The evening world. Newspaper, January 7, 1921, Page 34

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OR THE SUBWAY SUN TO ILLUMINE. 'N a 7-ent fare, the number of passengers car- ; ried by the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Com- EP basiy tast month was 3,500,000 less than in Decem- “ber, 1919. In May, 1920, when Philadelphia Rapid Tran- “sit. was still on a S-cent basis, Thomas E. Mitten, Président of the company, said: ““Seventy-six per cent. of the passengers carried pay the.S-cent fare. “These 6-cent passengers must not be dis- turbed in such a way as will serve to lessen the number of short rides, which are now the only profitable business remaining and in the securing of which so much work on the part ot both management and men has been expended. “P. R. T. has been built up to its present _ , @fficiency by increasing the short-riding habit, 4 -‘as evidenced by the fact that the population served use the cars so much more freely as to produce 187 more rides per capita per an- mum than in 1910. “This added riding alone represents 225,-. 000,000 revenue passengers per year, many of whom are short-distance riders, and would therefore be most easily influenced to return eaoe Wemsns BMY By Che Cxaetion ofa ieee © convenient fare. “A contiouation of the baste Gcent'fare ts the only sure way to first attract and then re- tain the profitable short-haul ride business.” Re pitts pecagey qe on the falling _ off of short-haul passengers made such a hole in revenues that a further fare increase was sought and - transit finances were forced into a worse plight than Lever. If short-haul tfaffic ts the most profitable, where, Hn the long run, is the gain from freezing it out by ‘ fares? i. Maybe the Subway Gun will cast some of fts Eamennis on thet question Sov the enlightenment of ‘AST May the index for wholesale commodity L prices stood at 117.8 per cent. above pre-war prices, according to Dun’s. . Saat ihe agit Gommcatiee caontin sane fn there “has been a steady, if gradual, decline, reaching a evel on Jamuary 1 of only 64.2 percent. shove the - 1943 average. ‘The December drop of 6.2 per cent, is, except for November, the most considerable decline of any i ee ‘ishment at the reduced prices and, quite regardless of Ernest Thompson Seton's tirade about the im- _ moral habit of wearing clothes, a good many people will feel inclined to replenish thelr depleted ward- Fobes, a Obey that impulse! _ You can do your bit to stabilize prices at these “jower levels and at the same time encourage con- finvous production if you will buy now. * ‘Discriminate. Buy economically. But buy. NO SPLURGING ON A DEFICIT. NSWERING Senator Borah's charges of con- . templated’ extravagance in connection with the inaugural ceremonies, Senator New says that he hapa of tfo intention to ask for any Cae build This is reassuring. Of course if ‘private citizens want to contribute ‘tuillion dollars to stage a Mardi Gras in gala com- emoration of ‘our return to normalcy, no investi- “gating committee of Congress will pry into the of their gratrtude. | Prot it would be a very different thing to ask a Bi ‘tax-burdened public to furnish the wherewithal, >. There can be no serious objection to the richest f) try in the world making merry when the next ent takes his oath of office. Nor should there be any outcry against a modest Congréssional appro- to cover Jegitimate expenses, hed to indulge in a saturnalia of lavish display at “p ihe National Treasury is wrest- 8 oh pe? $24,000,000,000 and a deficit of ‘ wicked waste, _ on his @ shoulders, would feel free, ufder such circumstances, , to squander a cool million for “the most dazzling celebration within the memory of this generation.” Splurging on a deficit woukl be bad business and bad psychology and altogether at variance with the temper of the times, SHUNTED. TT" resohution continuing and amplifying .the investigating powers of the Lockwood Com- mittee finds the track anything but clear. Why? For one reason, because its enlarged authority would empower the Committee “to in- quire into each and every matter and thing that in its judgment affects the past, present or-future con- ditions surrounding or in any way bearing on or re- lating to the construction, ownership, transfer, leas- ing and renting of stores, houses, lofts, apartments and other buildings in all or any of the cities of the State and particularly in the City of New York.” Also the resolution would authorize the Commit- tee “to investigate and report upon the organization, management, conduct, business affairs, operations and past and present investments of all life, fire, health, burglary, compensation and