TAFT SUGGESTS REMEDIES FOR PRESENT CRIME WAVE

"The worst type of criminal in the United States today is one like George Remus", were the words of C. P. Taft II, in an interview last night with the CRIMSON, after he had spoken to a capacity audience at ford Hall on "Crime and Its Treatment". "He is a murderer, a bootlegger, and in every way a vicious criminal. He should have been electrocuted without any question, and not have been allowed to escape the chair under the plea of insanity".

Asked what he considered possible remedies for the present much-bruited "crime wave", he replied. "The fundamental problem lies in the attitude of the public, the newspapers, and state legislatures. After a vicious and cruel underworld character, like Remus, kills his wife brutally and in cold blood, the man in the street says, 'she got what she deserves'.

"The newspapers themselves must work out some control of their news columns that will prevent them from playing the game of the clever defendant and his unscrupulous associates."

Continuing, he said. "The entire atmosphere of our criminal courts can be changed by our state legislatures. They should not be allowed to throw aside the tools that intelligent and thoughtful men have prepared in the shape of much needed reforms in procedure, as the legislature of Missouri recently did with the Missouri Crime Survey.

"The jury system which won the praise of some of out most eminent ancestors is good, providing that it is not emasculated by the practice and rules of our state courts. The jury panel must come from conscientious citizens, and the first step in any community is to see that the right kind of names go into the jury wheel.

The final and most important step is to restore the right of the judge to control the jury trial and to give the jury the benefit of his advice on the facts. The trial should be by a judge with a jury, and not by a jury before a judge."

"Remus should have been electrocuted, but if his acquittal produces in Ohio and elsewhere a substantial impulse toward better criminal procedure, he will in spite of himself have done something to counterbalance the blow which he placed on the fair name of Cincinnati".