The record-union., 1891-11-19
DIVES IN SAN FRANCISCO AND
ELSEWHERE.

The Grand Jury of San Francisco, by
the report of its committee on places o.
low character, doggeries, dives and inde-
cent cellar concert halls, recommends
radical reform. 1t states patent truth
one, however, that has apparently dawned
upon but few city governors-th that it is the
most miserable of policies to give free rein
to these schools of crime and at the same
time maintain hospitals, retreats, re-
formatories, asylums and the like for the
victims of the evil
The question is plainly asked in the re-
port if it is not common-sense PROPOSE
ton that prevention is better than cure
What the committee advises is a license
and regulative raise that will operate to
shut up the worst places and thus lessen
crime and misery. The San Francisco
corner grocery with bar attachment.
which in most cases means keeping gro
ceries for show and bar for profit,
comes in for hard rap also.
Of course the abolition of the dives is
possible; it is not true, as some people
have earnestly attempted to prove, that
these resorts are necessity; that the low
and vicious classes must have such re-
treats, and that to permit these keeps the
vicious class IN quarters. On the same
principle we might contend for the neces-
sity of places where stolen property is
cashed, and resorts for burglars and
thugs to consort and consult about their
netarious affairs. But contemporaneous
with the abolition of the dive and hell
hole there should be encouragement for
the decent place of cheap amusement and
cheap entertainment In a commercial
city or seaport there is large class that
needs the entertainment of such levels
They will not, indeed cannot visit the
resorts of the higher order, because of..the
cost and of the lack of social harmony.
a city like San Francisco must have
cheap places of decent amusement and
entertainment, and these can and will be
well supported if the dives are driven
cut. They can be and viii by regula-
ton be kept cleanly and decent, and pre-
vented from becoming the headquarters
for confirmed thieves, incorrigible crirni-
nails, sots. loafers, cut-throats and the
scum of humanity generally. For all
that sort of cattle no provision need be
madQ Tho how'd Of
against them, and their extinction will at
any time be blessing.
The dives, as the committee says, GER
tainly do furnish very large proportion
OF the recruits for the jails, Houses of
Correction, Inebriates' Homes, NIagdalen
Asylums and State prisons. Authorities
everywhere know this. yet it is notorious
that they rarely have the courage to shut
up such places; to refuse them license
permits; to condemn them as nuisances.
There is no reason whatever why the
municipal authorities of either San Fran
cisco, Sacramento, or any other place
should tolerate these robber dens. these
law-defiers and breakers, these schools
OF crime and resorts of criminals, and by
licensing give them legal sanction.
When the committee of the San Fran
cisco Grand Jury feels about for a means
to the abolition of such places, and sug-
gests only that they can be taxed and
regulated out of existence, they express
q partial truth, but the direct, effective
and drastic means they do not appear to
have fallen upon, or which they lacked
the courage to advise, is that the authori-
ties, as they have the unquestioned
power to do, shall peremptorily close up
these places that are by all men admitted
to be breeding-holes for crime, dangerous
to the public peace and demoralizing in
their every influence.
Common sense advises, common JUS
tice demands, common economy suggests,
decency invokes, and the taxpayers who
bear the cost of maintaining the vagrants.
rogues and sots these places spew forth,
petition for the exercise of a wise power
by municipal authorities-the refusing to
dives of the capacity to live. 1t is
power that every court in the United
States TO which he question has been
submitted has affirmed. 1t is q power
that no reasonable excuse can be offered
Tor refusing to WELD. We may not, how
ever, entertain much hope that it will be
exercised, so long as municipal govern
ment and ward politics remain undi-
yorced.