And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
—Rev. 9:6
6154 Suicidology
In the past 20 years, something called suicidology has flourished in the U.S. Many good studies and much bad prose have resulted. Since 1957, for instance, more than 1500 books on suicide have appeared. Suicide seems about to join teenage druggery and air pollution as one of the glum preoccupations of the decade.
6155 Suicide Rates
The World Health Organization furnishes the figures of suicides around the world. A thousand people a day commit suicide, or about 500,000 people a year, with ten times that number attempting it. Hungary has the highest rate with 34.9 per 100,000 population. Czechoslovakia is next with 24.5; Austria follows with 22.2; Sweden with 22; Canada and the United States have 10.9 and 10.7 respectively. The Latin American countries have the lowest, Venezuela has 7.3 and Chile 3.1.
Factors most commonly associated with suicide are bereavement, social isolation, chronic illness, psychotic disturbance, alcoholism and drug-addiction.
—Christian Victory
6156 Suicide Rate Growing
WASHINGTON—Every day an average of 60 Americans choose to take their own lives. Today, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in this country. It ranks third among persons aged 15 to 19 and second among college students. More than 20,000 Americans take their own lives each year. The worldwide figure may exceed 500,000.
6157 Between Sexes: More Attempts
Is suicide attempted by more men than women?
Women attempt suicide much more often than men, but they are less frequently successful. These failures may be largely the result of their choice of less violent and disfiguring methods, which are also less apt to prove fatal. It is an open question whether women choose less effective methods because they are not so determined to die, or because they are more accessible, or perhaps because they involve less violence.
Also, many women who attempt suicide may not be entirely sincere in their purpose; very frequently their suicidal arrangements seemed so planned that rescue is not only possible but even probable. They often call for help in distress.
6158 Between Sexes: Frequency Rates
Is suicide more frequent among men than among women?
Men are much more likely to kill themselves than are women. In the United States, male suicides have usually outnumbered female suicides by more than three to one. The excess of male suicides is found among both the white and colored races and prevails in most countries. At the advanced ages, the sex ratio often rises to about 10 to 1.
6159 Suicides By Occupations
Which occupations are most prone to suicide?
High suicide mortality has been found to occur among physicians and dentists. Rates greatly above the average are also recorded for those engaged in the liquor trade. On the other hand, other professional workers, such as teachers and clergymen, have uniformly very low suicide rates. Skilled workers and agricultural laborers have the lowest rates. A high incidence also appears in the group of unskilled laborers.
6160 Sweden And Suicide
Sweden, like the U.S., has a high standard of living and a highly industrialized society. The small country already has what many American social planners say is their goal for the U.S.
Poverty and unemployment are almost unknown. Medical care is free for all. Government pensions are given from the cradle to the grave. For each child, a Swedish mother is given a grant at birth plus an annual allowance.
Sweden’s “sex freedom” is known the world over. A not-surprising eighty to ninety percent of youth are estimated to have had sex experience before marriage!
Yet Sweden has one of the highest suicide rates in the world—a larger percentage of Swedish women kill themselves than do U.S. women.
Church attendance has dropped, however, to an all-time low. Some say fewer than 10 percent attend regularly. One survey showed only fifty percent of the population believing in God and only twenty-five percent affirming a life after death.
6161 Analyzing The Professions
Atlanta, Georgia (UPI)—A University of Georgia sociologist thinks the depth of social contact on the job and not the work itself is the most important factor in suicides.
Dr. Leonard Linden, project director for several suicide prevention studies at the school’s institute for behavioral research, says, “The difference between various occupations is not as great as was once thought.”
Using national death statistics, Linden is testing a hypothesis that occupations can increase or negate opportunities for “meaningful social communication” and that any opportunity that reduces social contacts greatly increases the chance of suicide.
Curiously enough, Linden says, farmers, once considered as stable and having a rather tranquil life, have a suicide rate 50 percent above the norm.
“I suspect this had resulted from the rural-to-urban migration and disrupted social relationship,” Linden said.
Doctors and lawyers are less prone to suicide because of the constant contact they have with their peers, but the rate for dentists is 50 percent higher than that of physicians, he said.
“Dentists are usually loners and work by themselves,” said Linden. “They are often considered as marginal health practitioners.”
Linden said the depth of the friendship is the key.
“A bus driver may have constant contacts but not have any significant relationship,” said Linden.
Professions with substantially lower-than-normal suicide rates are the clergy (50 to 60 percent) and teachers (20 to 30 percent), he said.
6162 An Alternative To Suicide?
A healthy man who wants to kill himself and a sick one who wants to live but is doomed for lack of a vital organ appear to have little in common. But Psychiatrist Paul H. Blachly of the University of Oregon Medical School believes that they have something to offer each other. He advocates a “symbiotic juxtaposition” of the two—bringing them together.
Psychiatrist Blachly suggests that the suicidal person who wants to destroy his whole body may find an alternative in sacrificing just part of it. When Eisenhower was suffering repeated heart attacks, Blachly recalls, at least 20 people offered him their hearts; such offers frequently come from people who are looking for a way to die. But that death wish might be purged, he reasons, if the donor gives an organ that is not essential to his own life. People who donate a kidney, Blachly notes, often experience “a sustained feeling of satisfaction and of being noble,” and their personal relationships frequently become more satisfying.
