Capital Punishment: Thou Shaft Not Kill.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 23, 11 August 1911, Page 4

Capital Punishment: Thou Shaft Not Kill.

The capitalistic press is alarmed at the prevalence of crime. The chickens of their own hatching are coming home to roost. ' ■ ■ ; ■ : . The- Chicago "Tribune" compiles statistics: "Since-October-22, 1909, a total of 601 days, there have , been recorded 548 homicides, or nearly one a day." Why-does the 'Tribune' date its count from October 22 ? Why not take the standard date for computation? The "Tribune" says it was the last .hanging day. On that day Chicago society took a poor, helpless, manacled man and hung him until he was dead. .-....,■. The "Tribune" regrets that there have been no more hangings since that day, and attributes the numerous private murders committed to the failure of society to murder f-omebody. Tho "Tribune" is not alone in ...its' cry for the gallows. All capitalist papers clamor fw its black hood. . It is the only answer, capitalism has ror the despair of its victims. ■ ■'.[''.,.' " ; The '.'Tribune- ,, knows that , 'economic conditions, the fierce, relentlese strug-

gle to live, the galling pressure of poverty, the hideous conditions of the slums, th© saloon and the brothel, the bank and,the factory, the pressure of poverty and the lure of gold are till© causes of nearly all crime. But it never says so. It hides this pregnant fact : —a fact that all thinking men and women recognise, and which has become the basis of modern sociology and! criminology.)" You may hang men found guilty of mui'der; you may imprison for theft and burglary; you may parade you*streets with armed police, .but thuc does not change the conditions whicn breed criminals. Your economic system is legalised robbery. It spawns the criminal you would hang. You fight sy.mptoms, but you do not reach the seat of the disease. You brutally do collectively what you forbid individuals to do. You hope to cure crime by committing crime. A system that must kill in order to maintain itself is doomed. "Thou shalt not kill."—"Chicago Socialist."''