There | fighting preventively, or repressively, | | Communist or joins the army of migrat- against crime. | |ing peasants. | "I one of its recent issues Pravda de- ribed the opening day of this year's | sowing cempaign in a villagz in Ukraine. All were ordered to gather in the Ito judge accurately the eizectiveness of | | carefully planned and efficiently exe- {cuted crime prevention measures. But | | perusal of the recently issued annual | | report of the Crime Prevention Bureau | Not until now has it been possible | i, kraine, | de- | village square at 7 am., so that they | could march together to the fields, but the square was still empty at 7:30 and | 8 o'clock, and later it was learncd that ! | the supervisor had forgotten to awaken |the men. At £:30 peasants bega | gather, and finally, at 9, they sta | cut. It took them an hour to reach | the fields and then they rested for an ! n_to | fed | 11 o'clock. In addition to plowing, the | | But the president of the farm had fo) lery of the sced to the peasants and | dene. S5 rural socialism works. May fatz | be kind to the Rus: pezsant. No Organized Crime | In Hawaii, Report Says | e | HONOLULU, Haw — Honolulu's | freedom from crganized crime and vice | | is emphasized in a voluminous report | just issued by the police chief, W. A.| Gabrielson. ~ Chief Gabrielson, whose training was received under August | Vollmer of Chicago and Berkeley, was brought to Honolulu in 1932 at a time when the Massie-Kahahawai case had stirred criticism cn th: mainland. Al- legations were made at that time that crime was ramoant in the city of Hon- oluiu and cn the Island of Hawaii. Gabriclson, made chief after a 'se- ries of episodes, has always held that the crime situation in Honolulu was much exaggerated. The report shows by comparative statistics that in se cral major crimes Hawaii has an esp cielly favorable record as with mainland cities, and crimes has as good a record. | | He par- ticularly comments on the absence of | organized gangs of criminals and the absence of racketeering. | (Copyright. 1 33.) | | Chinese Newspaper [ Field Is Expanding | SHANGHAI—Although the new: |and girls' clubs. big brothers, big sis- were “women's riots,” in which women | Paper reading public constantly is ex- dragged the chief of their collective | Panding and papers are increasing in farm into the street and beat him to| number more rapidly than in other death, demanding that he give them | countries, China still publishes only the wheat and corn taken for the gov-| about 2,000,000 copfes of papers daily, o the 8 | according to Carl Crow, American ex- ernment grain collector, Also, peasants » pert of market analysis, who has just attacked and sacked government cara- ‘vans transporting gr'f.m' t'}:mth:: :nl- issued a report of his findings for the Toads. (The Soviet press, by the way,|year 1932 in the Chinese publication constantly fulminates against Com- | field munists who send off such caravans| Mr. Crow discovers that the mor: in- without adequate escort., | teresting growth of the year is in the of the New York Police Department | will convince even the most skeptical | that crime prevention really works, The bureau has been in operation for three years. The first two of these, while they were not lacking in concrete re- sults, were essentially formative years when the parts of the machine in the | making were not yet perfectly co- The bureau during 1932 handled ap- oximately 13,139 cases, an increase of 4,000 over the previous year. These ousness from malicious mischief to methods used shows that the bureau’s effort is one of common sense; to know and mect _the needs of each individual, tn make for his better develooment by charging as far as possible the condi- tions responsible for his delinquency. to deve'op and maintain contacts with children which will make for confidence | in_the police and respect for the law. The Crime Preveniion Bureaus have been esteblished as th: result of a grewing realization by police authori- | ties that they cannot be content with just shooting down gansgsters. Crimi- nals and their gangs do not spring up | overnight, nor can they be eradicated | by an application of hot lead. The Po- | Jice department that will perform its| job best, they have come to realize, is | the one that will find and dig cut the | cecn roots of juvenile delinquency, the | Lotbed from which our criminals spring, | pozrently, overnight. | They have planned to suprlemem.-‘ not to displace, those agencies now | fighting_juvenile delinquency—the boys ters, etc.—and to co-ordinate their ef- forts. These were th> conclusions of the New York Police Department’s Advisory Cemmittee on Crime Prevention, which, in its report in 1929, urged the crea- tion of a crime prevention bureau, under the direction of the Police Department. ‘This bureau is especially effective in its fight against crime, and an ouline of its methods will show how workers in a dozen cities throughout the coun- try, armed with experience and bol- stered up by the knowledge of results already accomplished, are slowly mak- ing headway ageinst the plague which threatens the very pase of our society. The Crime Prevention Bureau in New York owes its effectiveness in no small cegree to the fact that it is fired with enthusiasm and dirscted by the experi- ence and ability of Miss Henrietta S. Additon, an internationally known so- ciai worker and sociologist, formerly a lecturer at Bryn Mawr College. She has heen working on the problem of juve- nile delinquency since she was a girl in_college. ‘The bureau is no ordinary social wel- All of this culminated last | pictorial periodical field. More than in the banishment of 45,000 c’&’i‘;fi gal( the ?:frcullum of newspapers in from the Caucasus to Siberian lumber, China is-held by journals published in 