Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

POPULATION IN ALMHOUSES, 1903, THE NUMBER ADMITTED DURING 1904 AND NUMBER PER 100,000 OF POPULATION.

[blocks in formation]

exhibits an unfavorable pauper rate also when brought into contrast with States where such differences do not count.

For Kansas and North Dakota comparisons may be confined chiefly to States within the same geographical division. The number of paupers found in almshouses in Kansas on December, 1903, for each 100,000 of population was 52.5. This is considerably in excess of such numbers for the neighboring State of Nebraska 43.5 (high license), South Dakota 37.8 and Minnesota 28.6. The relative number of admissions affords figures even less favorable to Kansas, as her proportion is not only larger than that in the States just mentioned, but also larger than in Missouri and practically equal to that in Iowa.

More striking in some respects are the figures for North Dakota, a new State without a single city of importance, and having a youthful population engaged largely in agriculture. Yet it had in 1903 a relatively larger pauper population than found in Nebraska and in the two neighboring license States Minnesota and South Dakota. What is more significant, the relative number of admissions to almshouses in 1904 was also larger than that in Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri, and not much behind Wisconsin. Further comparisons would be superfluous.

Once more it must be emphasized that the ratios adduced cannot be accepted as accurate measurement of the comparative extent of pauperism. Their meaning as bearing upon the general problem of poverty does not enter into the discussion. They do, however, refute completely the notion that pauperism is visibly less in prohibition States than in States under license. Therefore, persons holding to the belief that practically all pauperism is due to intemperance find themselves in this dilemna so far as Maine, Kansas and North Dakota are concerned: Either they must abandon their claims about the amount of poverty caused by drink, or they must admit that the prohibitive legislation fails utterly in one of its most cherished aspects.

A wider application might be made of the same line of argument. Year by year the legalized trade in intoxicants has been excluded from over an increasing territory. Meanwhile, other and more potent agencies for moderation in the use of intoxicants have been at work. But the effect is nowhere shown in constantly diminishing rates of pauperism. Nor is it apparent anywhere that private effort to counteract and relieve poverty can afford

to be relaxed.

To attribute this state of things solely to lack of enforcement of law would be as unreasonable as to contend that intemperance is not prominent among the causes of want. The truth is that a condition of poverty may exist and the poor may multiply in consequence of economic and other influences quite independent of personal habits in respect to the use of intoxicants.

III.

CRIME AND DRINK.

Those who cheerfully assume that the definite relations of the drink habit to criminality have been established argue ignorantly or are engaged in wilful misrepresentation for purposes of propaganda. That certain offenses are direct products of intoxication is patent to any observer; likewise that other offenses can be more or less immediately ascribed to a mental and physical condition weakened by alcohol. But it is a far cry from such observations to trustworthy general facts purporting to show the extent to which the drink habit "causes" crime.

Writers on this subject usually arrive at their conclusions in one of three ways: (1) By guess-work, often dictated by what they wish to "prove"; (2) by arguing from so-called criminal statistics; (3) by special statistical inquiry. The mere guesses or assertions emanating from unduly stimulated imaginations may be ignored and attention directed to the teachings of the other methods of inquiry.

They are usually one of two kinds, namely: statistics of arrests for all offenses or statistics of prisoners, whether of the prison population on a given date or of commitments to prison. Self-evidently, statistics of these kinds do not purport to establish any definite connection between the liquor habit and crime; and can at most have usefulness as a possible illustration of the growth or diminution of criminality in their relation to efforts to repress the liquor traffic. The meaning of statistics of arrests for drunkenness and the deductions to be drawn from them have already been set forth.

STATISTICS OF ARRESTS FOR ALL OFFENSES.

The number of persons arrested in a community is not proof positive of the prevailing volume of criminality, but only an indi

cation of the extent to which crime is repressed. In other words, the widely divergent proportions of arrests for all offenses as between different communities show that the standards of enforcement are for apart rather than the comparative extent of criminality. This statement receives abundant illustration in the next table following, which shows the number of arrests in 1905 in cities of over 30,000 for all offenses and the number per 10,000 inhabitants. The table is drawn from the United States Census report on Statistics of Cities, 1907.

The variation in ratios of arrests is so great as to render generalizations from comparisons of the extent of crime futile.

In cities having more than 300,000 inhabitants the proportion of arrests run from 217.4 in Milwaukee, to 1,087.5 in Washington, D. C. In cities having from 50,000 to 300,000 inhabitants, the ratio varies from 182.6 in Reading, Pa., to 2,195.2 in Dallas, Texas. Of the cities having from 30,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, the same ratio varies from 156.1 in Malden, Massachusetts (a no-license city in the immediate proximity of licensed Boston), to 2,146.0 in Birmingham, Alabama. The extraordinary proportion of arrests for all offenses in Southern cities hints abundantly at the fact that the crime question cannot be considered apart from racial and other social conditions. To assert that the enormous divergence in ratios of arrests for all offenses furnishes an index to the true volume of crime would, in some instances, be equivalent to declaring one city practically free from crime as compared with another, which is contrary to all known facts, and matters of every day observation.

But there is another side to this question which deserves some mention. If the proportion of arrests for all offenses to population can be used at all in any measurement of the relation between the liquor problem and the prevalence of crime, one should expect the no-license cities and municipalities in prohibition States to furnish very low ratios. But this is not the case, and the conclusion is therefore inevitably forced upon one that the liquor laws in such cities are so badly enforced, or not enforced at all, that the alleged repressive methods have no effect upon the volume of criminality. Take, for instance, the fact that of the 152 cities mentioned in the table, there are no less than 80 which show a lower ratio of arrests per 10,000 inhabitants than Portland, Maine. Among these 80 are high-license cities and low-license cities, and, exceptionally, a

no-license city. And where one of the latter is found, it is usually in such close proximity to a license city as to make comparisons absolutely deceptive. The cities of Somerville, Malden, and Newton, Mass., which are all immediate suburbs of Boston, may be cited in illustration. On the other hand, no-license Brockton, Mass., twenty miles from Boston, has a larger ratio of arrests than Portland, Maine. The cities of Wichita, Topeka and Kansas City, all in prohibition Kansas, make even a less favorable showing than Portland, Maine.

What available crime statistics mean in no-license and prohibition communities will be discussed on another page. Here it shall only be emphasized that statistics of arrests for all offenses afford a favorable and perhaps unmerited showing for some communities where the liquor traffic is under legal restraint, and a very sorry showing for communities from which it is supposed to be wholly banished. The statistics in question prove nothing conclusive in regard to the comparative volume of crime and fail to indicate the relation between crime and the liquor habit. So far as such relation exists they show, however, that it is quite as marked in no-license or prohibition cities as in many cities under various forms of license.

NUMBER OF ARRESTS IN CITIES DURING 1905 FOR ALL OFFENSES AND NUMBER PER 10,000 oF POPULATION.

[blocks in formation]
« ForrigeFortsett »