not strange that the after-war harvest of crimes should
come largely from boys, often those boys who did their part on the field
of battle. Whether they got the psychology from killing or reading or
hearing or playing soldier or training makes no difference. Everyone who
has any reasoning power knows that they got it, that it was deliberately
given to them if not forced upon them, and that just as deliberately the
state is killing them because they took it.

It is not alone the young who show this psychology of killing that has
grown out of the war. Organized society, the public, juries, judges,
pardon boards and governors, show that war has made them cruel and
wanton of human life. The great number of hangings since the war is
patent to all observers. In normal times juries were very loath to
pronounce the death penalty. With any possible excuse they always saved
life. Now they pride themselves on taking life. Even insanity does not
always prevent an execution.

Numerous are the evidences of the derangements the war has created and
left behind. A few years ago a prize fight would not have been permitted
in more than one or two states in the Union. Now state after state is
passing laws to permit prize fights to take place, and even the best
society has given its sanction to this sort of sport. Whether the state
should permit prize fights is not the question. The fact is, as everyone
knows, that it is permitted on account of a psychology growing out of
the war. We content ourselves with saying it will never do to raise our
boys as molly-coddles; they must learn to fight.

It is not alone murder that can be traced directly to the war
psychology. Robbery and burglary have rapidly increased, and much of
this is due to the emotions of boys. The robbing of country banks has
grown to be almost a pastime, and often one or more participants in
these raids is a returned soldier.

What should be done to meet these new conditions? Common honesty,
common sense and common humanity alike plainly show that a large part of
the crimes of violence are due to the war. Will hangings and life
sentences stop them? And, if so, is it right for organized society to
ignore its responsibility and place it on the young men that they
innoculated with the universal madness? It is expecting too much to
think that there is any process by which society can be made to think
and feel. Some day, however, when the war fever passes away crime will
again