Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1911 — Encouraging Murder. [ARTICLE]

Encouraging Murder.

Collier’s Weekly calls attention to the astonishing fact that the numbfr of murders in the United States last year reached a total of 8,975 —an average of one an hour, figures quoted before the prison reform convention at Omaha showed the number of murders in the United States per million to be 70 or 80 per milfion, as compared with 15 Italy, 13 in Canada, nine in Great Britain and fiVe in Germany. The indications are that the proportion is growing,; a casual glance at the daily papers indicate that. w Uollier’s conclusions are that murder is becoming safer in the United States by reason of the laxity in apprehending murderers, delay in enforcing the laws, acceptance of technical pleas and exercise of the pardoning power. This startling statement is ma ’e. and is apparently supportable by facts. If you commit murder, it is a better than 3 to 1 ~shot that you' will never be brought .to trial. It is a better than 80 to' 1 shot that you will never be sentenced to the penitentiary. It is a better than 80 to 1 shot that you will never be hanged or electrocuted. I President Tass rightly said' that the admimstratidn of crim-1 in al law ip this country is a dis-; grace to the civilization. One might well add that it is also] becoming a menace to human ; life.—Peoria Herald-Transcript.;