The October 1, 2014 issue had an editorial that wondered if anything could be done to prevent people from jumping off the Victory Bridge. There are a couple of faults with this editorial. First, it only applies to these public suicides. Most suicides take place in private, the phrase “died at home” is a euphemism for suicides. A fence on any bridge does nothing here. An economic depression often results in more suicides, even if this is censored in the press. The suicides and murders during the great depression of the 1890s were documented in the book “Wisconsin Death Trip” over forty years ago. Did “bullying” cause the death of a student? What were the failures at his school? Can they be corrected? An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure.

I remember some rule in Classical Logic that warns against going from the particular to the general. In modern times there is the concept of “cost effectiveness”. But this requires knowledge and rationality that won’t fit into a newspaper headline. There are always limits and trade-offs for any action. In particular, that fence along New Brunswick Ave. was put up about forty years ago (?) to prevent teenagers from throwing rocks and bottles to the highway below. There is no such fence on the Route 184 bridge over Route 9, or other bridges over highways, such as the Route 35 bridge over the Fayette St. bypass.

I believe the way to prevent suicides in a “Great Recession” (another euphemism) is to create another Works Progress Administration for the long-term unemployed. Raising the Federal Tax Exemption to $6,000, the Federal Tax Deduction to $30,000, and the minimum wage to $15 an hour (these amounts are ten times the 1968 values) will create the prosperity that has been lacking for many years. The NJ Tax Exemption should also be raised to $6,000 as it hasn’t been increased over the past forty years, unlike the sales and property taxes. Remember the prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s? Then the top Federal income tax rate was 70% and there were tariffs on imports.

Ronald A. Sobieraj

Editor’s Reply: I think you need to read my editorial again more carefully. The title and what’s under the title are part of what you said in your reply. C.M.