Six More

Last week President Roosevelt signed his name six times to six bills which represented half of Attorney General Cummings' twelve-point program to put public enemies out of circulation.

The new legislation makes it a Federal offense to: 1) send ransom notes or kidnap threats across state lines; 2) kill or assault Federal officers on duty; 3) flee across state lines to avoid prosecution for a felony or testifying in a criminal case. The new laws likewise authorize the death penalty for kidnappers who fail to return their victims unharmed.

The death penalty for kidnappers was regarded as especially important. In future a seven-day disappearance will be presumptive evidence that a kidnap victim has been transported across a state line, thus authorizing Federal agents to enter the case.

But President Roosevelt knew as well as anyone that the easy expedient of piling one new law on top another was not a sure cure for crime. Said he:

''Law enforcement and gangster extermination cannot be made completely effective so long as a substantial part of the public looks with tolerance upon known criminals, permits public officers to be corrupted or intimidated by them or applauds efforts to romanticize crime."

Thus did he rebuke newsreel audiences who lately applauded Desperado John Dillinger on theatre screens in Washington. Chicago and elsewhere. More significant was his promise of additional facilities to the Department of Justice. Demanding 200 more agents and fast cars armed with machine guns, Attorney General Cummings recently said: "If we had been equipped with planes or even fast motor cars . . . John Dillinger would have been captured."

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