True Crime Roundup IV

The '20s were a time of feverish activity in the fields of the arts, science, sports, politics—and crime.

~ "A Counter-Attack on Crime" (1922):

IF WE ASSUME that the first function of government is the protection of life and property, then government is failing in the United States, particularly in all the big cities, contends the New York World. In New York City, declares this paper, "crime is no longer an occupation; it is an industry, highly organized and directed with extraordinary cunning."  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (March 4, 1922)

~ "Hair As a Detective" (1922):

A MICROSCOPIC STUDY OF HAIR for use in detective work has been made by the police department of Berkeley, Cal.  . . . material of this sort is being used by the Berkeley police, in solving crime mysteries, more extensively than in any other police department in America.  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (April 1, 1922)

~ "Foiling Thieves with a Flexible Key" (1922):

A flexible key, one that will go into and work in a tortuous hole, has been developed in Germany. The many robberies that are constantly reported everywhere have created a demand for such a key.  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (April 29, 1922)

~ "Conan Doyle's Heaven" (1922):

. . . Heaven is described by Conan Doyle, we read in newspaper reports, as the land of fulfilled ideals, the place where the disharmony and worry of this life are not, where the old resume young manhood and womanhood, and where children grow to maturity. Buildings and towns are there, and all our domestic animals; but everything is on a higher plane, where there is neither unhappi-ness nor wrong. In his creed, there is no such place as hell.  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (May 6, 1922)

~ "Criminals on the Causes of Crime" (1922):

. . . "When he [a young man] gets into a life of stealing he finds that there are organized sets or gangs of thieves. He finds that they have their lawyers, that they have professional bondsmen and professional witnesses. He finds that the gang pools its procedure; that when he belongs to the gang that his chances of beating a case are good and he can go on stealing. He observes that the man who works alone easily gets caught and is put away."  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (May 6, 1922)

~ "Ending the Narcotic Menace" (1922):

. . . It is not yet realized, we are told, that drug addiction is also rapidly spreading in this country, and that the habit of taking hypodermic "shots" and "sniffing coke" is becoming wide-spread among all classes of society, while the criminals are said to be finding opium a tonic for their trade.  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (June 10, 1922)

~ "Sterner Justice for Criminals" (1922):

. . . "The trouble with the rules of evidence . . . is that the changes which have been made in them have been almost invariably in favor of the defendant."  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (June 24, 1922)

~ "Ireland from a Scotland Yard Notebook" (1922) [12 pages]:

. . . From late September to the week before Christmas, when Archbishop Clune of Australia made his plea for a Truce of God, the rupture was complete. Both sides flooded the press with attacks; attempts were made to bomb the House of Commons; military activity in Ireland was multiplied and magnified.  . . . THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY (April 1922)

~ "Janus-Headed Ireland" (1922) [13 pages]:

. . . The United States was both the thorn and the rose of the Irish problem. . . — THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY (June 1922)

~ "America and the Opium Trade" (1922) [8 pages]:

. . . These smuggling gangs are powerful and well organized; and the profits are so enormous that the trade is well worth the risks involved. The conditions that exist in New York could be duplicated in other cities, both in Europe and America. At present, London and Paris papers contain almost daily accounts of raids on these peddlers and smugglers; and the reason that these cities are not as alive to the danger as ourselves is because of matters of public health are of less interest to Europeans than to Americans. The cause of this immense supply of drugs is the immense overproduction of opium, for which Great Britain is chiefly responsible.  . . . — THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY (June 1922)

~ "To Stop Automobile Bandits" (1922):

THE THOMPSON SUBMACHINE-GUN, intended to prevent getaways in motor-cars by gangs of robbers, has now shown its value as an effective weapon for this purpose . . . This weapon . . . is the lightest automatic gun in existence, weighing only 9½ pounds and firing .45-caliber bullets at the rate of 1,000 per minute.  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (July 15, 1922)

~ "Bootlegging Airplanes" (1922):

These people are probably not smuggling rum.

. . . In course of time there must be a State police driving airplanes as well as riding horses. Then suspicious planes will be 'held up' or followed by 'traffic cops' lying along aerial routes connecting such cities as Montreal and New York.  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (July 22, 1922)

~ "Murder by Wholesale" (1922):

. . . "Laws are the product of civilized society. They are made to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. When they fail in doing either one of these two things, they fail society, and society degenerates into savagery. Whenever you find a lax enforcement of law you find crime. Public officials can never have an alibi."  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (July 22, 1922)

~ "Dime Novels in Lavender" (1922):

Time was when the very term "dime novel" sent a thrill of horror down the spine of many a worthy parent. The agency of dime novels was thought to be responsible for the moral downfall of youth in great numbers. Now that they no longer interest the young, their only place seems to be a museum . . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (July 29, 1922)

~ "Inkless Finger-Prints" (1922):

. . . police use of finger-prints, while still important, is numerically surpassed by commercial use.  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (August 19, 1922)

Resource:
- Our last True Crime Roundup is HERE.

Category: True crime