will be glad to do our best on whatever sum you can allow in view of the facts presented." In other words, I should make the budget committee a participant in the work of my agency and in the planning of its service.

Moreover, I should preserve the same attitude of fair play during the year. I would only use what money I absolutely had to use, and if I saw that I could make savings I would do so. If, then, during the year I found that I had to use more than I had planned for some item of expense, I would probably find the budget committee in a fairly responsive mood.

I should, further, always make requests of the budget committee for extra allowances before the expense was incurred, rather than afterward. A budget committee will usually grant a reasonable request made to it, but sometimes is naturally and properly stiff-necked when told that an expenditure has been made without the approval of the committee which allocates the funds.

As a further factor in my attitude toward the budget committee, I should never attempt to use any "pull" or do any "log-rolling." I would not try to elect members of the budget committee to my board of directors for the sake of the influence. I would not try to get a friend of mine to speak to a friend of his who is on the budget committee and ask for special favors. I should not bring a large delegation of impressive citizens before the budget committee when I asked for my budget. Such delegations make the budget committee suspicious that the organization has very little of real value in its work and feels that it has to depend upon impressiveness and influence rather than merit. As a matter of fact, one or two people who know the situation thoroughly are far more effective in securing adequate consideration of a budget by a budget committee than are any number of distinguished but uninformed citizens.

I believe that the children's agency which will mail material to members of the budget committee, get the committee to visit the institution, make a businesslike and vivid presentation of its budget to the committee, and maintain an attitude of fair play and of give and take toward the budget committee will secure adequate consideration of its needs.

This process is directly analogous to the larger task of the children's agency to inform the whole public of the nature of its work. The task I have described is the easier because there are so many fewer individuals in the budget committee than there are in the general public. The results of such interpretation should be quicker because the budget committee can make a direct appropriation, while money sought from the public usually can be secured only after a long, expensive, and difficult process. In other words, the interpretation of the work of the agency to the budget committee is merely part of the larger educational program which every children's agency should have.

In conclusion, then, I should say that the children's agency which will apply the principles of fact interpretation and of varied and effective presentation to the budget committee, not merely at budget-making time but throughout the

year, will be able to attain and maintain that position in the charities budget to which it is entitled, within the limits of the funds available. Such an agency, basing its relations to the budget committee on fact finding and fact interpretation, will save the time, energy, and worry of its superintendent and board members. It will secure more adequate understanding from the budget committee. It will be better financed than otherwise would be the case. It will have greater opportunities for larger and more effective service to those children whose needs its aims to meet.

Again, and for the last time I say it: facts and their interpretation are the two keys which will unlock the hearts and minds of budget committees, as they will, indeed, the hearts and minds of the community at large.

II. DELINQUENTS AND CORRECTION

THE PERSISTENCE OF CRIME IN OUR MODERN
CIVILIZATION

J. L. Gillin, Professor of Sociology, University of
Wisconsin, Madison

In spite of all the boasted progress of our modern civilization crime, in most of the countries of the world, persists in its intensity and multiplies in variety with the increasing complexity of life. Studies made before the war showed that crime was on the increase in Germany, stationary in France, and apparently decreasing in Great Britain. So far as we can judge from the figures of our United States Census, measured by the commitments per 100,000 of population to our various jails, reformatories, industrial schools, and prisons, there has been little change in the crime rate in this country since 1880. We must remember, of course, that commitments are no exact measure of criminality. However, they are valuable in determining whether crime has increased or decreased. The only thing which makes them uncertain as a measure of the increase or decrease of crime is that we cannot be certain that juries are convicting as many today as thirty years ago, and we do not know what effect on commitments the practice of probation has had.

In facing the crime situation we must also bear in mind that legislation is constantly enlarging the number of things forbidden. Every legislature passes laws which make new crimes. There is no question but that the passage of the prohibition law has greatly increased the number of commitments to institutions, because this law has created a new class of crimes, viz., the violation of this law.

After analyzing the situation as carefully as we can, however, and making allowance for the influence of probation in keeping people out of institutions and in discounting the effect on the crime rate of actions declared to be criminal by recent laws, a study of the older and more serious crimes like murder, robbery, embezzlement, and sex crimes seems to indicate that such crimes are not decreasing. New methods of committing murder, robbery, and embezzlement have been devised with the growth of applied science and the increase of new inventions. In general, therefore, we can say that society has not been able seriously to reduce the number of the more grave crimes.

