Social Conditions Seen As Cause of Criminality
Solomon, Charles
Social Conditions Seen As Cause of Criminality By Charles Solomon (N. Y. State Candidate for V. S. Senator) WARDEN LEWIS E. LA WES of Sing Sine; Prison sums up bis long experience In...
...There are striking figures on the relation between crime and the young...
...The problem confronting the State was well summarized by the Lewisohn Commission In the following language: "The primary purpose of our correctional institutions is to take an anti-social group of underprivileged, under-educated and vocationally untrained men and women and prepare them better to meet their responsibilities of social and economic citizenship...
...We must abolish alums, provide recreational faell, ities under competent supervisors, establish adequate recreational and cultural centers for young boys and girls, give vocational Instruction, make large changes in our educational systems, build social consciousness and character...
...Wright...
...The odd title of the book Is derived from the fact that the 2,500 inmates Of Sing Sing Prison are saddled with an aggregate sentence of 20,000 years...
...Attacking the problem of crime and criminals through prisons Is to approach the problem hind end foremost...
...leader of the tiny Belgian Communist party, who had long shown hostility to the Belgian labor movement...
...Indeed, here was another case of the Communist rank and file getting away from the leadership of the "strategists...
...Ada Wright is mother of two of the boys...
...The story of Lawes himself Is strange as fiction...
...With her is one 4. Louis Engdahl, Communist, who is designated as secretary of the International Labor Defense, a Communist "innocents' club...
...and Vender...
...Lawes Is SO...
...On the same platform was Joseph Jacquemotte...
...Soon after three years of service, he became a prison guard with the ideas and under the circumstances already stated...
...On the wall are pictures of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo* Vanzettl , and the caption reads, "Prevent another Saco-Vanzettl case...
...Clifford, who was a printer, was candidate for governor and for Mayor of Cleveland a number of times...
...The Communists' have adopted the boys as their own to have a talking point in their campaign for "self-determination" of the "Black Belt...
...What Vandervelde Did Vandervelde, a former Premier and Minister of Justice of Belglum, had smuggled Mrs...
...The book is based on 27 years of association as guard and warden with the prisons of New York State...
...We do know that the Communists denounce the Socialists here as "murderers.',' This story Is told in some detail not to give credit to the European Socialists for acting as Socialists should and always do, but to nail these falsehoods...
...European Communist 'News' On Scottsboro Belied by Facts By Wm...
...One characteristic, he has found one hundred and fifty men and'one woman executed at Sing Sing Prison in the 12 years of his wardenship had in common: "All were poor, and most of them friendless...
...It is impossible to keep up with all of them...
...When Lawes took his first prison job these institutions "were run almost entirely on a political basis...
...Mr...
...The following sub-committees were elected: Budget and Finance, GUI Is, Berman and Hendon...
...His book is dedicated "To those tens of thousands of my former wards who have Justified my faith in human nature...
...A large part, the most impressive, In fact, of this book is devoted to proving that the answer to the foregoing query is overwhelmingly In the affirmative...
...For if the Socialist* were not, what excuse could they give for calling upon the masse* to unite for unemployment relief in the Communist party and at the same time seek to destroy *thc Socialist Party for fighting for unemployment relief...
...The spirit in which the book is written Is expressed in this unusual dedication...
...Roth...
...There is the dogma laid down by the Wise Men, that everything they do is right, even if they change their position three times a week...
...The fact that Vandervelde spoke for the Scottsboro boys Is a refutation of the Communist t story...
...Warden Lewis Is "surfeitted with this constant emphasis on punishment and still more punishment...
...It Is difficult to "review" this book, especially in this limited space...
...Starting With the Young There is insistence upon starting with the young...
...In Amsterdam Is a great Socialist dally called "Het Volk...
...We do know what happened In Belgium and Holland...
...For example, In a recent Issue of a local Communist publication : Engdahl wrote that the Socialists, ¦ who- completely control the city governmentajtof Zurich and Vlen1 na, gave Mrs...
