THE NEW REPUBLIC

It is quite possible that in the person of William R. George, the father of the George Junior Republic, the man has arrived who can demonstrate to America that her present system of prisons and punitive treatment of criminals is founded upon a psychological misconception. To anyone who heard Mr. George's talk last Saturday evening it must have been immediately evident that even though his amazing theories could not at once be put into general practise, he was making a seriously threatening attack, figuratively speaking, upon the unyielding concrete walls of Sing-Sing and Dannemora. It is true that the idea of regarding offenders against the laws of the land as social invalids is not absolutely new; but Mr. George appears so far to be the only idealist in his line who has had the necessary common sense and experience to reduce his theory to a practicable form. And the convincing thing about it is that where it has been tried, it works.

Briefly, Mr. George's theory seems to be one of developing social responsibility. A thief may steal from an honest property-holder without a second thought, but when all the thieves form a little community of wage-earners within Mr. George's series of enclosures, the point of view changes with surprising swiftness. The enterprising burglar degenerates into the commonplace crook, and the newcomer's statement of "Ladies and gentlemen. I have come to live with you; I am a pick-pocket!" is received with coolness, not to say suspicion.

Mr. George's proposed treatment of capital offenders thoroughly proves that his theories, as he himself has said, are neither mushy nor maudlin. In segregating them for the term of their natural lives, he eliminates all possibility of pardon or ultimate release. It might be urged that a murderer might very well reform with the passage of time, but in the general run of cases, the risk to the rest of the population which a premature release or an error in judgment would entail, seems to justify at least permanent confinement--where the present penalty is usually death.