DON’T KICK OVER THE BEEHIVE

On May 7, 1931, the most sensational manhunt New

York City had ever known had come to its climax. After

weeks of search, “Two Gun” Crowley - the killer, the

gunman who didn’t smoke or drink - was at bay, trapped

in his sweetheart’s apartment on West End Avenue.

One hundred and fifty policemen and detectives laid

siege to his top-floor hideway. They chopped holes in

the roof; they tried to smoke out Crowley, the “cop

killer,” with teargas. Then they mounted their machine

guns on surrounding buildings, and for more than an

hour one of New York’s fine residential areas reverberated

with the crack of pistol fire and the rut-tat-tat of

machine guns. Crowley, crouching behind an overstuffed

chair, fired incessantly at the police. Ten thousand

excited people watched the battle. Nothing like it

ever been seen before on the sidewalks of New

York.

When Crowley was captured, Police Commissioner

E. P. Mulrooney declared that the two-gun desperado

was one of the most dangerous criminals ever encountered

in the history of New York. “He will kill,” said the

Commissioner, “at the drop of a feather.”

But how did “Two Gun” Crowley regard himself? We

know, because while the police were firing into his

apartment, he wrote a letter addressed “To whom it may

concern, ” And, as he wrote, the blood flowing from his

wounds left a crimson trail on the paper. In this letter

Crowley said: “Under my coat is a weary heart, but a

kind one - one that would do nobody any harm.”

A short time before this, Crowley had been having a

necking party with his girl friend on a country road out

on Long Island. Suddenly a policeman walked up to the

car and said: “Let me see your license.”

Without saying a word, Crowley drew his gun and cut

the policeman down with a shower of lead. As the dying

officer fell, Crowley leaped out of the car, grabbed the

officer’s revolver, and fired another bullet into the prostrate

body. And that was the killer who said: “Under my

coat is a weary heart, but a kind one - one that would do

nobody any harm.’

Crowley was sentenced to the electric chair. When he

arrived at the death house in Sing Sing, did he say, “This

is what I get for killing people”? No, he said: “This is

what I get for defending myself.”

The point of the story is this: “Two Gun” Crowley

didn’t blame himself for anything.

Is that an unusual attitude among criminals? If you

think so, listen to this:

“I have spent the best years of my life giving people

the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time,

and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.”

That’s Al Capone speaking. Yes, America’s most notorious

Public Enemy- the most sinister gang leader who

ever shot up Chicago. Capone didn’t condemn himself.

He actually regarded himself as a public benefactor - an

unappreciated and misunderstood public benefactor.

And so did Dutch Schultz before he crumpled up

under gangster bullets in Newark. Dutch Schultz, one of

New York’s most notorious rats, said in a newspaper interview

that he was a public benefactor. And he believed

it.

I have had some interesting correspondence with

Lewis Lawes, who was warden of New York’s infamous

Sing Sing prison for many years, on this subject, and he

declared that “few of the criminals in Sing Sing regard

themselves as bad men. They are just as human as you

and I. So they rationalize, they explain. They can tell

you why they had to crack a safe or be quick on the

trigger finger. Most of them attempt by a form of reasoning,

fallacious or logical, to justify their antisocial acts

even to themselves, consequently stoutly maintaining

that they should never have been imprisoned at all.”

If Al Capone, “Two Gun” Crowley, Dutch Schultz,

and the desperate men and women behind prison walls

don’t blame themselves for anything - what about the

people with whom you and I come in contact?

John Wanamaker, founder of the stores that bear his

name, once confessed: “I learned thirty years ago that it

is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my

own limitations without fretting over the fact that God

has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence.”

Wanamaker learned this lesson early, but I personally

had to blunder through this old world for a third of a

century before it even began to dawn upon me that

ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don’t criticize

themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it

may be.

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive

and usually makes him strive to justify himself.

Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s

precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and

arouses resentment.

B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved

through his experiments that an animal rewarded for

good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain

what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished

for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that

the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not

make lasting changes and often incur resentment.

Hans Selye, another great psychologist, said, “As

much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation,”

The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize

employees, family members and friends, and still

not correct the situation that has been condemned.