Omaha daily bee., 1897-02-21
A Pulpit EDITORIAL.

anu nOIOT 10 hulllL nus tEIOt. NV mum
is infalliblc in his judgments. Even the
pope restricts his claim of infallibility
to matters of creed.
1t was perfectly natural for the min
listers who sincerely desire social puri-
fcation and law and order to fall into
the trap laid for them by clever poll
ticians interested in the perpetuation of
the present police management. But
after the disclosures of rottenness and
inefficlency made by The Bee at the
risk of offending the vicious and law
less classes it is amazing that any
preacher should persist in praising and
UNFOLDING the iniquity of the reform
police board and attempt to palliate it's
criminal negligence, If not collision.
The only parallel to this exhibition
OF ministerial gullibility afforded in the
history of Omaha occurred in 1889,
when that pious reformer, Paul Van
dervoort, appeared with another notori-
Gus boss politicians before the local
Ministerial association, prayerfully and
tearfully invoking its aid to defeat he
candidacy of George w. Lininger for
mayor because he was alleged to be
pledged to the gamblers and dive keep
ers to run the town wide open. The
result was hat the credulouS Protestant
preachers joined with the riff-raff of the
city and helped to elect-oh, horror of
horrors--an Irish Roman Catholic
mayor, who did exactly what Paul the
Apostate had made them believe they
were preventing.
While it may be eminently proper for
the politician to use the preacher as
his catspaw, there is nothing in the
up for n political parishioner who has
deceived him or whose conduct is indie
feasible. Nobody contends that the
modern newspaper is perfect or above
all criticism. 1t is doubtless true that
| statements published in the newspaper
are sometimes cOntradicted. The press
of today may be too prone to sensa-
tiOnalism, as Mr.. Fosters pastor
charges, but that fact does not condOne
the police scandals which have been
exposed through the columns of this
paper. When specific charges of corrup-
ton, immortality and lawlessness are
published in Il responsible paper and
cannot be successfully cOntradicted, it
will hardly do for a preacher who has
any self-reSpect to brush away the i'm
putation of inefticiency and neglect of
duty on the part of Superiors by taunt-
ing the newspapers with s~ensationalism
or %impugning their motives by cow
ardly limitations that they are actuated
by mercenary purposes.
Mr.. Fosters pastor tries to eX%culpate
Chief Sigwart by suggesting that
charges of misconduct have been malic-
iously trumped up against him at this
day to force the removal of the pres
ent reform police board. Mr.. Fosters
pastor knows, or ought to know, that
charges Of d%isreputable conduct were
made against Sigwart by The Bee when
us Il sergeant of police he scandaliZed
the service by the orgies at the notori-
Gus Blair police picnic. That happened
over three years ago, under the first
police board. He was dismissed later
for the good of the service. but rein
stated and promoted by the present
board. which thereby endorsed the Blair
performance. Mr.. Fosters pastor may
not know either that this exemplary
chief, while attending the convention
of the state organization of police chiefs
ut Hastings, took part in a disgraceful
ncnnI nc do that anna To tho nntipn nT thn
police commissioners, who at that time
declared their intention to remove him.
Why is he retained is spite of such
~ record? Perhaps some one of his ad-
mirers can tell.
The most gauzy defense that is made
for the present reform board is that
The Bee is inconsistent and therefore
insincere. While d%enouncing the local
police for not suppressing prize fight
ing in Omaha, its column are filed
with reports about a coming prize fight
in Nevada. The Bee is a newspaper
first of all. 1t prints all the news. 1t
is true it gives space to reports of brutal
prize fights, just as it does of lynchings,
suicides and burglaries. At the same
time it %denounces the collision of Off
GERS with crime and endeavOrs to cor
rect the abuses and evils with which
the people are afflicted.
Whatever may be said of the degen-
eracy of the American press in recent
years by its sensational features, The
Bee can safely challenge comparison
with the most conservative and clean
est of the great metropolitan d%ailies,
The charge that The Bee is working
for revenue in making police exposures
Is contemplate. The Bee can truth
fully assert that it has sacrificed more
money in fighting the battles of true
reform than would pay the salaries of
all the preachers In Omaha for ten
years. 1t has labOred necessarily, in
season and out of season, for good gov
eminent, and has always advocated all
rational reforms. In this mission The
Bee has been earnestly engaged for
more han a quarter of Il century, while
generations of preachers have come to
Omaha and gone again. 1t is identified
with the city and state and shares their
prosperity and adversely. 1t enjoys
good government and suffers from mis-