The Elk Mountain pilot., 1901-02-19
STREAMING AT A CNAT AND
SWALLOWING A CAMEL.


SWALLOWING A CAMEL.
President Speer and his fellow mem
bers of the Fire and Police Board
must have hard work to keep their
faces straight while conducting a bur-
er their subordinates have been graft
ing" to use the picturesque language
of the day, when they know very well
that much more serious offenses against
the law are being committed every
day and every night in Denver through
their own direct consent and conniv-
ance.
Scores of gambling houses, policy
shops by the hundred. places of prostt
tuition and assignation more numerous
than all the others combined, and doz-
ems of deadfalls where the victims and
criminal classes congregate to divide
their plunder and devise fresh offenses
against the law are run wide open con-
tinually in this city, with the full
knowledge and consent of the Fire and
Police Board.
All this is not novel by any means,
for other Fire and Police Boards have
permitted and even encouraged simi-
lar condition of affairs, but we doubt
If ever in the past the license nnlaw-
fully extended to the vicious and Grim
inal classes was so general or so gen.
erous as at present.
1t needs no investigation to estab-
lish these facts for they are matters of
more serious in their moral effect upon
the community than the grating" pro-
pensities of patrolmen and detectives.
.Hhe chronic violators of the law emu
merated above never practice their
vices and crimes openly in cities with
out police permission and protection.
The gambling houses, bunco joints,
policy shops and other evil resorts,
would be closed in an hour by a simple
notification from the Fire and Police
Board to that effect. They are not
closed because the highest police au-
thorities are willing that they should
remain open. The governor, who ap-
points the Fire and Police Board,
he should order n policy of close re-
striction it would be followed by the
Fire and Police Board. If the board
itself should order the closing of these
places, its fiat would be respected and
obeyed instantly by more than ninety
per cent. of them.
There is another side of the police
question in Denver which will not be
touched upon during the present So
called investigation, and that is the
extraordinary incompetency displayed
by the existing force in dealing with
persons guilty of serious crimes. Fully
yer within the last two years, and we
cannot now recall a single case in
which the murderer was arrested by
our police force, If he made any effort
at all to escape detection.
We do not wish to be understood as
saying or believing that the members
of the Fire and Police Board are cor
rupt Many of their subordinates are
unquestionably guilty of grating"
usually on petty larceny sort of scale,
but there is no known reason to sup
pose that the board or the chief of po-
lice is purchasable.
| But that does not make the matter
much better so far as they are concern,
| ed, because their official recognition
and protection of chronic lav-breakers,
either through political influence or
personal negligence, is just as bad for
the community as if it were secured
through bribery.
OF course there are questions that
will not be touched upon during the
present farcical investigation of petty
offenders among the detectives and po-
| lice officers. A competent legislative
| committee or n public-spirited and fear
less grand jury might throw great
deal of light on these subjects, but
there is little likelihood that the effort
will be made under existing condi
i Iions.-Denver Republican.