Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-15

He Explains His Position-His Charge Has
Been Backed Up. and He Has No Apollo
giles to Make-Essier to CriticIse Than
to Act.
NEW YORK, April 14-The Rev. DR..
Charles II. Parkhurst, whose vigorous and
effective crusade against crime and vice in
New York City has attracted such wide at
tention, has sent out long statement tor
publication. Among other things he says:
Ny object is not so much to defend the
methods which have seen it wise to adopt
as to put in distinct shape the one object
coward which 1 am working, whether as q
preacher or as president of the Society for
the Prevention Of Crime. In the sermon
14th OF February last, the one point urged
was that one of the greatest difficulties
which the church has to encounter in the
prosecution Of fts work is the license which
Is municipality allowed to vice. This was i'm
mediately met on the part of municipal au-
thorities with a tempest of raillery which
eliminated in the presentment Of the Feb
rnary grand jury sba 9S that
what I was talking about, and that the
whole tendency of such vituperation was TO
bring the government into disrepute.
pulpit four weeks later, accepted the situa-
ton and squared myself to 1t, or tried to,
and took and maintained the position that
not only were the general charges that had
previously made supported by facts, but
specifically that liquor saloons, gambling
houses and disorderly houses were pro-
tected by the police department., appar-
emily for q valuable consideration.
NV contention was then, is now, and will
continue to be, with the controlling powers
of the police department, considered us the
guardian of criminality, meaning by that
simply what was comprised in the present
ment of the March grand jury, which held
up that department before the community
in the character of criminal; and it still
hangs there.
Now, am not going to enter into any de-
fense of the methods which adopted i'll
order to secure my evidence. l will onlv
take the liberty of saying that those methods
the pros and contras, and in face of every
criticism that has been passed or that may
be passed. / desire to stand up in the
presence of this community AND say that it
have cut to the quick of this whole
corrupt business. 1t was the only
method by which l could earn the power
to say, "1 know" I have waded through
quantities of filth in order to win that
knowledge and to win the vantage-power
that came with It, and would wade through
1t all again before would surrender that
earned. If the police fear me and hate me
to-day-I do not say that they do, but II
they dot is because they are aware that
know whereof affirm, and because they are
their plots, nor any kind of black
guarding, will shake me from the hold
which my personal knowledge of the
iniquity which they practically, not to say
protect has secured to me. As to
certain criticisms that have been passed,
even by my friends, want to say that give
them full credit for sincerity in their strict
ures. At the same time, it is always to be
that 1t is q thousand times
easier to criticise another's action than it Is
to take action ones self, and If while l was
how 1 could do something to help
the cause some one else had devised better
method than the one 1 was working out,
am sure l should have been only too happy
to strike into 1t, and work ut their side and
under their lead.