...The story he wrote was obscure, but somehow he seemed to imply that the fact that the Vienna municipality named one of Its latest workers' dwellings George Washington Hof , indicated a hostility to Mrs...
...The outstanding result of our prison and penal policies," Warden Lawes warns, "Is the fact that prison populations have steadily Increased...
...Capital Punishment "My experience has convinced me," he writes almost in the first words of his book, "of the futility of capital punlshment> History woui1 seem to confirm this viewpoint...
...This Is about all for the time being, f Waldman Again Chosen Party State Chairman ¦ Plana for the most extensive state campaign In m ny years were made when the newly-elected State committee of the party met Saturday at the People's House, New York, to elect an executive committee and to clear up the business left over by the state convention...
...It was vdted to take a stand opposed to the Breaton-Porter bill that comes up for popular vote at the November elections on Use ground that It would take public property In the public parks tn the Adirondack* end other places from the people and place it at the mercy of profiteers...
...and when Mrs Wright spoke tn the Belgian capital under Communist auspices Vandervelde himself overcame his repugnance to the Communists, appeared at the meeting, and spoke strongly protesting against the prosecution of the boys...
...The author pays his respects to prohibition as a crime cause...
...That out of his experience there has emerged the humane and enlightened prison official who has taken his place in the very forefront of advanced thinkers on the problem of prisons and penology, la in Itself no insignificant phenomenon...
...After a lifetime In the Socialist movement he withdrew from activity about ten years ago, disgusted with tho> wrecking of the movement in Cleveland by the- Communist elements...
...Engdahl is denouncing "Le Peuple," "Het Vol...
...Prison sums up bis long experience In dealing with criminals In a remarkable book entitled 'Twenty Thousand Tears In Sing Sing)) (Ray Long Sz Richard Smith, Inc...
...Crime Increased with the Advent of long prison terms, and continues to grow...
...assume that the Socialists are right until the contrary Is proved...
...The other twoi were Tom Lewis and Tom Hlcke|y...
...He is telling the American people—or that tiny portion that reads Communist papers—that the European Soclall is is are hindering and obstructing Mrs...
...Wright are traveling In all the great cities of Europe, but he Is not telling the European workers how the Scottsboro case has been converted Into a Communist racket...
...Communists generally save up these stories and fling them at people who have no way,of proving that they are false...
...Brussels and The Hague Out We do not know what happened In Zurich and Vienna, but knowing Communist methods we suspect the accuracy of the Engdahl story...
...To show no quarter and to ask for none...
...Our author carried with him Into his new jsb "Ideas of prisoners on a par with those entertained by the average citizen today...
...it' not only printed pictures of MrV"" Wright and stories of the Scottsboro outrage but likewise carried a most powerful cartoon, showing the hand of European labor holding Back the hand of Uncle Bam as he moves to switch on the,current to kill a Negro boy strapped in the electric chair...
...In the last analysis, if there is to be any permanent diminution of crime we shall have to look to our adolescents...
...Has It not, in a large measure, contributed to the condition of which it Is complaining...
...That his background should have produced the man...
...In 1912 he was one of the famous Three Toms In the National convention at Indianapolis who sided with William D. Haywood In the memorable battle on the trade union policy of the party...
...we would not be surprised If he did...
...He Is today probably the nation's best known opponent of the death penalty...
...Those were the days before psychology and psychiatry and similar "new fangled notions" in connection with penal institutions...
...Many of them crowded to him after the meeting was over and expressed deep regret that they had never heard of blm before...
...He came Into prison work believing in capital punishment...
...There Is, however, one safe rule to follow: When they slander the Socialists assume that we are doing the right thing and that their Htate- - merits rfre false...
...The committee organized by reelecting Louis Waldman as state chairman, and electing the following state executive committee: .. Morris Berman, Julius Gerber, Theresa B. Wiley, William M. Felgenbaum, Algernon Lee, Robert H. Rlchey and Ray Newklrk...
