Vrgabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

I believe in capital punishment for murder, rape, and highway robbery. But for the crime of kidnaping I believe in something considerably more severe. We should publish in all public places the following instructions to capturers of kidnapers: "When you capture a kidnaper, find a stout post; tie the kidnaper securely to said post; pile dry wood and other inflammables about both post and kidnaper; saturate well with kerosene, gasoline, or both; light a match to same; then go places." Perform this little operation a few times and these ghouls from the lower left-hand corner of. Hell will slow up a whole lot.

Democracies are great things in a whole lot of ways. But they move slowly and indefinitely when it comes to emergencies. They run heavy to law, and light to justice; heavy to delay, and light to action. Old Porfirio Diaz used to have a Government in Mexico that could and did DO things. He believed in quick and certain justice. A desperate criminal was treated as such. He was quickly, de. cisively, and permanently removed. They didn't spend a fortune trying to overcome the technicalities of fool laws and the wiles of shyster lawyers in order to accomplish a necessary purpose. tney* y"l him out.

Porfirio believed in "relativity" also. Not the Einstein kind, however; the Diaz kind. A formidable gangster in Diaz's time was not only immediately and effectually removed, but his family likewise disappeared. Diaz figured -with the Scriptur+that since an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit, evil fruit must be the sign of an evil tree; so, when he found it necessary to cut off an evil limb from a tree, he just took his little hatchet and removed the entire tree. Our most learned and accredited students of criminology today urlanimously agree that eradication of criminality must go back to the source, just as the clean-. ing of a stream must start with its source. We're just a little slow. Diaz understood-and practiced-that philosophy of criminology for two generations.

In this country today we need some of the Diaz law enforcement and crirne prevention tonic-and we need it bad. Our criminal element and our criminal individuals are as well known as the local court house. The terrorists are all marked. The master law-evaders are all located. Think what Diaz would do under such conditions, if he were here, and running his old-time form of government ! In the fewest days all these gentry-and their hangers-on and their henchmen and their kin-folks-would have disap- peared. Think of the crime that would be prevented; the lives that would be saved; the hellaciousness that would be cut off at the very source; ttie feeling of safety and security that would ensue. Of course we can't accomplish anything of the sort-we seem to be drifting in the opposite direction-but honest, wouldn't it be a grand and glorious feeling? what sad, sad r"-. "rJuo" ,"1" papers these days. For instance, I just read the following in the Associated Press dispatches: "The farm loan board is nearing a crisis in its short, turbulent life." Now wouldn't it be too bad if that particular patient failed to get well? Not a dry eye in the house ! ,f**

Not long ago, to illustrate where business is coming from when the tide swings backward, I told in this column a story from Scott's Lady of the Lake. Personally I thought it was good. My opinion was vindicated the other day when B. C. Forbes, writing his daily editorial on business conditions on the financial page of all the Flearst chain of newspapers, quoted that editorial, and printed it in black face type. ***

The most elastic thing on earth is the housing demand. I know a family with three married children. Three years ago the parents occupied their old horne; one of the married daughters occupied her own house, partly paid for; the other two married children lived in rented apartments. When the depression settled down, two of the children joined forces under one roof, and gave up an apartment. A little later the other moved in with the old folks. Today those four families are all under the old folks' roof, and have given up three habitations of pre.depression days. Within ninety days after we begin definitely climbing the hill again, that family will again be occupying four domiciles. And you can find innumerable such cases in every locality. Today we have an over-supply, apparently, of living quarters. But three months of rising prosperity will find us painfully short. * r d<

A small town in the state of Washington lost its one and only bank, and stagnation of finances ensued. Then the City fathers got together and authorized an issue of their own currency, which they created by printing the financial denominations on pieces of thin wood veneer manufactured in that town. The experiment is said to

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