DOES CRIME INCREASE WITH TENANCY?
Does Crime Increase With Tenancy? Investigations in Alabama Show More Law Violations Among Landless Classes —Need Plan^ for Larger Ownership By WINIFRED B. COSSETTE K. £. C. BRANSON, teacher of...
...Branson's suggestion, Alabama now faces her liability...
...yielding to USE-VALUE...
...The wage3 of labor, however, are much higher in North America than in any part of England...
...a state of mind exists that will not disappear short of the rectification of the condition that causes the malady, and its reflex accounts for much irrational infringement of 'law and order1...
...The value of land in this country -- apart from all improvements upon it—is now 170 billions...
...Croppers and tenants represent 55 per cent of the population but they committed $1 per cent of the crimes...
...Many of the "malefactors of great wealth" have reputations that make them contemptible as citizens...
...absolute ethic* gives nay to a relativity in moral* that wakens the old power of the Jewish commandments...
...The genuine farmer does not invest in farm lands to make a turn-over in real estate...
...What is the backbone of this great power wielded over the destiny of men that has baffled those who sought to realize the vision of . a better social order, and caused the decay of nations ? The impassioned Scot cries, "O, if thi* invisible nightmare . . . would take shape...
...he wants a home for his family and to use his skill in producing crops — and we all need reduced taxation...
...Investigations in Alabama Show More Law Violations Among Landless Classes —Need Plan^ for Larger Ownership By WINIFRED B. COSSETTE K. £. C. BRANSON, teacher of rural sociology in the second term of the summer school in the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, declares his investigations have led him to place the responsibility for crime on increasing tenancy in the United States...
...when a fund is required for public administration, it is provided by a natural law...
...The report shows that more than 90 per cent of the white illiteracy in Alabama is in the country regions, and concludes that illiteracy and tenancy are twin-born social evils, seedbed.-, from which sprang 81 per cent of all the crimes in Crenshaw county...
...In Crenshaw county, it was found of 191 negro farm-owners only two broke the criminal laws...
...All the desertions of families, all the bigamy, all the adultery, all reckless driving, all stealing, petty larceny, all the murders and all the public drunkenness was committed by tenants and croppers — by those who owned not a single inch of the soil they cultivated, nor a shingle in the roof over their heads...
...With 5% per cent allowed a3 earnings on their valuation by the Esch-Cummins Law, a freight bill can be presented that will stagger the country...
...The study for Crenshaw County shows 81 persons convicted in the county courts for violation of the criminal laws during the year ending September 1, 1926...
...One Per Cent Own 59 Per Cent Wealth ' ¦ ^IIE Federal Trade Commission publishes A the statement that one per cent of the American people own 59 per cent of the Nation's wealth...
...And there ia small comfort for the real farmer in the news that the railroads are now contending that their valuation should be fifty billion dollars, instead of the figure set by the Interstate Commerce Commission...
...When we think of the spacious, elm-shaded homes of New England's earlier history, the antiques of which are now so eagerly sought, we realize that our young nation haa completed the Rake's Progress in shorter time than Macaulay may have expected when h» warned our prosperity boosters, "Wait until your public land is all gone...
...The idle lands of America cannot bring forth sustenance for 112,500,000 people, where shall our food come from...
...Branson's investigations show, the next strategic stop is to ascertain the cause that is promoting tenancy, and as to why farmers are being discouraged and dispossessed of the equity in their holdings...
...Illiteracy and Tenantry Twins THEY committed 80 per cent of all liquor law violations, such as distilling, bootlegging, public drunkenness and dangerous driving of cars under the influence of liquor...
...This pays not one cent in national taxes because oUr forbears brought with them the old English system governing land and taxation, where the burden was shifted through Parliament upon trade and industry by long-headed occupiers of great estates, whose original duty and indebtedness to the Crown had for years been well specified...
...doubtless they fear the inflamed ego of some routh (who was never coddled since the day ha was born) may lead him to commit a crime just to get...
...Drastic Remedies Urged DRASTIC remedies are urged, short shrift to the criminal is the clamor, "make an example of them...
...Society, that has not risen above mass-murder as a method of settling grievances, has a share in the transgressions of its youth and should "put on its thinking cap...
...it would be well for other states to undertake an analysis and check up on this condition...
...Here is where the interests of society diverse- acutely from the real estate interests...
...Branson's students at the University of North Carolina also found similar conditions, the percentage ranging from SO to 96 per cent in the counties studied...
...approach us like the Hyreanian tiger, the Behemoth of Chaos, the Archfiend himself, in any shape that we could see and fasten upon...
...Croppers and tenants constantly on the move, and child labor, keep the young out of such schools as the rural districts may possess...
...In other countries RENT and PROFIT eat up WAGES and the tw» superior orders of pe«>le oppress tne inferior one...
...Statistics show farm lands that could formerly be bought at five dollars an acre now bring five hundred dollars, with corresponding increase in the tax bill...
...Those with a hang-over of war psychology are ready for martial law...
...Let us ask these noise advocates of rigor to point out any age where terrible, punitive laws ever prevented crime, while civilization exists, as always, upon a foundation of misapplied wealth...
