Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-11-28
SOME DAMAGING LOGIC

It is inconceiyable how any one having
the honor of Sacramento at heart, can
draw comfort or take pride in such illogi-
cal statements as these clipped from the
same article in our evening contempory:
There is not more orderly, a more respect
able, more decen: city anywhere than this
same city of Sacramento. No city any
where has a more conservative, l1to-q5iaiag,
more peaeeable and quiet population There is
city of its size in the United States that needs
40 little police protection"
Now let us read with deliberation from
the same column, these words;
Before gambling was licensed. the gambling
dens of this city nightly lured to their deathly
embrace, etc, etc. After the curse was licensed
the faro games were diminished by six. The
bookkeepers. clerks and statesmen who had
been wont to visit the dens went no longer.
The places were open to all"
That is to say, in this same well-gov-
erned city of la,p-a5i9ioq people needing
so little police protection, this same police
force during successive administrations
have been unable TO force open the doors
of gambling rooms and enforce the State
laws, but under license system based on
an admitted illegal ordinance, this same
police force is able to make the managers
OF games keep the doors wide open
That is to say, again: This same we'll
governed city, needing so little police pro-
lection, has been unable to select police
force the gamesters could not corrupt and
have not corrupted, and hence the only
scheme by which the police can be made
honest, is for the city Itself to take the
blood-money formerly used to hush the
officers.
That IS the simple logicof the statements,
iftrue, and it will suggest the thought that
no city needs so much real police protec-
ton as Sacramento, since the very purpose
of police force is to enforce observance of
the laws whereas we now have ii openly
charged that the Sacramento police have
been constantly engaged in defeating them,
and our authorities have been wholly I'M
able to prevent it.
But there IS other testimony to be cited
His Honor the Mayor on Tuesday was re-
ported as saying:
The attempt to stop gambling had failed
Gambling had not only been carried on in the
pest. but It had even debauched the city gov
eminent itself Under the license system, there
is far less gambling than there used 20 be. and
it is conducted more fairly and more honesty
Gamblers had told him that they would starye
TO death if it were not that they were saved the
expense of paying blackmail to officers and
giving high salaries TO look-outs There was
not q better conducted more orderly, a more
intelligent city. or one with a higher moral
sense than the city of Sacramento, etc. It was
run by the respectable, conservative. practical,
thoughtful element Of society. 1t might have
been run in the interest Of the lower elements
before gambling had been licensed, when the
atty officials were debauched," etc.
Now once for all let there be no crimi-
nations regarding the character Of this
people, or their high moral sense; or con
corning friendship for the city, or as to
who is it's truest friend The RECORD
UNION mas rs ttNottN attachment 10 ana
As lofty pride in the city as any can have,
and will be party to no Iibels upon it.
But its pretended friends have presented
us premises in syllogism from which, we
submit, there is but one conclusion. As
Stunning the premises to be true, We repeat,
The conclusion is irresistible that the
friend. of the license system confess that
from out the $4,000 people in this city it
is impossible to select eight men whom
gamblers cannot debanch with money;
that it is impossible in this idto-abiding
respectable community to elect Mayor,
Police Judge and Chief of Police to consti-
tute Board of Police Commissioners who
are capable Of selecting eight officers to be
subject to them, who are proof against
corruption by gamblers, and whom they
cannot convict Of accepting brides. Either
this or the Commissioners, by the force
of the logic of their presiding officer, con-
fess themselves as among those who have
been debauehed, conclusion that gentle
man, or those who know him, would not