The war has gone on for more than four years now, with its incessant news of legalized wholesale slaughter. These repeated shocks of horror eventually numb the mind. . . . Murder at retail, however . . . is something else again. Anybody can comprehend a crime of passion or cupidity or both, and most people are fascinated. . . . We don't see what anybody can do about it. Or should.
This was the explanation offered editorially by New York's Daily News for a nationwide phenomenon that mushroomed in the U.S. press last...