THE SUMMER MICHIGAN DAILY WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 1927 _____I 174f xnwr nis offended by this condemnation may be gained from the knowledge that a t when Birger's sentence was announc- ed to a crowd at a baseball game the Published every morning except Monday stands echoed with tumultuous cheers during the University Summer 'Session by the Board in Control of Student Publica in an ovation that lasted for several tions. minutes. The consciences of the The Associated Press is exclusively en- people of Illinois is perhaps as deli- titled to the use for republication of all dews dispatches credited to it or not otherwise cate as the consciences of the natives credited in this paper and the local news pub- of Michigan, yet when the supreme fished herein.' EntereanM penalty was imposed on this black- ostoffice as second class matter! mal, guard who plotted the deaths of good Subscription by carrier, $1.5; by m citizens even that conscience was able Offices: Press Building, Maynard Street, to tolerate a wild scene of applause. Ann Arbor, Michigan. -- And Birger himself, hardened gang- EDITORIAL STAFF ster that he was, turned pale when Telephone 4925 the sentence of death was annouuced, MANAGING EDITOR as his victim must have turned pale PIIi'LIP C. BR.KOKS in their last agony as they died before Edioril ireto .... Pal . Krnbullets from his machine guns and City Editor..Joseph E. Brunswick Feature Editor ..s.Marian L. Welles ombs. We in Michigan are not free Night Editors from this type of criminal, but we Carlton G. ChampeH. K. Oakes, Jr. lack the expeditious means of dealing John E. Davis Orville Dowzer with him and there are cases in SF.Snderland Iwhich even a death sentence seems R M. Hyman Miriam Mitchell justified. Robert E. Carson Mary Lister All in all, the forces battling crime Betty Pulver seem to be returning to the crest of Wm. K. Lomason Louis R. Markus t 'the wave, after waging a lsing fih *7+ amn n BUSINESSi STAFF Telephone 21214 BUSINESS MANAGER LAURANCE J. VAN TUYL 4dvertising....:........Ray Wachter Accounts..........John Ruswinckel Assistants C. T. Antonopulos S. S. Berar G. W. Platt Night Editor-JOHN E. DAVIS -WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 1927 THE BAUMES LAW WORKS 4 It will be hard for the criminal pamperers and calloused reformers to admit the fact, but the Baumes law, stringent New York code making long sentences mandatory for repeating offenders has cut down crime in the state of New York. The persons who say that punishment is not deterrent t to crime were apparently wrong, or at least if punishment is not a deter- rent incarceration is, and the repeat- 'ing offenders in New York are now incarceratede-permanently. The results of the measure are al- most ubelievable for the first year, for while crime throughout the coun- try has showed its usual substantial increase, the number of cases of mur- der, manslaughter, felonious assault, robbery and burglary dropped from 1,765 in 1926 to 1,611 for the corres- ponding quarter in 1927. The number of holdup cases dropped from 284 to 207. When one remembers thaj the law has scarcely taken hold as yet, and that the results over a period of years, during which the repeating offenders will be jailed for life, will no doubt show even more conclusive results than have been demonstrated thus far. Michigan is undoubtedly very for- tunate to have going into effect, on Ajigust 14 of this year, a similar law for our own state. The large portion of crimes committed by men with cri-inal records can in almost al cases be avoided by the smple expe- dient of retaining in prison the habit- ual offenders. Life sentences, what is more, without the prospect of par- don or parole except under unusual circumstances, are not a very enticing prospect for the man who is on the verge of committing his fourth felony. Of course the sob squad which would abolish prisons will point with horror to the men who are caught the fourth time, and on a compara- tively minor offense convicted and automatically sentenced for life. They will mention cases like the New York negro, who was caught sleeping in a vacant hotel room, convicted of breakihg and entering and sent to prison for life because he had com- mitted four felonies. This is truly a pitiable case, and one which should elicit our heartfelt sympathy. The poor man had only -committed three felonies previously, and scarcely de- served a rigid sentence. Neverthe- less it is undoubtedly the elimination of such men that accounted for the encouraging decrease in crime in New York state during the first quar- ter of 1927. If any evidence is necessary that the prospect of relentless punishment is a deterrent to crime, the figures from the operation of the New York state law should furnish that evi- dence. Those who say that the end of justice is to reform the criminal lose sight of more than half of the total end--which should include the protection of society as well. One measure we have neglected in- this state, however, and that is the enactment of capital punishment. Right now in southern Illinois one of the most hardened gangster of the country has been sentenced to the gallows. That will be the end of that gangster. Whether or not the moral conscience of the people of Illinois for ten years. with baumes, an Illinois juries, and the hangman's noose, even the organized forces of crime are likely to tremble in time, and the reformers and pofessional sobbers should be glad, for the in- crease of the jail population will give them more material to work with. PUBLIC SCHOOL HEALTH A PROBLEM Dr. Don M. Griswold's statements concerning the future of communi- cable disease control, made at the Sat- urday meeting of the Health institute, ought to be given serious considera- tion by public school teachers and officials in Michigan. Sending a child home for 24 hours, pending a further examination at the expiration of this period, at the first sign of a cough, fever or sore throat, is practical. It will save many lives by preventing epidemics, and at the same time Till cut down the running expense of an enforced closing. The state no longer considers the per cent of attendance identical with school efficiency. Some of the pro- gressive school men hate caught the practical value of disease prevention methods and it is time the policy of epidemic and disease prevention be- came a part of our educational sys- tem. CAMPUS OPINION Anonymous communications will be disregarded. The names of commua LAnts will, however, be regarded as confidential upon request. To the Editor: After glancing through Mr. May's review of Fanny's First Play as offer- ed by the Rockford Players, I con- clude that Mr. May is: 1. A stockholder in the company. 