THE LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING

Evening Star, Issue 21079, 16 April 1932, Page 6

THE LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING

BRITISH PLACE BLAME [From Ode Own Correspondent.] ’ SAN FRANCISCO, March 16; On© pleasurable circumstance connected with the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby was the fact that it swept the Chinese-Japanese conflict almost entirely out of the American newspapers. Day after day American readers had been regaled with the most sanguihary' accounts of terrific battles waged by the Orientals. Myriads of Japanese' and Chinese bit the dust daily; cities were blown to small atoms, and forts were levelled almost every hour. Yet both combatants continued to fight desperately, and the strangest feature was that the Japanese, in issuing a communique, would admit that they had suffered the great loss of 117 soldiers and several wounded.- * Naturally the Japanese accounts of tha Chinese losses were greatly higher than the Chinese War Office gave out. The Chinese admitted 4,000 dead > and wounded, which appeared to be very small compared with the bloody stories furnished by radio by imaginative Arnerican writers watching the fight front the very ringside. Suddenly the Lindbergh baby disappeared, and in a twinkling the columns of the average American newspaper; were transformed into miles of wordage’ of the Hopewell, Jew Jersey, denouement. Scores of special editions of; newspapers were flung on the streets and raucous newsboys cried their wares,; generally with no news of consequence,mainly rumours dressed up in flowery verbiage. The Chinese-Japanese imbroglio was almost forgotten, and one had to scan the inside pages of the newspaper to learn that the conflict was still in progress. In Congress efforts were made to have kidnapping treated , as a crime punishable by a death penally, and it was mentioned by one legislator that 284 cases of kidnapping had r occurred in the United States duringthe past twelve months, with thirteen deaths. No mention was made as to whether there would be a hue and cry over these cases, attention being _ focussed almost exclusively on the Lindbergh occurrence. Comparisons were made showing that Britain stood in a much better position nationally in respect to the crime oq kidnapping, where the offence was almost unknown, and an excerpt cabled from London from 1 The Economist. J the important British financial journaL said the kidnapping of young Lindbergh was a result of American business policy. ; “ The inability of the police to find the slightest trace of the missing child, it said, “ the appeals by Colonel Lindbergh underworld and his de* spairing recourse to the services of twa' well-known gangsters as potential intermediaries in the negotiations wita undisclosed leaders of the supposed kidnapping racket—the whole extraordinary chronicle is a curiously revealing commentary on one angle of social life in the United States. “ American ‘ big business,’ individualist by strong inclination and. disposition, has stood consistently fofl weak and compliant administration. A! nation-wide organisation of rackets is the price which the public - is now paying for that policy. From the doctrines of ‘ 100 per cent; pure ’ American’ capitalism, on. the basis of unrestricted private enterprise, it is no very long step to A 1 Capone.” The enterprise of the average newsboy was aptly illustrated in San Francisco when the writer was returning home in a _ tram car one evening. Breezing through tha car came a sturdy youth of some seventeen years carrying an armful of the latest issues of the early edition of the following morning’s newspaper.. “ Here you are,” he yelled to the passengers. “Battle, murder, suicide,and kidnapping. All for a nickel.” Despite his picturesque language he had no buyers, everyone apparently being tired of the case.