Why have we failed in the fight with crime?-Never was so much attention given to the subject of crime. The newspapers are filled with reports of crime as never before. Judges, probation officers, and social students are giving atten

tion to it as never before in history. Laboratories are being established in connection with courts to study the causes of crime. Students are bringing together statistics of crime in the effort to discover causes. New light is being thrown on the problem in ever increasing volume.

Moreover, never have we had so much wealth in this country as at the present time. The general standard of living is higher, although the difference between the standards of various economic classes is greater than ever before. The poor are better looked after today than at any time in the past hundred and fifty years of our history. The comfort of the people of this country, even the poorest, is probably greater than in any other country in the world. Surely the pressure of need cannot explain the persistence of crime, although the pressure of new wants may do so.

Moreover, the ancient institutions which are supposed to have a preventive influence on criminality are developed as never before. Our educational institutions are more highly developed than ever in our history. Churches rear their spires in larger numbers than ever before. Moreover, both education and religion are being given a social flavor which formerly they lacked. Recreation without a parallel is being organized to care for the leisure time of childhood and youth, and yet, so far as we can tell from the facts available, we are not gaining in this country decidedly in the fight against crime. Why are we failing? We have to confess that we do not know. We have various guesses, some of which probably approximate the truth. We need, however, very many more careful studies than we have had to determine the causes of criminality. One of the things that stands out today is the imperative necessity of research which will make available to us the facts concerning crime and the factors of criminality.

Why the persistence of crime?-In the absence of scientific knowledge concerning the reasons for the persistence of crime let us turn to some of the hypotheses which have been suggested to explain the fact.

One of these hypotheses is that we have been making a lot of new legal crimes. Every session of Congress and every meeting of a state legislature puts upon the statute books laws which make things a crime which once were not crimes. For example, all the fish and game laws which have been enacted in the last fifty years and which represent the attempt of society to conserve some of the natural resources of our country have made acts criminal which once were perfectly legitimate. These laws run across customs and habits of individuals which originated centuries ago. From the time of paleolithic man, ten thousand or more years ago, down to very recent times anyone was at liberty to kill game and catch fish whenever and wherever he pleased. Today these habits and customs are restricted and prohibited at certain times and in certain districts. The age-old habits and customs persist in spite of the laws and appear in the statistics of crime.

With the invention of the automobile a new set of laws has been devised

and enacted to meet the new problems of transportation on the highways. Here again old habits and customs find themselves in conflict with the new standards of conduct set by the laws. Moreover, the automobile has made easier many of the old crimes. The bank robber and the holdup man can more easily escape today, because of the automobile, than ever before. The theft of automobiles is entirely a new crime. The horse thief is passing, but in his place we have the automobile thief.

Furthermore, with the rise of new knowledge concerning the cause of disease we have enacted a whole series of laws called dairy and food laws. One may not sell food products unless they conform to certain standards set by the hygienists and the sanitarians. So intricate is our economic life today that we are dependent, not upon our own chicken yard, herd of swine, and herd of cattle for our meats. When we were we could depend upon our selfish regard for the health of ourselves and our families to see that the food was taken care of properly in accordance with the best knowledge we had. When, however, food products are produced for a market there is every temptation to sell food products which we ourselves do not consume but which may endanger the health or life of others.

The same thing is true with respect to sanitation. In the old English village community, before we knew anything about germs, the house and the stable were under the same roof, and the manure pile was beside the house door. Contaminated water was drunk from the town pump or the individual well, and the results were blamed upon the inscrutable wisdom of God. Today anyone who allows garbage to lie about and become a menace to the health of himself or others is subject to prosecution. Moreover, before we understood how disease is transmitted there were no quarantine regulations. Today even measles and chickenpox are subject to quarantine, to say nothing of diphtheria and scarlet. fever. Here again is another source of law-breaking. Ignorance and indifference, the children of unsocialized habits and customs, persist in spite of our efforts to control them in the interests of health.

Another explanation of the persistence of crime, which cannot be demonstrated with present statistical methods, is the theory of "social change" or the "costs of progress." Look at the changes in our modern civilization; the changes in thought and ideals, in standards, conventions, customs, and beliefs which have occurred in the last seventy-five years. An echo of it is to be seen in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. In most matters we take these changes as a matter of course. It takes a case like the fundamentalist controversy to wake us up to a realization of the enormous changes in thought which have occurred. Not only has there been a revolution industrially, but science and philosophy have brought about a revolution in our thinking. The scientific discoveries of the last seventy-five years have been working themselves out in all the realms of thought and action. The spirit of modern science is to question everything for a deeper understanding. It is a spirit of inquiry into all traditions, customs, sanctions, as well as theories of matter and of mind. As a result, many