2. Subject to boquet-throwing complexes. 3. Infautated with Miss Hughes. 4. One of those super-capable "critics" who does not need to see a play in order evaluate it. 5. Inoculated with superlatives and trying to shake them off like a bad cold with just as distressing effects. 6. Seemingly so overcome with the play's superlativeness that he lacks even the ordinary critical adjectives. 7. Possibly violently interested in the Women's League, but why? I am glad he recognizes Shaw's ability as a dramatist, but he should learn to differentiate between the art of the playwright and that of the actor. Miss Kearns, Miss Loomis and Mr. Henderson were as usual very adequate. Mr. Henderson as Duvallet carried off a trying part with verve. He has real ability for varied roles. Rotheir, as Juggins, made the most .of a miserable part. Mr. Edgecombe, as usual, grossly overplayed his part, but he infallibly make a mess of his roles. He is the grimacing hair-tearing type, and was in his element in Pigs, but here-. And as for Miss Hughes, though I can almost understand Mr. May's uncriti- cal infatuation for her, I cannot fully, even with her gold hair. Her por- trayal of Mrs. Knox had no convinc- ing qualities whatever. She should be used pictorially. Mr. May, as a publicity agent, might do well with a one-ring circus, but not one of his phrases of appro- bation (we saw none of opprobrium) is in good standing with reputable critics, and inasmuch as he could easily find them in almost any review (even one from the Daily), it is hard to understand his utter incapability for intelligent criticism. B. A. D Late in May each year the Univer- sity of Wisconsin presents a week- end program for mothers of students who accept the invitation to visit the university. Music N Drama ARISTOCRATIC AND ILL-MATED Elsie Herndon Kearns, who opens tomorrow evening with the Rockford Players in her outstanding dramatic role of the season as Mrs. Tesman in Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler," re- gards this character among the greatest in all the literature of the theatre. "In 'Hedda Gabler,'J' she said, "Ibsen has created a fantastic, neu- rotic and so thoroughly human!- character equal to Shakespeare's LadY Macbeth of Fubert's Madame Bovary. In this thrilling master- piece Ibsen never kept more closely to the bare facts of nature nor re- jected more vigorously the ornaments of romance and rhetoric. There is no poetic symbolism here, no species of blurring mysticism, no white horse, or gnawing things, or monster from the sea. "Believing as I do," she continned, "that nothing in the theatre really matters save dramatic fire, it seems to me that Hedda Gabler offers an incomparable picture of a woman at white-heat. I believe that never has the neurotic 'witch-woman' been so passionately painted. Aristocractic and ill-mated, ambitious and doomed to a repulsive alliance to a stuffy, pedantic man beneath her station, she compels your sympathy while she stands for every bad feminine trait. You feel that given other circum- stances-released from the puffy, middle-class atmosphere of Victorian respectability - Hedda would have been a power for beauty and good." "Hedda Gabler" is regarded as Ib- sen's most dramatic and theatrically effective play, and along with "Ghosts" and "The Doll's House" as his finest work. "His portraits," Miss Kearns continued, "of this unfortu- nate woman "becomes thrillingly vital if we realize that the strains upon it are the impact of accidental con- ditions on a nature which otherwise might have been useful and fleckless. "Hedda Gabler seems to me like a picture painted by Sargent of a lady in the London fashionable world. Ib- sen divines with his brush, as the painter would, the disorder of her nerves, and the ravaging concentra- tion of her will in a sort of barren and importent egotism. He sees her superficial beauty, her decadent ideal- ism, and above all he appreciates the fascination -we all feel for the woman who is conventionally bad and at the same time brilliantly at- tractive." "To present this melodrama," Miss Kearns concluded, "is a tremendous task, but should it prove successful surely it will stand as the real ach- ievement of a season in which every- one. has been so appreciative and cordial. After a series of six come- dies 'Hedda Gabler' should form an outstanding climax." OPERA IN THE POPULAR THEATRE "The King's Henchman," the Ameri- can opera by Deems Taylor and Edna St. Vincent Millay which was pro- duced to such great acclaim at the Metropolitan last season and which will make a comprehensive tour of the United States this winter, is the first opera to be booked for a tour of the regular dramatic theatres of the country. Hitherto, the compara- tively few opera companies that have sung outside of New York and Chi- cago have been heard in concert auditorium, college stadiums, or some such place associated with things apart from the "regular" theatre. "The King's Henchman" however is being booked largely through the reg- ular theatres. This is a fact significant in the history of opera in America, accord- ingto the belief of Jacques Samous-I soud, under whose direction the com- pany will travel, for it indicates an increasingly popular interest in this particular art form. However, it is made possible by another fact even more significant and that one is that "The King's Henchman" is the first opera by an American composer and an American librettist to be placed by the critics on an equal plane with the works of the better known Euro- pean composers. The opera will be sung in English by a company of distinguished artists several of whom are at present, or have been, members of the Metropoli- tan. Every one of these singers is either English or American by birth or has grown from childhood in one of the English speaking countries. I, I'I .. .I SKILLED.REPAIRING While you are here for the summer get a Rider Masterpen You will enjoy it the rest of your life. Made in Ann Arbor Rider's Pen Shop 3I'S tate Street QUICK SERVICE . 11 , " ate'. 3. 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