Read "In the American Jungle" by Waldo David Frank online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Nearly every day you see the statistics in the papers. "Half as many homicides in Erie in an hour, as in England in an era. " "As many assassinations in St. Louis in a second, as in Yucatán in a year. " "More murders in Manhattan in a month, than in Schleswig-Holstein in a century. " From which it is to be inferred that private slaughter is an American activity.
When, moreover, you observe the high consideration accorded to our slayers-a consideration expressed in most cases by letting them alone (and this, in a democracy where such a privilege is almost unheard of! ) or-in the few authenticated instances of capture-by hero worship and adulation, it becomes further clear that we regard the murderer somewhat as Spaniards the matador, as Frenchmen the poet, as Germans the philosopher, as Jews the prophet.