The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1895-04-09
THE MORAL WAVE.

York city from the organization OF the
Lexow committee has swept across the
continent, and broke upon the shores of
the Pacific with rush not equaled else
where in its course. Portland has 1t
bad. If it would lead to anything in the
shape OF a better execution of the laws,
every good citizen would wish it more
power to it's elbow. But it will not do
this, History repeats itself and the his
tory of reform waves, similar to this one
do not indicate for it any great length of
existence. Epidemics of morals run
their course just as epidemics of measles
or whooping cough, leaving the patient
a memory only of what was. The
trouble with the moral wave is that it is
generally started in good faith, but as it
works along it becomes befouled from
contact with the debris which it meets
and the great, bread American mind
begins to use its power for its financial
betterment. The history of great cities
of all of them, shows that the laws are
not enforced concerning gambling and
some other ofenses, simply because the
officers appointed to execute the law find
it more profitable to initiate the goddess
of justice by being blind. There is more
money for them in not arresting
offenders than in performing their duty,
since they draw pay from the city for
doing what they are yet better paid to
leave undone. The moral wave makes
its influencedelt first on these officers,
because the fear of losing their jobs
compels them to become suddenly vIr-
tuous enough to do their duty. They
are moved the more easily to this course
by the fact that the aforesaid wave sud-
denly throws all it's profits on the side of
morality. The hunted hare must hide
from the hounds, and vice for the
moment driven from cover, ceases its
practices, and consequently shuts off the
fees it has paid for protection. The
police force of the large cities then find
ing virtue profitable, first endure and
then embrace. The jingling fee comes
in golden shower. until for very lack
of material to work upon the moral wave
Gibbs, vice that has been in hiding peeps
timerously out, and seeks its old haunts.
It finds the same old guardians of the
peace on hand and ready for another
dicker, which is soon made. By i'm
perceptible degrees the dice and the
poker-deck find their way to the tables I;
the hand-painted disciples of Baal re-
pair their erstwhile deserted temples and
the devotees gather to their old high
places. In the meanwhile virtue, salts
fed, with her spasmodic sweep of the
field, hunts her sleepy hollow, and takes
a Rip-Van-Winkle nap. The moral
wave having spent its force, recedes and
is quiescent, until things have come to
such pass that the public is aroused in
some city, virtue gets out her reform
wave, and the farce is acted over again.
The moral wave is simply the result of
an acute attack of spasmodic virtue. 1t
accomplishes good, temporarily, but not
permanently because public virtue is
always spasmodic. On the other hand
vice is like interest on a morgage-it
never sleeps, never tires, never quits.
A gangrene OF the body polite, it eats
little by little into the healthy flesh and
leaves putridity and death behind it.
The present wave will be no exception,
and pity tits tits true. The ''Open Door,
will grow tiresome and the wherewiLhal
of maintaining homes of refuge will be
wanting. Besides those who have been
or are sheltered in these places grow
weary. They hunger for the excitement
the abandon of the wild life they have
led, as the morphine fend for his dope,
or the besotted unfortunate for his drink.
There is no Kelley cure for vice, and
sooner or later nine tenths, aye ninety
nine one hundreths of the brands
plucked from the burning will find their
way back to the hre. FGctEis descensus
AVerno, is as true and trite statement
now as when Virgil penned it, and ''to
draw back the footsteps this is work
this is a labor" just as hard as it was
1900 years ago. There is no grander
work than the reformation of the fallen,
and none requiring so much work for so
meagre results. The woman of Babylon
knows not the way out of her city. She
is lost, swallowed up in its mazes. The
bridges are burned behind her. The
"Open Door" permits her to be an OBJ
ject of pity, but it cannot open for. her
the way to respect. It is a wicked, a
cruel and unjust law of civilization that
4ha uvonoav, Ia Y,Y,n,ahod foravar for. xvba4