National Affairs: War Without End

Imagine a drove of king lions, all supreme in their native wild, all meeting on terms of equality. Imagine, then, a congress of Chiefs of Police.

Such a congress did in fact assemble in Manhattan, last week-some 400 Chiefs from cities of the U.S. and an odd 100 from nearly every country on the globe’s crust.

And, truth being stranger than fiction, they behaved themselves in most pacific manner, resembled a gathering of learned pedants.

The opening oration was delivered by the New York City Chief, Richard E. Enright:

“Throughout the ages, nation and nation, races and classes, castes and creeds, have been pitted against one another in open warfare; but when the strife is over and treaties are signed they sit down together, forget their past differences.

“But the open warfare declared upon society by the criminal is never ended. There is no armistice, there is no peace or hope of peace. It is an irrepressible conflict.”

He was followed by Herr Johann Schober, the Viennese Chief. After relating how he once became Premier of Austria for a year, he reported:

“We have in our Police Administration in Vienna 270 academic men-I mean men educated at the university who had taken the examinations for the bar and other professional pursuits. The influence of these men has been great on the education of our policemen on the streets.”

Later, the congress listened to the man whom Sir Basil Thomson of Scotland Yard called “the best scientifically equipped man in the police profession.” This was Dr. Salvatore Ottolenghi, who established the first police school in the world.

Roman traditions go back to the last century when Lombroso advanced his theory of the “born criminal type”*and practically originated the science of criminology. Ideas have gone far since then, but the concept of the criminal as lit subject for scientific examination and treatment has persisted. Dr. Ottolenghi is an outstanding exponent. “Even today,” said he, “many estimable authorities do not recognize the intimate relation between criminology and pathology. … A pickpocket who for future identification is merely ‘fingerprinted’ may, if properly examined, be found to have highly developed homicidal tendencies. The same may be true of any mere misdemeanant-just as a patient brought to hospital because of a minor disorder may be found to be suffering from a serious contagious disease of which his obvious condition was a premonitory symptom.”

But the Manhattan hosts interrupted the academic calm as best they could. They took the delegates-including Shu Tze of China-to examine a complete museum of bandit instruments. They called upon Shinzo Uno of Japan to show cinemas of police work during the Tokyo earthquake. They passed resolutions on coordination of finger prints and demonstrated the telephotograph. By this means, three finger prints were flashed to Chicago and in five minutes two criminals’ names were telephoned back. (The third was not in the Chicago files.)

Nor were parades forgotten. One there was for the local police led by red-haired John F. Hylan, the city’s mayor. Another, for safety, was put on by Barron G. Collier.

Indeed, an event of this kind in Manhattan has come to be incomplete without Mr. Collier, the boy from the South who has collected a fortune from his control of streetcar advertising. With befitting splendor, he played host to all 500 chiefs at Luna Park, dined them, sent them forth to seek amusements under the gaudy arc lights-free of charge.

Nor did any Chief leave the congress without learning of the latest, distinctively U.S. contribution to the war on crime. It is an experiment for which Mr. Collier will personally expend $50,000. It is a series of advertisements which are to dominate the traction lines and billboards of New York and perhaps be extended to other cities.

In drawings, the posters will “sell” two ideas. One is the “Ready”-ness of the police. They are strong, keen, fearless, victory-or-die men backed by the mighty fiat of society.

The other is that crime cannot pay dividends commensurate with its risk. The yegg at the safe, the thug at the holdup, the gangster in his running fight-always he must have all the luck on his side if he is to escape the gloomy, bitter penalty of the law. So say the advertisements under their challenging caption:

YOU CAN”T WIN

This caption was not only a new idea in crime prevention; it was also a highly original use of the word “you.” When advertisers use the second person, they have reference to any and all. Of course, Mr. Collier was addressing himself only to criminals, past-master and incipient.

The conclusions of the congress were three:

1) Advocacy of a Federal Police Bureau to synchronize the work of local bureaus.

2) Advocacy of an International Police Bureau to make the Fiji Islands as dangerous for an escaped criminal as Pasadena.

3) Formation of a committee to study the codification of recorded finger prints, of which there are about 5,000,000 in the U.S. alone.

*Receding foreheads, massive jaws, prognathous chins, unsymmetrical skulls, long ears, rectilinear noses, thick hair and thin beards-by such physical marks Lombroso would have identified born criminals.