The Norfolk weekly news. (Norfolk, Neb.) 1888-1900, 1900-10-04

dead letter becoming an active force
with the tenement house problem, when
means life, liberty and the pursuit OF
happiness to million wage .earnors;
with the franchises and the trusts, whom
ne gave the cold shivers by PROPOSING TO
deal Justly Ivy them whatever the
bosses will do with us when he is gone
who dealt Justly by them also, ! don I
know. | know what happened III the
policc department when he was gone
NAV it help us to understand that the
Rooscyelts and the Warnings of our day
are sent to set the rest of usto work, ana
that for MS to stand by and sec them do
it, merely applauding and calling them
good fellows, IL not the meaning ot IL
and not sense. Only when we grasp
that is their real work done, and we
need have no further fear of tho bosses.
There have said 1t and, having SAID
IL. shall do what il is tho business OF
every good New Yorker and every good
citizen anywhere to do: take OIL my
coat and help put Theodore Roosevelt
where the mass of his countrymcn want
him, even though have to give him up.
As understand it, that Is the American
plan.
remember we'll when wo first ran
across each other. Seen him | had be-
fore, heading an investigation commit
tee that came down from Albany with
true instinct to poke up the police de-
partment. had followed his trial in
tho legislature, always exposing job
berry, fighting boss rule, much to the
amazemont of the politicians who be.
held this silk stocking youngster, barely
ont of college, rattling dry bones they
had thought safely buried out of the
reach of even old hands Mt that business
They comforted themselves with the be-
lief that it was fad and would blow
over. 1t did not blow over. They lived
to rue the day, some of them, when they
picked him up" rs n handy man in n
faction fight. They got rather more
fight ont of him than they bargained for.
But they might have spared themselves
their self-reproaches. They were not to
blame.
lie came to the Evening Star Office
one day looking for me. | was out, but
he left his card with the simple message
that he had read my book, "EIow the
Other Half Lives" and chad come to
help" That was the introduction. 1t
seems only little while ago, and meas
ured by years it is not long; but what
has he not helped with in New York
since? We needed to have the police
made decent, and he pulled it out of the
slough of blackmail it was in. 1t did
not stay ont, but that was not his fault
He showed that it could be done with
honest purpose. While he was there it
was decent; and, by the way, let me say
right here that there Is much larger
percentage of policemen than many
imagine who look back to that time as
the golden age of the department, when
every man had show on his merits,
and whose votes are quietly cast Oh cleo
tion day for the things Teddy" stands
for.
We had been trying for 40 years to
achieve II system of dealing decently
with our homeless poor. Twoscore years
before the surgeons of the police depart
ment had pointed out that herding them
in the cellars or over the prison Of police
stations in fostering heaps, and turning
them out hungry at daybreak to beg
their way from door to door, was indie
cent and inhuman. Since then grant
juries, academies of medicine, com
panies of philanthropic citizens, had at
tackled the foul disgrace, but to no pur
pose. Pestilence ravaged the prison
lodgings, but still they stayed. know
what that fight meant for was one O
u committee that waged it year afte
year, and suffered defeat every time
until Teddy Roosevelt came and de
stroyed the nuisance in a night. re
member the caricatures of tramps shiv
ering in the cold with which the yellow
newspapers pursued him at the time
labelling him the "poor mans foe"
The poor mans foe Why, the poo
man never had better friend thai
Theodore Roosevelt. We had gon
through season of excitement over on
tenement houses. The awful exhibit
of the Glider committee had crowde
remedial laws through the Legislature
laws that permitted the destruction c
tenement house property on the shown
that it was bad. Bad meant murderoul
The death records showed that the wors
rear tenements killed one in five of tn
babies born in them. The TenemeI
House committee called them "infar
slaughter houses They stood col
demned, but still they stood. A who,
year was the law a dead letter, until, {
president of the police board, Rooseve
became also a member of the healt
board that was charged with the 81
forcement of the statute. Then the