Article May 1, 1915 Issue

The Tribune expresses no opinion on the eugenics measure...

The Chicago (Ill.) Tribune

The Tribune expresses no opinion on the eugenics measure endorsed by the city council, for the reason that the Tribune does not know any more about the ultimate desirability of such a law than do the members of the city council, the committees before whom the law will be discussed, the members of either branch of the legislature, the governor who will be asked to sign it, or the judges and juries before whom violators will be taken for sentence.

This measure is typical of many of the growing number of criminal statutes. It is a law proposed for the governance of the whole people, and undoubtedly is meant for the benefit of the whole people, but it is be put on the statute-books by a small minority of the people. Perhaps the most significant development of our government is that laws are not made by the people or by the representatives of the people, but by small cliques tremendously energized over particular questions. These cliques are determined to force their views on such questions upon multitude, oblivious of the fact that other cliques are engaged in forcing views on other questions upon them.

The number of new ways of getting a man into jail is startling, and the question does not seem to be asked whether the offenses against the community are half as bad as the penalties imposed. There seems to be a positive mania to find new ways of imprisoning American citizens, and yet there is hardly any one thing that can be as bad for the individual or the nation as a man in jail who can possibly be kept out.

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