To put his theory into practice, Blachly proposes an alliance between organ transplant centers and some of the many suicide-prevention services that are now in existence.
SUICIDE ACCOUNTS
6163 Due To License Loss
“Without a driver’s license I don’t have my car, job, or social life. So I think that it is better to end it all right now.” A seventeen-year-old boy from Waukesha, Wisconsin, wrote the above note after losing his license; then he fired a bullet through his head.
6164 No Encouragement In 30 Years
One New Year’s Day a millionaire of my acquaintance, whose pride it was never to offer a tip for any service, faced an unforgettable tragedy. His chief accountant committed suicide. The books were found to be in perfect order, the affairs of the dead man—a modest bachelor—were prosperous and calm. The only letter left by the accountant was a brief note to his millionaire employer. It read: “In 30 years I have never had one word of encouragement. I’m fed up.”
—Gospel Herald
6165 Lonely Husband Killed By Parrot
According to an inquest held in London, 65-year-old Stanley Riddell took his own life by a drug overdose because of the constant harping on the past by a small Australian parrot.
Riddell was a lonely man following the death of his wife a year earlier, and the parrot’s constant repetition of expressions she had taught it was too much for him to bear.
6166 Not Enough Funerals
In the old city of Arris in France, there were not enough funerals. So the undertaker committed suicide. He explained with that famous French logic: “I cannot kill people to make funerals. So I will kill myself. There will be at least one funeral.”
6167 Her Age Discovered
She was known as “the Great Anne in the fashion world.” Yet she came to a tragic suicide. She was found with her wrists slashed in her Paris hotel, because the terrible truth came out.
Ann-Lisa Cameron was a top Paris fashion model who barely looked the thirty years she claimed to be. But the frontier officials on her trip to Germany discovered her to be forty years. Two days later the divulged truth drove her to self-destruction.
6168 He Preferred Own Timing
“I cannot, because of disease, continue to hide from myself that I live on a day-to-day basis, waiting for death. I prefer to call on death myself at the right time.” So wrote Jaime Torres Bodet in a suicide note. Bodet, diplomat and educationist, headed the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization from 1948 to 1952. He was the author of 33 books, including 15 collections of poetry, 6 novels, 7 collections of essays, and the first 5 volumes of his memoirs.
6169 A Millionaire’s End
Robert Young, board chairman of the great New York Central Railroad and an important voice in several other roads, was considered the most powerful and most debated railroad tycoon of his day. Young drank deeply of the draughts of life under the sun. Time says, “Bob Young had collected all the prizes of a champion battler—wealth, power, glittering friends (the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, et al. ), palatial homes in Palm Beach and Newport.” Yet this 60-year-old millionaire magnate, as he beheld his power on the decline, committed suicide.
6170 Purposely Leaving No Notes
After the death of Marilyn Monroe, Japan’s Nobel-prize-winning novelist Kawabata said: “If it was a case of suicide, then it was better to see no notes left behind. A silent death is an endless word.” When Kawabata, at 72, took his own life last month, that observation of decades ago became his own epitaph: he left no notes.
6171 Diana Churchill’s Suicide
London (UPI)—A coroner found that Mrs. Diana Churchill, eldest daughter of Sir Winston, who had devoted herself to helping persons with suicidal tendencies, killed herself by taking an overdose of barbiturates.
The body of Mrs. Churchill, 54, who used her maiden name after her divorce from Commonwealth Relations Secretary Duncan Sandys in 1960, was found in her apartment in the Westminster district of London Sunday.
Mrs. Churchill had been working with a group called the Samaritans which helps persons who have attempted suicide.
6172 TV Viewers Were Startled
Sarasota, Florida (AP)—Television talk-show host Chris Chubbuck wrote her own death script and carried it out by putting a gun to her head and pulling the trigger as viewers watched. The 29-year-old anchorwoman died in a hospital 14 hours later.
Her handwritten, blood-spattered newscript read, “Today Chris Chubbuck shot herself during a live broadcast.” The story she had scrawled in longhand was found on the desk where she sat Monday and calmly announced to viewers what she said was a television first:
“In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts and in living color you are going to see another first—attempted suicide.”
Then, within seconds, she reached into a shopping bag behind her desk, pulled out a . 38 caliber revolver, fired a single shot and slumped forward.
Following the incident, the Sarasota sheriff’s office and station WXLT were swamped with calls from viewers who could not believe the shooting had been real and asked if it was some sort of prank.
6173 Just Tired Of Living
A New York newspaper gave this short story: “The body of a man about seventy-years old was recovered from the Spuyten Duyvil Creek yesterday. Police found this note: “I’m Joe Barnes. No record. No relatives. No friends. No permanent address. Just tired of living.”” It is the sad obituary of a man overcomed by boredom.
—Ray O. Jones
6174 No Daughter, No Wife
I read the account of a young man who had shot and killed himself in a phone booth. The police officers, seeking to establish his identity, found a worn-out but neatly-folded piece of paper in his pocket. It said, “Please leave on my person. I want it buried with me.” When they opened it, they saw a crayon drawing made by a small child. Beneath it was printed the name SHIRLEY LEE.
