GANGSTER WAR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 254, 18 June 1932, Page 2

GANGSTER WAR

AMERICAN CITIZEN TURNS TO CRIMINALS FOR HELP. RECOGNISED FORCES USELESS It is impossible that the spectacle of a distinguished American citizen turning in despair from the recognised forces of the State to two aeknowledged criminals for help may bring realisation to the people of the United States of the seriousness of the gangster probleni, said the Manchester Guardian recently. Such a situatien means that the most elementary conditions of a civilised State are not present in America. It means that the criminal element in America is so strong that property, even life, cannot be safeguarded by the State, and that to be secure a citizen must make terms with the underworld. By calling in the aid of gangsters Colonel Lindbergh has admitted that he has no faith in the power of the State either to restore his child to him or to punish those who kidnapped it; by offering to pay the ransom demanded of him he had admitted that the underworld is too powerful to be resisted. One is familiar with this kind of thing in China. Ilt provided the pretext for a Japanese invasion. But it has not hitherto existed in a country equipped with all the plant of civilisation. The gangster is often presented sentimentally as a kind of twentiethcentury Robin Hood; actually he is a serious menace to the very foundations of American civilisation. His wealth and his power and his influence are steadily growing. He can hold a baby to ransom, supply liquor abundantly, levy a tax on industry, make himself felt politically, and generally. bring the whole system of American justice into contempt. His weapons are intimidation and bribery; his greatest asset is the indifference — worse, the sentimentality— — of public opinion in the United States in regard to his activities.