casualty insur- ance companies” doing business in this State, to- gether with savings and other State banks, and all trust companies and other similar corporations and associations, Obviously realty and financial interests find stren- vous arguments against an investigation that would have any ‘such scope. - On the other hand, Gov. Miller is doing all he can to give the Grand Jury extra aid from the State Attorney General in handling and acting upon the evidence already brought out by this same Lock- wood Committee, The investigating activities of the Committee have gathered too much momentum and produced too big results to be choked off. . The housing problem, is inextricably involved not only with building but with policies of investment and of buying, selling and leasing applied to more - Kinds of real estate than homes, Now is the time to scrutinize the whole fiek. If other parts of it are fair, free and open, so much the better. Where there are secret enclosures and appropriated areas there should be no barriers against competent, disinterested inquiry. The resolution giving longer life and larger scope to the Lockwood Committee has been shunted for the moment into the Senate Finance Committee. If necessary, public demand will see that it gets out again. TT THE COURSE OF PROHIBITION. @rom the St, Paul Pioneer Press.) T may be too early to say that Prohibition as against the old liquor license system is a failure, It would require an exhaustive investigation to secure even an opitiion competent to be classed above the Personal point of view. But with intelligence coming im from various States with regard to the illicit trade and the conditions produced by it, it must be granted by all independent opinion saat Prohibition {3 not a glowing success, Bven in ‘and- locked, sparsely settled North Da- kota a United States District Attorney accepts the estimate that $600,000 in liquor is smuggled over the boundary of that State from Canada every day. We are without estimates as to the volume conveyed into Minnésota, Michigan and the Eastern States, but it is in all likelihood such as by comparison to reduce to insignificance the North Dakota figures. We believe we are safe in ‘saying that in every considerable city in the United States liquor may be had for the asking —and ‘the price. In New York it is sold almost openly. Of course, the most unconscionable profiteering is going on. But do consumers gemplain of whiskey Profiteers? Strange to say, we have heard of no such case. If dealers in the plain necessities of life would gouge the: consumer as do the illicit liquor handlers their limp forms might be draping the tele- graph poles. But the :at of humanity who peddles rotgut from the hip at (cn dollars the smell is winked at as a friend to man, The public nogonly accepts him as its ally but ig inclined to make a hero out of him, To attempt to say why would make a long story. But it would be’ useless to deny that there has been find is a strong natural reaction on the part of a large section of the public to what is regarded as a minority usurpation of power at the National snd State capitals. Millions of people’ who feel a nat- ural repugnance at any common law crime do not feel that there is‘any crime In buying liquor or otherwise hoodwinking the Prohibition officers. The patron of the whiskey runner is the man who failed to lay in a lifelong supply before the Eighteenth Amendment went Into effect, He knows that many of the rich and the pillars of society have “their: resonts this favoritism of fortune and fails to re- ceive any moral support for his abstinence from “above.” And, then, the world hates a tsquealer.” Persons firmly opposed to an {licit liquor traffic will hesitate or refuse to report breaches of the Prohibi- tion Law. It is not fair, perhaps, to conclude that Prohibition cannot be enforced while these remediable conditions persist, Doubtless it will be continued in some form, present or modified. But before it can be recorded as @ success it must have publié opinion behind it, In this country the people themselves are the law, It might have been expected that they would not universally respect as law what was enacted un- lly, it legally, over their beads, woe Naturally he | CRIME AND THE COURTS By OTTO A. ROSALSKY, . Judge of the Court of General Sessions, By i Cassel j I have read with deep interest edt. torlals which have appeared in « number of newspapérs conerening . the proposed legislation to amend the by sections of the penal laws ef the State of New York so as to provide increased penalties for crimes of viow lence, It seems to me that there ip . considerable misunderstan@ing in the minds