...The Scottsboro Boys There are the eight miserable Scottsboro boys, under death sentence because of the South's savage race policies...
...It has converted "the small crook" into "the prosperous bootlegger" who takes to robbery when business is bad to maintain his standard of living because robbery "la quicker than burglary and surer...
...Women's Activities, Mrs...
...Engdahl and Mrs...
...One is tempted to quote repeatedly the striking paragraphs In which the volume abounds...
...the days of the gun, shaven heads, stripes and silence...
...He was determined to be hard-boiled...
...But to yield to this urge would be to substantially reproduce the source...
...Panken, Mrs...
...Many young Communists, haying long heard the conventional Communist stories about Socialists, were lifted out of their seats when the veteran Socialist made- his eloquent speech upon behalf of justice...
...The foregoing quotation while not from Warden Lawes' book, succinctly and adequately states his own thesis...
...We do not know whether Mr...
...He has become one of the most enlightened prison administrators throughout the world and the expounder of views on penology in many quarters regarded as revolutionary...
...An overwhelmingly large part of (he prison population of the state return to society within a comparatively short period—92 per cent, according to the last report of the N. Y. State Prison (Lewlsohn) Commission...
...It is a dogma of the Communis) movement that the Socialists arc a lot of "betrayers" and bad egg* generally...
...vclde as the hangmen of the Scottsboro boys...
...The State Executive Committee met Tuesday and organized for the campaign, devoting Its time to routine detailed work...
...He announced that he would Interpellate the government In Parliament on the reasons for trying to kep the unfortunate woman out of the country...
...Tom Clifford Dieifat Age of 76 Tom Clifford, once one of the leading Socialists of Ohio and the Middle West, died Monday at Cleveland at the age of 76...
...At less than eighteen, he was In the U. S. army...
...In Brussels the • Socialists publish a great dally, "Le Peuple," of which the political editor Is Emlle Vandervelde, president of the Labor and Socialist International...
...He unequivocally repudiates the policy of "bigger and better prisons" and repeatedly emphasizes the vital necessity of recognizing and striking at causes that lie at the root of the problem of crime...
...The sub-committee on public affairs was Instruct* ed to study the bill and Issue statements and carry on a publicity campaign in opposition to it...
...Wright across the border and after the meeting smuggled her back across again...
...Tom Clifford was a typical oldtime American Socialist...
...Organization and Propaganda, Gerber, Parsons, Kritcer, Newklrk, Lee, Rlchey and Sander...
...Mrs...
...while everything the Socialists do Is a "betrayal...
...Telling the World Engdahl Is telling the European workers that American Socialists are cooperating in the attempt to murder the boys...
...At the Brussels meeting Vandervelde literally stole the show from the Communists...
...Wiley and Mrs...
...Wright and a desire to see her sons hanged because Washington was a slave-holder...
...In line with conventional Communist policy.....tn sncH matters, the Communists are sending her on a tour of Europe, where she Is making appeals for her sons, and the other six boys, to the Socialist and labor movement abroad...
...Says Warden Lawes: "It does not require elaborate research to establish the fact that our complainant (Society) does not come Into court with clean hands...
...Public Affairs, Waldman, Laldler and Felgenbaum...
...Lawes began in 1905 as a rookie guard in Clinton Prison, Danemora, then reputed to be the American Siberia, attaining to the position of Warden of Sing Sing Prison in charge of "twenty-five hundred individual human equations"—the best known and most influential prison official tn the United States, with an international reputation...
...Wright the runaround and made It Impossible for her to tell her story...
...Lawes consistently emphasizes the fact of social responsibility for crime, drawing the deadly parallel between the plaintiff in a court of equity who Is required to come "with clean hands," as the quaint old maxim has it, and "The People" In whose name criminal prosecutions are conducted...
...M. Feigenbauni COMMUNIST "news" Is a fearful and wonderful thing...
...Le Peuple" carried a number of stories bitterly attacking the conviction of the Scottsboro boys...
Vol. 14 • July 1932 • No. 3