8] camps. hanghal, Peiping and Canton, 3t was lest Summer that the migra- (Copyright, 1033.) . fare agency. It is that and more. As rt of a crime-fighting organization, it "as access to mle: records and experi- ence of men who are curbing crime. Besides, it the full ball and taking part in character build- ing activities is nothing short of amaz- Officer Cottrell—as we shall call him —was assigned to what is ordinarily known as the toughest spot along the | Brooklyn water front only a year and a Juvenile delinquency cases from this section had been averaging half ago. BY BRUCE father say to my mo V'V cation: he had marri the father of four children. self-denial he and mother enemy. They could lock the given for one reason only: The crime prevention officer wanted to get him |into a serious frame of mind so that he could be persuaded to follow the rest of his gang. Stumpy has a job now, the first honest job he has ever had, I saw him one night not long ago—played a game of checkers with him, in fact. Stumpy told how he BARTON. HEN I was 8 years old I can remember hearing my ther: “At last we are out of debt.” He had borrowed money to pay for his edu- ed early and was at that time By extraordinary effort and had finally conquered their whole world in the eye; they could breathe freely; they could hope. In the golden yera between 1919 and 1929, a different philosophy developed. 3 “T will protect my family with that, I propose to spend my get all the fun cut of life I can.” This seemed® a_fresh and came lyrical about it. We prove The average man said_to himself: life insurance. Having done income and use my credit to courageous attitude. We be- d to ourselves that installment selling” and market profits based on the use of O. P. M. (other people’s money) were the twin reservoirs from which the golden stream of prosperity would always flow. One important man said recently: to smash I had loans against in proportion to the collateral. e €O I ran to cover just in time. the loans did not. I have invented this slogan for myself: owe something you don’t own Since then we have had several years in which to think. “When the market went securities. They were small But the collateral shrank; Since then ‘As long as you anything’ I say it over and over again. I hope it will sink so deep into my m“l’ld that I shan't forget it when the good times come again. Disraeli, as a young man. . went deeply into debt. He had to sneak into public functions by the back door in order to avoid the sheriff. In later years he wrote: “If youth but knew the fatal misery they are eniailing on themselves the moment they accept a pecuniary credit to which they are not entitl their career! How pale they would turn! ed, how they would start in How they would tremble and clasp their hands in agony at the precipice on which they are disporting! Debt * * * hath a small be- ginning, but a giant’s growth and strength. When we make the monster we make our mast and shakes his whip of scorpio! tus, when he signed the bond doom more terriffic.” Balzac was driven almost undertaken in the desperate effort to meet his debts. Cicero, William IV, Daniel Webster, few of the hundreds of great names on the list of the debt- ridden. When the new deal gets to operating, and we all have money again, what will be ou fashioned idea of our fathers? lamented new era? (Copyrish er, who haunts us at all hours ns forever in our sight. Faus- with blood, did not secure a to death by the extra work ugene Field—these are only a r idea about debt? The old- Or the new idea of the late t, 1933.) arena in which the forces of prevention are fiehting against crime is larger than New York City. As mentioned, 12 citics have crime prevention bureaus—most of | them probably not so elaborate as that in New York, but quite effective. In a <core of others delinquency surveys are | being made, looking to the creation of |such agencies. More and more are | criminologists telling those interested in public welfare that shooting gangsters is not enough. The root of the problem ‘lle; deeper. ‘ 0 one realizes this more than Miss | Additon, who might be speaking for | the group of enlightened municipal offi- | cials when she realistically says: | _“I do not assume that the Crime | Prevention Bureau can prevent all crime |in New York City, but neither can pre- | ventive health work prevent all disease. It has been demonstrated, however, that |an intellignt, aggressive campaign will reduce infant mortality and contagious | diseases. An equally energetic attack {on causes can, I am sure, show a simi- |lar decrease in juvenile delinquency and | ultimately a reduction in crime and in the loss of' life and the expense and suffering*which crime entails.” Crime prevention is vet in its swad- dling clothes, practically speaking. But it shows cigns of going the way of pre- ventive medicine and preventive fire | fighting and grewing up into the giant | that will deliver the knockout blow to | the crime monstor that yearly gobbles up so much of our wealth and so many | of our young. Chinese Boys and Girls To Be Trained on Farms SHANGHAL, China —Six Years' train- ing on a Chinese Christian farm for 50 | Chinese boys and a like number of| girls. is the program announced by Rev. Alfred A. Gilman, suffragan bishop of the Hankow district. Mr. Gilman then plans on sending his graduates out into | the province where they are to form the nucleus of provincial Christian life. The name of the farm is to be Chin ; | Shan. New Country-Life Experiment | Stauion and students are to ve seiected from among flood famine and bandit refugees. Model farm houses out of dirt bricks and a training in practical cleanliness and Christianity is the plan announced. An appeal for funds is be- ing made. (Copyright, 193 — 35 S Eleanora Duse’s Life Written by Physician | | ) ROME, Italy—A life of the actress, Eleanora Duse, has just been published by a Venice house. “It is difficult to explain Duse to those unversed in the study of the hu- man mind,” Dr. Rava writes, adding that the great actress suffered from dysthimia, a kind of melancholia. Many letters written by Duse to the author included in book. are 3 (Copyviht, 1933 oo the Rio Grande were decrying the ex isting conditions and predicting a catas “rerence after another. (Copyright. 