Some men say that immigration is largely responsible for the criminality of to-day. That there is some truth in this statement we have no doubt whatever. But to hold immigrants responsible for the criminality of this age is unfair and uncharitable. That some parts of Europe send people to this country who are expert criminals and others full of criminal instincts, is true in part. That people without means and employment drift to the United States from every land and when in want naturally attack property under the spur of necessity, coupled, of course, with low ethical standards and lacking a sense of moral obligation, and perhaps possessing weak resistive powers, is also true. Often persons are driven to crime by motives generated in a vicious nature, and as they are too weak to resist they soon lose their liberty, and society to protect itself simply places them behind the bars. Criminality is simply the darkened side of a reckless, sinful life, showing itself in deeds of wickedness and rebellion against God and man. Any one with such an impulse will dare to commit the most atrocious crime on record and will not think of the consequences! The small army of boys that are committed to prison in this city every year between the ages of sixteen and twenty, for every crime on the calendar, shows the trend of the rising generation toward delinquency. In these figures we leave out of consideration several thousands of boys and girls who are disposed of by the city magistrates, many of whom are sent to the Reform School, Juvenile Asylum and the House of Refuge, while others are discharged on suspended sentences, with a warning to keep out of bad company. I believe the first and foremost cause of crime in our large cities, as I have intimated, as well as the degradation of the poor man’s home, is the American saloon. Nor will there be any material decrease in the volume of crime till the power of the saloon has been crushed. Our stupid, thick-skulled, short-sighted reformers and state legislators forget that the soul-dishonoring and God-defying gin mill is the great crime generator of the twentieth century. The one primary cause of crime to-day is alcohol, and as a well-known authority says: “The decrease in the use of alcoholic drink must ever remain the great aim of anti-criminal legislation as well as of future moral and social reform.” A mass of absolutely correct statistics could be given in support of this statement, if necessary.