of some of our editorial writers with respect to the circumstances um der which the Judges of the criminal courts try and otherWise dispose of the indictments, The newspapers state that defend- ants are encouraged, in many cases, to plead to misdemeanors where the original crimes are felonies. The fact of the matter is that in many in- stances the Judges are required to take reduced pleas because of the amount involved in the crime. For example, if a person is charged with stealing $100 worth of property and the proof as to value falls short of the amount which makes the crime a felony, the court is obliged to take a reduced plea. Ut often happens that the original charge is robbery in the first degree, bur the proof shows that the defendant could only be convicted ot crime of assault in the second degree, Every case must stand upon its own merits, Frequently it happens where a defendant is charged with the crime of burglary in the first de- gree that the proof shows that the crime was only unlawfully entering buliding. Frequently when an ac- cused person is charged with the crime of robbery in the first degree, the proof shows that the crime te only assault in the second degree. ‘Therefore, the Judges, in the inter- ests of justice, and for the purpose ‘lof safeguarding and protecting the rights of the defendant, take reduced Pleas. It would shock one’s sense of jus tice to ask a jury to convict a de- fendant of a higher degree of crime than the facts warranted. Of course there are instances where the court feels. On accountof the youth of the defendant and the char- acter of the crume committed by him, that he should not bé denounced as a felon and, therefore, it takes pleas of misdemeanor where sufficient pun- ishment may be imposed. One of the newspapers,made refer- ence to the fact that “Néw York pas capital punishment for murder and that two bundred murders are o:m~- mitted a year. What counts is not so much the severity of rey punish- ment as the certainty of the ment.” ‘This writer overlooks the fact that im order to convict of murder in the first degree tite proof must be so clear and convincing before a jury would be justified in rendering a verdict of guilty that it is extremely diticult to secure a convietiva of murder im the first degree, The rec- ords of every court in this State show that there are but few cuuavic> tions for murder in the first degree. It is only in a case where the cire umstances are of a @hocking and re- volting character that a jury can be persuaded to convict a defendant of Ree ee ee oe “Dining the past fifteen years only 18 were convicted before me crime of murder in the first Geares. The records of the District Attor- ney show that this year only one per- son was convicted of murder in the first degree, althoug’ fifty-one homi- cide cases were presented for trial. ‘The one conviction that was had was From Evening World Readers What kind of a letter do you find most readable? Isn't tt the one that gives you the worth of a thousand words in o couple of hundred? There is fine mental ewercise and a lot of sutisfaction im trying te say much in a few words, Take time to be brief. YNCOMMON SENSE By John Blake (Copyright, 1921, ty John Blake.) A YEAR OF OPPORTUNITY, If you didn’t get as far as you hoped to in the year that has just passed don’t fret over it. Another year is ahead of you—a year of opportunity. i | | Churches and Lodges Preach Disarmament, ‘To the Faitor of The Evening World: for parted families why not d toward American families, forever from loved ones who died ia ‘ect 4 Your editorials favoring diserma- fe yond War protecting her and Don’t wait. This is the first working day of the New Year. that ee sci, Van Reed, who in e proad entered lace ment had a partictlarly appealing" “What strange bedfellows these de-|} Begin now, business of @ merchant on #0 Street influence upon me. May the time be not far distant when such a thing shall come to pass, and its coming would be greatly accelerated if the people of this earth who hate war, and who believe the continued arming of the work be- nunciation meetings in favor of the Spend at least a part of to-day planning for the twelve months that are to come. You can no more build a career without a plan than you can build a house without one. If you do not decide in advance what you want to do, ypu will in all probability do nothing worth doing. Don't be afraid to make resolutions, You may break some of them, but the effort to keep even those you break will strengthen your will. And some of them yoy will be able to keep. Go back over the year and see just where you wasted your time; just where you scattered effort that