Crittenden press. [volume] (Marion, Ky.) 1879-1907, 1900-11-22

mayor van Wyck RledgeB HIS BEST Ell
forts to Bring About u Changed Con-
dillon.
New York, Nov. 17.-Bishop Henry
{. Potter, bishop of the Episcopalian
diocese of New York. yesterday sent
letter to Mayor Van Wyck, in refer
ence to vice in this city, and especially
on the East Side. This letter is the
one promised some weeks ago, when
the bishop publicly announced that
one of his rectors had been grossly
insulted by the commanding officials
of a certain police station, and that
he proposed to take up the matter in
a manner which the heads of the po-
lice force should feel. The public has
been awaiting with interest the
bishops first move, and in connection
with Tammany halls announcement
that it proposed to look into vice and
stop it, the bishops letter, received
yesterday by the mayor, is bound to
form the principal subject of discus
sion in public places as well as in
private homes for some time to come.
Three Movements Against Vice.
At the present writing there are
three movements directed against
vice as it is displayed on the great
East Side. These are a quietly-con-
Quoted investigation by District At
torney Gardner, in connection with
Anthony Comsto ck's Society for the
Suppression of Crime; Tammgny's
appointment of a committee to in
vestigate pontical conditions, and
Bishop Potter's crusade.
Work at the Pro-CathedrnI.
Bishop Potter,in his letter to Mayor
Van Wyck, first calls attention to the
work that is being done at the pro-
cathedral, 1870 Stanton street, in en-
deavoring TO improve the condition OF
the poor of the East Side tenement
district, in which it is located, and
says it has been recognized as an inn
portant factor in promoting the vir-
tue and good order of the community
in which it ministers. He continues:
ScnthinE Charge Against Police.
"ln view of these facts it would
seem that it has n valid claim on the
sympathy. cooperation and at least
courteous consideration of those who
officially represent our city govern
mcut ard the guardianship of decency
and good morals. urge here no 9th
er claim for it, and / beg to say that
] am not now addressing you because
there has been in that which l now
desire TO bring to your notice a vulgar
and brutal absence of these i'm connec-
tiCn with one who happens to have
been my own representative. The per-
sonal element, so far as he is or | am
concerned, is of the very smallest con-
sequence. a matter of far greater con-
sequence, sir, is that when a minister
ofrcligion and a resident in particu-
lar neighborhood, whose calling and
character, experience and trustfulness
are all alike widely and abundantlv
recognized, goes to the headquarters
of the police in his district to appeal
to them for the protection of the
young. the innocent and the defense
less against the leprous harpies who
are hired as runners and touters for
the lOMCNl anu IllOSl uCilS VI
vice, he is met not only with contempt
and derision, but with the coarsest
contumely and obloquy."
Specific Charges.
Bishop Potter then goes on to tell
how. when two clergymen called at
the police station of the precinct to
complain of the notorious condition
of affairs, one of them was told by
the police captain that he lied; and
that when, disheartened by such an
experience, the clergyman carried his
complaint to higher authority in the
police, he was met with insolent deri-
sion.
The bishop goes on to say:
Does Not Ask ImpOssibiIitIes.
81 am not, L beg to say, unmindful
of the fact that the existence of vice
in a great city is practically an newt
able condition of the life of such n
community. / am not demanding that
vice shall be stamped out by the po-
lice or any other civil authority. This
is n task which would demand for it's
achievement n race of angels and not
of men. But l approach you, sir, to
protest with all my power against a
condition of things in which vice is
not only tolerated, but shielded and
encouraged by those whose sworn duty
it is to repress and discourage it, and,
in the name of unsullied youth, and
innocence, of young girls and their
mothers who, though living under
conditions often of privation and the
hard struggle for a livelihood, have
in them every instinct of virtue and
purity that are the ornaments of any
so-called gentlewoman in the land,
and before God and in the face of the
citizens of New York protest, as my
people have charged me to do, against
the habitual insult, the persistent
menace, the unutterably defiling con-
facts, to which day by day, because of
the base completely of the police of
New York with the lowest forms of
vice and crime, they are subject.
In the Name of Innocence.
sand, iG the name of these little