💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › alexander-berkman-the-average-american.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 19:53:23. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: The Average American
Author: Alexander Berkman
Date: c. 1935?
Language: en
Topics: United States, crime, organized crime
Source: Online source http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=1243, retrieved on November 17, 2020.

Alexander Berkman

The Average American

The general conception of the “type” American is in Europe picturesque

and niave at the same time. In France as in Germany, in the Northern as

in the Southern countries, in fact throughout the European Continent,

with the exception of England perhaps, the opinion of the man in the

street about America and Americans is primitive and inadequate. First of

all, the name “an American” immediately suggests riches, wealth. It is

almost as if American and rich man are synonyms, at least in the view of

the average European who has never been in the United States and who

seldom comes in direct contact with Americans in Europe.

In the mind of most people the American is pictured as something very

much different from the general run of men. He is very efficient, of

course, does things on a large scale, throws away his money and gains it

as easily, is generous and yet a good bargainer and sharp in business

affairs. On the whole he is a daring individual, even reckless, in short

a man from whom unexpected things should always be expected, a person

even somewhat irresponsible, especially in his behavior outside of his

own country.

Naturally, the American films, which are so popular in Europe, have to a

great extent helped to develop and cultivate the exaggerated and

picturesque notions of “the American”. The younger European generation

immediately visualizes the Western cowboy, with guns in both hands,

riding wildly and shooting up the nearest town after the round-up of his

cattle. American Prohibition developments, with its rum-running

adventures, sinking of ships carrying the forbidden liquor, and

particularly the racketeering “business” and the wholesale killings and

murders by official and unofficial “shooters” have greatly strengthened

the traditional European conception of “the American”. Mention the

subject of America to the average European and he immediately thinks of

Al Capone and similar chieftains of open crime and killings en gros.

It is of course true that there is more crime, proportionately and

absolutely, in the United States than anywhere else. Yet it is equally

true that the average American is very far from the European conception

about him. As a matter of fact, the notorious murders and racketeering

in America have very little relation to the average American and to the

great masses of the population. Moreover, there is really no such a type

as the average American.

The increase of open crime in America, directly traceable to

Prohibition, is by no means due to any special and strange

characteristics of the genus American. It is, on the contrary, due

entirely to certain special conditions created by country-wide

Prohibition in a land that at heart does not believe in Prohibition as a

moral issue and does not want it. Under similar conditions — when an

entire country is forced by an unpopular law to change its habitual mode

of life, to deprive itself of the things and pleasures it is used to

have — every country would show the same results that we see in America

today. In the past this has happened in various parts of the world,

among people of the most diverse character and nature. Past history

gives enough proof of it, and in recent history there are also enough

manifestations of this general, universal human trait. A most natural

trait, of course, and socially considered a very justifiable and

admirable evidence of moral strength and worth. There is neither reason

nor purpose in forcing people by law to change their mode of life. If

the desired change is for the better, only enlightenment and education

can bring about a real and permanent change. Forcing a change by the

threat of the law and punishment only results in the greatest harm. It

fails to convince or persuade the people, it only compels them. Being

compelled, they seek to avoid the consequences of open defiance: they do

in secret what they are prohibited from doing openly. They become

hypocrites, they lie and cheat; this often involves worse consequences

than the original disobedience, and the result is more crime and of a

more serious character. That is why the number of killings and murders

have so alarmingly increased in the United States since the Prohibition

law went into effect.

To the European it may seem as if the rampant crime in America is

characteristic of the American make-up and nature. As a matter of fact

it is characteristic only of the special condition resulting from

country-wide Prohibition. Nor is it the American people as a whole that

are involved in the so-called “crime wave”, as strikingly illustrtated

by such cities as Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and similar big

centers. The people as a whole, the “average” American, is in no way

directly concerned in those crimes, and he is interested in the matter

only so far as any average person in Europe would be interested in it;

namely, to the extent that it threatens his person or his property. It

is again special social groups that are directly concerned in the whole

Prohibition and crime situation in America.

I have said that there is no “average” American. That is due to the

circumstance that the people of the United States differ from each as

widely as the parts they live in. The New Yorker is a different specimen

of man from the Westerner; the latter is entirely different again from

the people of Texas. The Middle West, such States for instance as

Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska or Iowa, have an entirely different

psychology from that of Florida or Lower California. Their habits of

life, their modes of thought, even their language is different. Still

further, it must also be considered that millions of foreigners and

descendants of foreign born people live in the United States and are

part of the entire population that is known as “American”. Add to this

more than 10 million negroes, not to mention the score of different

Indian (red-skin) tribes, who are the real, indigenous Americans. In

this conglomeration of races it is impossible to speak of the “average”

American, nor can any adequate estimate of American psychology be made

on such a basis.

In the over 100 millions of the population in the United States there is

indeed a certain “type” that is directly involved in all the evils,

vises and crimes, including wholesale murder, that have come as a result

of Prohibition. This type is neither a social class with its particular

and antagonistic interests, nor even any social group. The type is

composed of members of different social strata, even of different

intellectual and moral character and attitude. But they all have one

particular interest in common: to make money, often great fortunes, by

helping the people to break the Prohibition laws. This type has become a

great powerful trust that rules the country with a power that defies the

power of the United Stated Government. It can easily and quite safely

defy it, for the simple reason that in that trust belong some of the

powerful and influential officials of the Government itself, of the

State Governments as well as of the Federal Government.

I am often asked how it happens that such men as Al Capone and his

well-known lieutenants, whose crimes are committed in the open and

almost daily, remain safe from arrest. Even racketeers of lesser

prominence are seldom arrested and never sent to prison. An ordinary

murderer is quickly electrocuted in America — my questioners remark, and

even innocent men, like Sacco and Vanzetti, when once arrested and

convicted, cannot be saved from the hangman in America. How does it

happen, then — my European friends ask — that such undisguised murderers

as Al Capone are not touched?

They are right in asking such a question. To the outsider, unfamiliar

with the American Prohibition situation, the present conditions in the

United States seem indeed incredible and impossible to explain or

understand. But the answer is: the all-powerful racketeer TRUST. Al

Capone has not only his army of helpers, who are from the professional

criminal ranks, but his chief aids are judges, high police officials,

prosecuting attorneys and members of the highest State courts. The

police will not arrest him or any of his important “gun-men”, because Al

Capone pays them tribute with sums that run into the thousands of

dollars. At his service are judges who will liberate the Trust gangsters

if they happen to be arrested, and if the popular outcry is too strong

and the gangster must be tried, he will in most cases be acquitted by

the “influence” of his chief Capone. It may be said now without

exaggeration that for the last decade especially the United States is

ruled, officially and unofficially, by men who are the staunchest

upholders of Prohibition in public, but who “in their private” capacity

are the mainstay of the racketeer Trust for the millions of money that

is “in it”. General business may suffer as a result of the worst

depression America has experienced in the past 50 years, but the

Racketeer Trust is prospering. Indeed, it is growing larger and entering

new fields, for today the Trust is not satisfied to draw profits from

liquor only. It has branched out and is now beginning to control various

other industries. But that is another story of which I may write some

other time.