...The United States is no smaller from boundary to boundary than when the lines were first drawn, but it would seem that a shrinkage was taking place from the way suburban building is being crowded together—absolutely no privacy from the next door neighbor, and from the dark, bird-cage flats at increasing rent going up in cities—and NO CHILDREN ALLOWED...
...They were advised to- ascertain whether or not the landless multitudes of Alabama are committing the bulk of the crimes in the state...
...into the "limelight," to have kind letters sent him in jail, flowers, fruit, etc., no room rent to pay and enough to eat...
...Through the students' survey, that has followed on Dr...
...Branson rrtust have accepted the old Saxon saying, "A landless man is an unfree man...
...as a sequence more unemployed would be taken on and become in turn consumers...
...View of Adam Smith ^DAM SMITH, in the "Wealth of Nations" (1773), writing of social and economic conditions in the Colonies said, "England is certainly in the present times a much riche» country than any part of North America...
...ground rents are a species of revenue which the owner ia many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own . . . Nothing can be more reasonable than that a fund which owes its existence to the good government of the state . . . should contribute something more than the greater part of other funds towards the support of that government...
...The land-owning people of the county are about 45 per cent of the total population, but this class committed less than 20 per cent of &e crimes...
...When arrived at th« age of maturity the high price of labor and the low price of land enables them to establish themselves...
...Sixteen of the 81 were Ipnd-owners, or members of land-owning families...
...It is only the pressure of population that causes land value to increase...
...War-training intensifies the unsocial spirit in moral weaklings, teaches the technique of crime, furnishes elan, and has had its part in the violation of civil and criminal law...
...as well attempt to hold the wheels of a great Mogul to stop it, instead of shutting off the steam...
...If tenancy is furnishing the preponderance of crime, as Dr...
...To such structures, unfit for human home-m»tki ng, must the architect abase his genius, violating the love of space and form and beauty...
...As Carlyle said, " . . . . the treasury of rage, burning hidden, or visible in all hearts" is the ferment attending all iniquity...
...latent common sense knows that the accumulation of th's enormous wealth did not come from compensating service rendered by them to society, but was only possible to the possessor of "a superior lack of conscience" which the normal mind regards with contemptuous passion and a determination some day to make an end of...
...Since the end of the World War a series of Spectacular violations of the criminal law have seemed to be in excess of anything in our history...
...Some with more or less knowledge cite the severity of the English Courts arid their dispatch as models of efficiency in unfavorable comparison with our 9Wn...
...Adam Smith says...
...value of farm land as evidence of "prosperity," mislead only the uninformed...
...We must stop this "coddling" of criminals...
...Shall we drift along ignoring this vital question of Ground Rent...
...If speculation in land is proven to be the cause of poverty, crime and recurring business depression the remedy is at hand: take an ad-equate preeentage of the 170 billion dollars of the bare la;id value to support the government, and abolish every tax on trade and industry, and speculation value will disappear...
...Tenantry and Crime AT THE thirteenth annual National Business Conference at Babson Park, Welles-ley, Mass., a prominent real estate representative warned that unless building slowed down they were headed for IX)WrBR RENTS...
...if we analyze conditions dispassionately, with courage to follow any clue wherever it leads, we shall be able to find the cause for the deterioration, the crippling of initiative, the loss of self-respect and proud independence inherent in mankind...
...We .are aware of the conservative balance of this body and accept the figures as not in the least over-estimated...
...Since Adam Smith orthodox political economy has not presented tt frankly and fearlessly wj^evcr the reason may be...
...I-abor is there so well rewarded that a numerous family of children instead of being a burden is a sourcs of opulence to the parents...
...A demoralizing influence on the moral stamina of weaker members of society is caused by the manifestations of the idle rich...
...Real estate in this great country of ours is always a safe and profitable asset if there is not too much of it seeking tenants...
...Another said, "I cannot too strongly urge that all interested keep constantly before them the danger to the INTERESTS, of over-production...
...Land speculation has destroyed the USE-VALUE for agricultural purposes...
...he asserts that the deadliest menace to any nation lies in a restless, roving tenantry, and with zeal to discover the truth the students in his class undertook to investigate the criminal dockets of their home counties...
...Agents who point with pride to the great increase in the...
...Youthful criminal outbreaks are the engrossing topic of conversation, all to the exclusion of "great malefactors of wealth," whose volume of adroitly legalized depredation compared with those suffered from tyro criminals is as the bulk of Jupiter to Mars...
...The children during the tender years of infancy are well-fed and properly taken care of and when they grow up the value of their labor greatly overpays their maintenance...
...The report shows that in 1920 the croppers and renters in farm regions, and tenantry in towns and cities represented a population, white and colored, of 1,600,000, 65 per cent of the entire population, and the landless white outnumbered the landless negro by about 10,000 families...
...Burden of Taitw LEGITIMATE business, operating on the service basis, and the home-seeker, would welcome the increased spending capacity that would come from lower rents...
...The price of provisions is everywhere in North America much lower than in England...
...A return to the old English vagrancy laws, the navy-man's noose for theft of any dimensions would seem to them worth another trial...
...Study the driving power behind crime...
Vol. 19 • June 1927 • No. 6
