The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-02-10
DR.. parkhurst's waterloo.

decency and an ordinary code OF NOR
ais. the result of the Gardner trial
would drive him out of the business
of amateur filth finder. Taking him
as he is, we confess we have very
little hope that his sense OF shame
will prevail over his instincts
towards obscene investigation and
oficious despotism. 1t is possible
that the present singing rebuke
OF his methods may make him even
more ~virulent in exposing and tortur-
ing the ordinary frailties of human
nature.
DR.. Parkhurst has repeatedly as
serted that it was not the social evil
he made war on; it was the practice
which, he alleged, was prevalent, OF
the police levying blackmail upon
the outcast of New York as
the price of tolerance. 1t is certainly
the irony of fate that the principal adj
wiser and most conspicuous agent of
Parkhurst should be convicted by a
Jury of that very same, precise offence,
and convicted upon evidence so clear
and unmistakable that Recorder
Smyth, that Lippincott of New York,
felt bound to clinch the verdict with
the comment that it renewed his con-
fdence in the system of trial by jury.
Of course, the verdict does lot
prove that the police of New York
are above all reproach. Bnt it is an
awful lesson in caution as to judg-
ment and temperance in tcondemna-
ton. 1t is a fearful warning to Park
hurst and others to weigh well the
temptations, the surroundings, the
snares and pitfalls of daily life before
indulging in rapid excuses of ''vir-
tuous' zeal.
Above all things, however, it is a
lesson to the people and to their
servants, the lawmakers of our States,
against the inevitable abuses OF
chartered and irresponsible tyrannies
such as New York has set up with
blind disregard of consequences to
usurp the powers of her regularly
constituted authorities. We have in
this country civilized laws,
upright tribunals, an elaborate
executive system and competent
police powers lodged in functionaries
who are responsible to the people.
The men who control and direct the
policy and the operations of our forces
are liable to be punished by the
people both directly and through the
Legislatures if they stray further
from the straight path than is excus-
able in human nature. Ii they be-
come Extensively corruption notorious
ly inefficient, they not only die the
political death themselves, but they
bring ruin on their parties. With
this fate always present to their fears,
they are not likely, as a rule, to stray
very far.
But a society like that of DIR. Park
hurst, once created, is hard to control.
Open to all the abuses of the regular
governmental department., it is in a
measure sheltered by the aurora OF
sanctity, Of exalted purpose, which it
exudus. 1t is not in its w nature
responsible to any one. No official
can check it or curb it; it can defy the
press and public opinion with over
whelming professions of su perior
purity and religion. 1t will always
have a following of fools and fanatics.
Legislators are always timorous of
antagonizing it. If they or other
public functionaries venture to con-
tradict or oppose it, they are assailed
with such rancor that even if their
fellow citizens are not turned against
them, they are made to suffer acutely
in their own souls under the lash of
SANDER and abuse. This has been the
fate of the New YorkD istrictAttorney's
office from it's very head down, and of
the police force from the Commission
ers to the doormen.
We are happy in this State in hav-
ing SO far escaped this form of re-
lapse into barbarism, this re-estab-
lishment of Vehn1 Ge2icbt and Haber
Court with a legal charter to back
them. And yet, we do not appear to
be more cruel, more immoral. more
corrupt or more law-defying than our
neighbors across the river. We are
not perfect, we are not Utopian in
our standards, but our State is SO
run that those of us who want to lead
upright lives, who want to be decent
and honest, to observe the will of
Providence so far as in US lies to keep
our self : respect and to stand
clean in the sight of our neigh
bors' may do so without any out
side obstacle or allurement inter-
fering with our course. Vice may
not be far from us, but it is concealed
from us unless we go to seek it. A
healthy public opinion, and the
authorities constituted by law suffice
to keep the elements of evil in such
subsection that they obtrude them
selves on nc man.
This, we may say, is the best aver