1933.) Will the Railroads Survive? | more companies serving the same ter- | mini and many of the same interme- | largely disappears. So we come to the | diate cities, and closely paralleling each logical answer to this phase of the sit- i other all the way, where all the traffic uation — the disappearance of short- | could be carried on one set of tracks. hzul freight and passengers forces the | There are many useless and unprofit- abandonment of certain lines and func- | able short branch lines that should be tions and the transfer of these func- | abandoned at an early date. s tions to trucks and automobiles. rm;l'h; . ‘!runsaontlne?m llxnes, linking | n sources of su - Must Have Services. | facturers and onsumers” or w&hmr‘;, In the carrying of bulk liquid freight | chculd be properly maintained or aug- there is no question as to the ability of mented. Railroads with long tangents pipe lines to move this freight more | and low gradients should be favored in economically and at less maintenance | the determination of the raflroads to be (Continued From First Page.) | | cost than railroads. So this phase of disappear, especially where pipe lines now exist. Airplanes, as-a means of transpor- tation of fast passenger traffic for long distances, are well established. As a part of our cefense system in times of military crisis, they are most necessary and should be protected. Traffic controlled or properly due to water transportation must be consid- ered, and where necessary retained. We must consider the idea of linking the pipe lines, railroads, trucks, water carriers and airplanes into a general distribution system. Trucks, automo- biles and busses would be used as dis- tributing agents from transportation centers established 25 miles or more apart. Thig system of rail, pipe line and bus | transportation could be co-ordinated | into our express and postal system in a house-to-house and farm-to-farm de- livery. The present major sources of | traffic and consumption would deter- mine the railroads not 2bandon-d. This scheme would save the mainte- nance and operation of unnecessary lines, edminating wasteful competition, not only between the railroads, busses, trucks and airplanes, but also between the raiiroads themselves. As a part of the above scheme, dupli- cation of railroad terminals and par- allel tracks should be considered and avolded. As examples of this, the Chi- cago terminal zone has several in- stances which are examples of the| ‘wastefulness in the railroad transporta- | tion system. Most cf the large cities in the United States are lurid with ex- amples of the existence and mainte- nance of unnecessary tracks—perfectly proper, perhaps, when constructed, as each system was operated absolutely in- dependent and when there was no other opposition in the transportation field, but now glaring examples of waste in an era of consolidation. ‘Too Much Duplication. ‘This thought as to unnecessary ex- istence of tracks is not alone in ter- the situation as to railroads tends to | | ugInTXlned4 The correction of the evils of surplus mileage being cvercome, comm{l':ive freight and passenger solicitation, ex- | cess cars, engines and terminal facili- ties, such as yard layouts, repair shops, €tc.. would disappear as a natural se- | quence. "Surplus mileage is the major | cause of the trouble with our transpor- | tation system—the fact that the rail- | roads have been supplanted as a means of transportation in certain phases of the transportation field should be faced and given consideration. At the present time there is no recognition of this feature, at least to the extent of ma- terially reducing the mileage of rail- roads or of the services rendered to the basis of the needs for it. The fact that the railroads of the country are, to a certain extent, under ‘?ec\t'emn:en; coll;trgle. and that the in- stment choul rotec sho not be lost sight of, S Sl A raising of rates to try to pay for a transportation system which is burdened by excess investment must be of neces- sity economical suicide. The foregoing scheme would cause - the abandonment of perhaps 30 per | cent of the total mileage f all railroad tracks now in existence fn the United States with a corresponding saving in operating expenses and with no de- crease in efficiency of delivery or oper- lfil‘ltgl revenues. It might be arranged so that this would allow the value of- the abandonment or su:phnud Tail- roads to be amortized and paid for over a K;rlod of years and all interest re- quirements met. Comrfixdm( to the payment of the amo tion of the railroad would be a continuous reduc- tion in freight rates. With the installation of this plan minor questions of economy, such as the standardization of railroad mate- rials, the co-ordination of operating of- ficials who designate the weight and tractive power of locomotives and the operating officials who designate the size and design of the rail and the de- sign of the roadbed would be automati- cally taken care of. The savings that can be made specifically as to standardi- zation, maintenance of equipment and minal areas, but may be extended to the duplication of tracks between cities. | are many instances throughout the country where the tracks of two or Taaintenance cf way, are merely inci- dental when tonsidered in connection with the m,or:monhl- of our railroad