The authorities learned later that the dead man was James Lee, and that his little daughter had been fatally burned 5 months earlier in a fire. And the girl’s mother had died just 2 years before that. Apparently this father was so lonely and brokenhearted that he decided to take his own life.
—Our Daily Bread
6175 10-Year-Old Twins Try Suicide
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (UPI)—”We committed suicide because we are no good and no longer a part of the family. So, so long from (US) … Sorry about this.”
The mother of those 10-year-old twins returned home from work to find this note and discover one of the boys had a knife protruding from his stomach.
He and his brother also had eaten rat poison pellets and inhaled fumes from an aerosol can.
That was last Friday. The boys are expected to return home from the hospital Wednesday.
They said they tried to commit suicide because their father scolded them and told them to write 600 times, “Stealing and lying are two commandments that should not be broken.”
Police said no charges will be filed.
Doctors were able to remove the poison from the boys’ stomachs and the knife wound turned out to be only superficial.
6176 Sad, Old Couple
Monterey Park, California (UPI)—For 20 years, Charles and Carolena Hovenden coped with poverty and pain.
Mrs. Hovenden, 68, was bedridden with multiple sclerosis, paralyzed from the neck down. Her husband, 69, developed cancer and was confined to a wheelchair. They lived on social security and medicare payments and worried about their medical bills.
Two nurses who visited them regularly found handwritten notes taped to the front and back doors Tuesday: “Do not enter. Call police.”
Inside, police found Mrs. Flovenden dead, shot through the head. Slumped in his wheelchair beside her bed was the body of her husband, a bullet in his head and gun by his side.
“It was a sad thing,” an investigator said. “They suffered a lot through the years.”
6177 Theologians’ Death Pact
A suicide note and overdoses of sleeping pills preceded the deaths of the noted Protestant theologian Henry Pitney Van Dusen, 77, and his wife, 80.
A New York Times report said they were members of the Euthanasia Society and had talked of suicide with family and friends. Both were in failing health. Van Dusen, a Presbyterian, was president of Union Seminary in New York from 1944 until 1963. He took a leading role in ecumenical affairs and was one of the architects of the World Council of Churches.
The Times dispatch by religion writer Kenneth A. Briggs said the Van Dusens left behind a statement saying there were many old people who would die of natural causes if not kept alive medically and expressing the resolve not to “die in a nursing home.” The statement ended with a prayer: “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us … Grant us Thy peace.”
—Christianity Today
6178 The $100,000 Suicide
No suicide ever had more drama and suspense, was witnessed by more persons and created more commotion and inconvenience than that of John Warde who leaped from the 17th-story ledge of a Fifth Avenue hotel in New York on the night of July 26, 1938. During the 11 hours he stood there deciding whether to jump, relatives and others tried to entice the demented man back into his room and firemen attempted to trap him with a large net. Extra squads of police held back the vast crowd of spectators, while scores of press photographers, newsreel men and radio and television commentators covered the one-man show, all of which cost the city and these news service about $100,000.
—Selected
6179 How About You?
The newspaper told the story of a lovely, young secretary in London, England, who climbed out on a window ledge eighteen floors above the ground. Fear was written across her face as she threatened to jump to her death. A young minister was able to lean from the window and carry on a conversation with the secretary. She sobbed about her unhappy life and her feeling of despair. The minister spoke quitely to her as he tried to assure her that life is worth living. For one hour—sixty golden minutes—he sought to keep her from jumping. Then the young woman said, “It’s no use. Life just isn’t worth living.” She jumped to her death.
Suppose you had the opportunity to speak for one hour to a human being under those same circumstances. What could you say from your own heart and out of your own experience which could convince him that life is worth living?
—Gospel Herald
6180 Japanese Kamikazes
Sensing that Japanese planes and pilots were both inferior to the U.S. forces and that there was but one chance of success, Vice-Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi, commander of Japanese naval forces in the Philippines, concluded that his only method would be to crash-dive bomb-laden Zero fighters on the (U.S.) carrier decks. And so, some 4,000 aviators deliberately crash-dived their planes into American ships as the war in the Pacific closed in on their homeland. These suicide squads came to be called the “Kamikaze fliers.”
6181 To The Middle Of Bridge
Dave Garroway, famous host of the NBC-TV show “Today,” told me this story:
One day the show was scheduled to emanate from the center of the George Washington Bridge, astride the Hudson River. That morning the show’s producer woke up late. Realizing that the TV mobile unit was already on the bridge, he hastily slipped a coat over his pajamas, ran to the street and hailed a cab.
“Take me to the George Washington Bridge,” he said, hopping in.
“Jersey side or New York side?” asked the cabby.
“No, no! I want the middle of the bridge!” cried the producer.
The cabby gave his wild-eyed fare a hard look, unlatched the door and said, “No you don’t, mister. Not in my cab!”
—Frank P. Thomas
See also: Deaths ; Murder ; Violent Times ; Luke 23:30: Rev. 6:16.