criminals, the origin of their criminal tendencies must be either some inherited physical or mental weakness, or the result of wrong training, or unfavorable environment.

THE PROBLEM OF CRIME

Through all the ages the question as to why men commit crimes has been studied and discussed, without reaching any positive conclusion. The theological explanation was that crime is the work of the devil; that man, originally virtuous, was tempted and fell; and that sin and crime are the result of the fall of Adam. Without entering into the realm of theology, it is sufficient to point out that this explanation fails to show why, if in Adam all men sinned, all men are not criminals. It is true that all men are sinners, in that they do not always live up to the moral law, but the fact that the great majority of mankind do not commit crimes, proves that natural depravity is not the cause of crime.

In recent years, the consensus of opinion among criminologists is that the chief causes of crime are: defective mentality; inherited weakness of will; malnutrition (insufficient or improper feeding in childhood); lack of proper moral training in youth; unwise selection by parents of unsuitable trades or vocations; and very largely, to poverty. To what extent these various causes influence character, particularly in the formative period, is difficult to determine, but it is the opinion of many students of the problem that poverty, and the evils arising out of it, such as over-work, too long hours, child labor, crowded tenements and other unsanitary housing conditions, are largely responsible.

In the poem "The Northern Farmer," Tennyson says:

""Tisn't them as has money as

Breaks into houses and steals,

'Tisn't them as has coats to their backs

And takes their regular meals."

This homely philosophy is another way of stating the conclusion of Solomon: "The destruction of the poor is their poverty." The fact that the great majority of all the criminals come from

the poorer classes, and in most cases from the very poor, indicates that this cause is the chief factor in creating criminals.

SERIOUS CRIMES HAVE NO RELATION TO USE OF ALCOHOL

The claim that liquor drinking is the cause of seventy or ninety per cent of crime is clearly disproved by a brief examination of the more serious offenses against the laws: There are no complete statistics on this subject for the whole country, but those of New York State, with 10,000,000 population, may be regarded as fairly representative. The report of the State Commissioner of Prisons for 1914, pages 494-496, gives the following record of admissions. to all the state prisons for that year:

Total number of prisoners admitted, 3,368.
Males, 3,327; females, 41.

Convicted of abandonment

abduction

24

32

These offenses constitute nearly seventy per cent of the total number. It will not be seriously pretended that any considerable proportion of them are due to the use of liquor or committed while under the influence of liquor. Men do not engage in burglary while drunk. It is impossible to conceive of men planning to commit forgery or grand larceny while intoxicated. Drink has no relation to the carrying of concealed weapons, nor is it reponsible for receivers of stolen property. If robbers get drunk before starting out in search of a victim the fact is unknown to the police. Pickpockets do not work under the inspiration of liquor. It is highly doubtful that men are guilty of bigamy because of Dutch courage given by drink. So that of this large percentage of all serious crimes pun

ished with state prison sentences, there is nothing to show that drink was in any way their cause, but on the contrary, the nature of the offenses show that it had no connection with them.

Another important fact bearing on this question is found in the report of the Secretary of State for New York on "Statistics of Crime" for 1914, which gives detailed records of 9,088 convictions for criminal offenses in that year. Of this number the records show that 8,351 convicts were of temperate habits; 707 intemperate, and 30 "unknown." The percentage of intemperate was only 7.77; instead of the alleged 70-90 per cent.

PROHIBITION DOES NOT DIMINISH CRIME

As a remedy for the crimes alleged to be due to the use of liquor, the prohibitionists advocate the enactment of laws forbidding the sale, or manufacture for sale, of all kinds of alcoholic beverages. "Pass prohibitory laws," they say, "and crime, wickedness and evil will be greatly diminished, if not altogether abolished." In support of this claim, they give what purport to be statistics showing that prohibition has decreased crime in the states that have tried it.

Unfortunately for the prohibitionists, the reports from the various States-wet and dry-do not support their claims. Thus the United States Census Bureau reports that Maine, which has had prohibition for sixty years, has an average of 98.3 sentenced prisoners per 100,000 population. Wisconsin, a wet state, has only 71.8. Kansas, prohibition for forty years, has 91.1 prisoners per 100,000. Nebraska, a neighboring wet State, with almost the same soil, climate, and character of population, has only 55.1 North Dakota, dry for twenty-five years, has 63.6 prisoners per 100,000. The sister State of South Dakota, wet, has only 47.8. Georgia, prohibition for eight years, has 191.4 prisoners per 100,000. New York State, said to be the wettest in the Union, has only 137.3. These figures show conclusively that prohibition does not diminish crime, and discredit the assertions to the contrary by the prohibition propaganda.

A comparison of the rates of crime in various wet and dry States at different periods, shows that in some States crime has

materially increased under prohibition. The following figures are taken from the latest U. S. Census reports:

The number of prisoners increased in Maine 40 per cent; in Georgia more than 100 per cent; in North Dakota nearly 20 per cent. If prohibition decreases crime, why was there an increase of crime in these prohibition States?

During the same period 1904-1910, there was a material decrease in crime in various license States. The census reports show:

The number of prisoners in California decreased almost 18 per cent; in South Dakota 17 per cent; and in New Jersey 12 per cent. No sensible person claims that liquor-drinking diminished crime in these wet States, yet it would be just as reasonable as the assertion that prohibition decreases crime in the dry States. Two facts are clearly established by these statistics: that the use of liquor is not a material factor in the causation of crime, and that prohibition would not in any degree lessen the number of criminal acts.

THE FUTILITY OF PROHIBITION

By Hugh F. Fox

(An Address delivered at the Forum of the Free Synagogue, New York, January 9th, 1916.)

In the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius we read: "No man can live and be ever held erect by others; he must stand erect by himself." And it seems to me that is a fairly good text with which to begin the discussion of the question of prohibition.

In that great book of Lecky's, "Democracy and Liberty," in which he deals, from a governmental standpoint, with some of the fundamentals we are going to consider to-night, he makes the statement that "the attempt to guard adult man by law is a bad education for the battle of life," and against that or with it, I want to cite a sentence from Elihu Root's book on "The Citizen's Part in Government," in which he says: "The base of all popular government is individual self-control."

I think you will all agree with me that responsibility, personal responsibility and the responsibility of the people, is the thing that marks race progress. I do not believe that you can make men moral by law any more than you can make men successful by law. Now, this subject to-night is so great, it has so many sides, that I shall have to deal with it from only one or two standpoints, and perhaps it may be useful to clear the way a little by seeing if we cannot reach certain points of agreement.

First of all, I think you will all agree that this generation is more temperate, more sober, than any other generation of which we have any record, and that even within the last decade, progress has been made in moderation, in sanitation and personal cleanliness. Then, I suppose you will agree with me that most adults do either habitually or occasionally drink alcoholic beverages. I do not believe that it would be possible for any man, coming as a stranger to this or any other audience, to look them over and pick out, from their personal appearance, or from any peculiarities that they might have,