Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1886-08-06
HOME OPINION.
Sioux City's Last Murder Made the
Subject of straightforward Com
ment hy n lOcaI Paner.

Sioux City's Last Murder Made the
Subject of straightforward Com
ment by a Local Paper.
Sioux City Journal, 9Th: Nothing has
ever come with such shock to the moral
sense of Sioux City as the cruel assss.
sination of Rev. George @. Haddock. 1t
was a cowardly murder. He was shot
IN stealth in the dark and rain of night,
He may have anticipated that he was in
danger of personal violence, as he had
cause to, but be was proud of his
strength and fearless of has life, and so
much a man that it evidently had not
occurred to him hat passion and cow
ardice could SO combine as in this
wretched instance. MIR. Raddock came
to Sioux City less than a yei.r ago, APP
pointed by his conference to the charge
of the First Methodist church here, and
he had lived a quiet and inotfensive
life. Until within a few weeks he
probably was not known by name in the
saloons of the city, but under a convic-
ton of personal duty he entered into
the work of enforcing the prohi-
bitory liquor law in Sioux City
and he became at once the con-
spicuoue object OF ribaldry and wrath.
Ii was said when the first Injunction
cases started that 1t was a shame tie
prosecution had to be instituted by non
residents, and saloon sy~mpathizers we're
forward In this view; and 1t is true thai
Mr.. Haddock himself felt q good deal
this way about it, ana that when he
came to know that there had been q get
ting behind the names of women of Sar-
geant Bintis liz resolved to be u Sioux
City man to dare to stand forth in his
own person in behalf of his principles as
a prohlbitIonIst and his right as a law
abiding and God fearing citizen of Iowa.
That was manly upon his part, and his
manhood should have been respected.
But forthwith he was a man marked for
isasult and indignlty. This in the court
rossm, Ia the press and upon the street.
The. objection of outside inter-
ference with the rum traffic of
Sioux City, was an objection based, it
would seem, only upon apprehension
that q man here who could be reached
would not dere. 1t is hard to write in
the presence O.. such a crime dispass-
ionately, and The journal would not
knowingly wrong py SO much as remote
suggestion any mani, Bnt the impressive
fact is that but for the, open and defiant
saloon in Sioux City the black handed
murder of this man wGnld not have
been. The reliance of tie saloon for
immunity from the operation OF the law
| has been upon intimidation, and the
wre9ched fruit of that teaching. seething
up from the saloon, nurtured by public
officers, promoted by business men in
their mad race for dollars, and hissed
by men IN the traffic with the privileges.
of the bar in courts of justice, is the
bullet that cut down in an unwarned
moment this special object of the venom
of the gutter. The saloon interest of
Sioux City Will admit
that this is a most wretched
and altogether a deplorable affair. They
appreciate its influence upon public
sentiment, and they understand the
madness OF the folly of the men directly
responsible for the crime. Yet the men
who planned the assassination, and lay
crouchipg in the dark for the lonely OPP.
pearance of the victim. are the natural
products of O bestial atmosphere, whose
depraved natures and narrow instincts
thus interpreted the lessons of their
schooling. The direct cause of this
horrible offence is not hat the saloons
in Sioux City have remained open in
defiance of law, but that as against o
lawful effort to close them defense has
been sought in the line of making the
agents of the law too odious to live in
lSioux City. 1t remains for the citizens
of Sioux City to say whether that shall
continue to be q sufficient defense; in
short, as to whether law must hide and
outlawrv be given the freedom of the
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