should have been concentrated. Avoid those mistakes to-day and to-morrow and the next week, and you will soon be able to avoid them alto- * gether. Plan to lay by something every day. Plan to puta little * more effort into each daily task than you did last year. and while engaged in the crime of robbery killed the owner of the es- tablishment. This clearty indicates that the ~ criminal who bas murder in a heart fedia that the probability escape from a@ conviction for the | nagheat de- gree of crime is very favorable. In he words, because of the fact that there are few convictions for murder in the a degree in this vounty, human life is always im ieopardy. A conviction for murder tm the sec~ ond degree only means an actual pun- fifteen years. Most of tho ide are usually com~ mitted by the defendants in the heat of | Passion, and it is for that reason that victions: uprooting of Americanisi and his ilk bring forth, agine Emma Blatch as boon companions favorably discussing the nationalization of wom-| en? Or Trotsky weeping in the arm# a Set Gentle gta eta gets war, would take as determined 0! Cork? Or an ne | stand in this matter as you have, |®8reeing on religious issues—issues The great institutions that preach that always inject themselves in all vt international affairs? “brotherhood” should be the leaders IMErmationel Affaire? a attey to- H in this movement, and from every | pulpjt and fraternal altar the edict | Ward these disturbers . within our should go forth that wars are a thing ates—these betrayers of a hospitality of the past, and that all things tend-,)Y2known to the scum of Europe— ing to discourage warlike activities,| Would be a step in the right direction would be advocated and urged. to sever the rotten limbs of the tree the movement to which your | of Americanism. editorials have given*such an im- DANIEL J. DONOVAN. Newark, N. J., Jan. 4, 1921. petus, go on gaining strength, so that this dream of the age may, indeed be i‘ LERED W proves Long Sentences, reall te 981. A RE 4 ON. To the Editor of The Evening World, Be dae Yonkers, N. ¥.!"Thotice that ‘the maudlin whining + 6 1081, about severe sentences handed out | recently to a few rufMfans has started. Plan to read more books, and think harder about the books that you read. Plan to make new acquaintances—the kind that will be uplifting and helpful. And, above all, get a purpose in life as an objective, and plan to get closer to it at the end of the year than you have ever been before. f You have ghead of you twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three hundred ar sixty-five days, In that time many men have climbed from obscurily into fame. Others who have given themselves up as hopeless failures have in a year's time got back on the right ros! snd made enough progress to in- sure them successful fuiiy It is not easy to do ony of these things, but it can be “done. Put to-day and (o-«morrow thinking how you can start toward’ success, and how worth while success is, and on will find at the end of (ho year that they are the most profitable days you have Deport Martens'’s Gympathixers. TV the Biitor of The Brening World: An editorial appeared in one of the It is unfortunate that the #o-called | city's afternoon papers recently crying “American” workers who attended the /,pout the horrors and uselessness of protest meeting at Madison Square jong prison sentences. I was waiting last Saturday against the deportation | |for such an editorial and dtdn’t have of thelr dear Ludwig C. A. K. Martens !to wait Jong. cannot accompany him.. It is too bad| The usual maudlin sympathy for that our laws are of a looseness that) jurgtars, rufflans and scoundrls of | Gone nab cities * Mreglly Le kinds starts just as goon as a few eported with the Lenine an Pe ple “ oy Read envoy. How many who attended that |°f them get a stiff sentence. Of cours: | meeting were How | most people know that those jong many were citlx ghost |sontences mean little, as after a of Karl Marx, In our imagination we | couple. of years or 80 some “kind can hear the author of “Das Kapital" | hearted" Governor gives them their chuckling to himself. Citize It is | fyecdom at the request of some poli- vician, to laugh. As for the half-baked, publicity-| Why the pardoning power remains seeking, un-American, misguided par- | conferred on the Governor is more lor Soviets—the least said of them |than I can understand, It is a relic } the better. Their little, narrow aims | sf Colonial times and should be abol- | their shallow ideals—but most of all a | ished. desire It costs thousands of doHars of pub- lig money to lapd a single one of these thugs in jail, and when finally landed | nveds and are, best able to settle warped and their intellectual they should be kept there at hard | difficuities, a to the columns labor for the benefit of the State. If, How long would Ireland be able to Wepapers and the Call, this were done there a be in my |rule Treeigit given home rule’ I give Senator France, ap avowed foe of [Syn vetmocr ates committed, them abdut ‘three months and then the Administration, had his little say J. R._ | they would be begging for England to rogurding the Russian blockade- | 59 jagt 43d Street, New vo, ‘Jan, 6, | take care of them aguin. not forgetthig the personal pronoun Buppose Kngiand or other —and nk P, Walsh grasped the ‘Tired of Irish, Tatk. country were to send a committee ‘To the Bilitor of The Brening World: opportunity to pass his customary here {> investigate how the United Having seen in your paper latety so | Staves was ruling Cuba or the opinion on England. Mra. Harrict itip= Stanton Blatch was grief stricken much about this Ireland talk I beg to |pine Islands, what do you suppose ask you how long has Ireland be-|h, over the fact that certain undesir- jthey would be told? To keep their ables of the Martens type were parted ands off and m'nd their own busi- longed to the United States? About|ness It is the same .with the Irish- all one reads in the papers lately is| men in this country. If they don't from their famibies when they were deported to that wonderful home of about MeSwiney or ‘Uke conditions in Ireland as they are the Third Internationale, Mrs, Blaten should dry Ter tears and cease her yawping. She must know that when crimina!s are sent to prison the law does not provide suites of rooms for themselves and families. She must assassin, Legis- lature to jin’ ag @ penalties in the measures pi aval apd not arbitrarily ‘or capriciously to use the power sought, but to exercise tt with a discriminating judgment and to mete out punishment in cases where de- | Sates are a real menace to society. In the majority of crimes, where | property or money ts obtained, the courts are as merciful as the cases warrant, The records of of General Sessions show | least one-third of the detemdanta - placed on probation and, under @ careful parole system, % per cent. the defendants are reclaimed . These young men and B } all y Americans? ? Ask th cr spent, the community, But the Ju that severe punishment will drive the criminal who uses force and violenae in obtaining property, if he ‘is upon leading the life of a criminad, to commit less serious crimes if he , realizes that detection and conviction and that is the place to settle all then 5 troubles, not here. They know he Words From the Wise Sensuality is the death of the soul.—Balzac, Their intelligence hi that brutal and severe punishment will not wipe out crime, fut it must » be admitted that severe will have a fendency to ‘rom committing atrocious orimes vhere the wrongdoer appreciates hat punishment will be certain, For example, records of our court show that very few burglaries in tne first degree are committed, becau: thg defendant realizes that a life re: tefite can be tmposed, whereas the criminal knows that if he commits munler the punishment imposed’ for such a crime may not be so severe aa is the present punishment for burglary in the firt degree, Judges can give only such an a@- ministration of the criminal law a the citizens desire. We depend upon jurors to do thetr duty, wt A ise the responsibility ts One of the noblest quatities in our nature is that we are eo eas ily able to dispense with greater perfection.—Vauvenargnes, Eminent posts make great men greater and little men less— La Bruyere, Happiness is a dream and sor- row is real.—Voltaire, MoSwiney showed his ignorance | now let them go back Where they be- by starving himself to death because long and try to remedy the trouble he was not man enough to face his to suit themselves, punishment like a man. He had I hope, Mr. Editor, you will publish fair trial and was sentenced. I don’t’ this as there are millions like me in further know that the execution] approve of all this aattecion in this this country that are tired of this record of Lenine and Trotsky is proof |country, Irishmen in this country Trish talk, all the Lie, he parting of many, many families who left Ireland and became ek CALLAHAN, fn that sweet Russia Of lvcration, It” pere vi aati wth Regi Mrs, Biatweh to dispensing vympaihy pe Siret rota 6 * a xa bi aie 2 ARS if ~4 ¥ The tree of silence bears the fruit of peace,—Arabian Proverb, Thrift is merely hard-headead commonsense applicd to spend- ing. —Rooseyelt, ia li ite tt ht anda Bi go eS

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