The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1904-01-06
GHlGAeO'S ERA OF CRIME.
City at The Mercy of Murderers
and Thieves.

Chicago, Dec. 31.-Eight murders
and Ia bold-ups and burglaries in the
last 60 days is the appalling record Of
crime in Chicago. The city is under a
reign of terror. Conservative men de-
clare vigilance committees must be
organized and one or more murderers
and thugs lynched in order to check
the desperadoes. Present conditions
are declared intolerable.
The police department is SO honey
combed with politics and it's relations
with lawbreakers are alleged to be so
close that leading residents despair of
relief through that quarter unless
radical steps are taken by the people
for their own protection. That the
police force is too small to properly
patrol the city and it's suburbs is ad-
mitted, but the great trouble is that
many lieutenants, captains, inspectors
and sergeants owe their positions not
to meritorious service, but to the po-
litical influence of ward leaders, ward
heelers, gamblers, saloonkeepers, keep
ers of immoral resorts, bookmakers
and others who hold that property is
rightfully their prey-rightfully theirs
by means of theft and the use ,of the
revolver.
Thousands of peaceable citizens who
never carried a weapon before are
carrying arms today for self-protec-
tion. In many sections of the city
women are afraid to venture out after
nightfall. There has been a startling
increase in the sale of firearms lately.
That the sale has not been altogether
to men Of good character is unquestion-
ably true.
Leading men declare that glorifca-
tion of criminals is responsible for
much Of the wave Of crime.
Picturing the boy bandits, Van
Dine, Marx, Neidemeier and Roeski,
as more dashing and insoucient than
Jesse James, Tracy, Dick Turpin and
similar desperadoes, has stimulated the
idle and the vicious to emulate the
actions Of the caravan robbers and
murderers. The glamour put upon
the deeds of the boy bandits has IN
doubtedly fred the imagination Of
many persons who have a tendency
toward crime.
Crowds have focked to dime
museum to to see the sweetheart of
Van Dine. and she has become the
greatest attraction the museum has
had in years. AS a counter "attrac-
tion' the dugout in which the fugitive
outlaws made their last stand against
the police is on exhibition.
Usually a determined and systematic
move by the police to cope with the
criminals of a big city has the effect of
driving the vicious element to cover
and to a period of inactivity. Here the.
contrary has been and still is the case,
for since the fight with and capture of
the car-barn bandits there simply has
been an epidemic of robberies, murders
and attempts at murder with robbery.
That more innocent persons we're not
killed in the defense of their property
or themselves was not the fault of the
thugs
Before the inquests were held on the
detective who was killed by the ban
dts at the Indian dugout and the rail
way brakeman who defended his train
against seizure by the outlaws and
lost his life highwaymen waylaid and
mortally wounded a prominent lawyer
who was OF his way to his home in an
aristocratic residence district. This
was James Fullenwider, tie attorney
in Chicago of the Standard Oil Com
pany, who. when ordered by three
highwaymen to throw up his hands,
did so. but thinking he might escape,
started to run to his home. block
distant. He received bullet in his
back, which caused his death next day.
His murderers fed, and the police are
as yet without clue to them. The
crime was great shock to the Hyde
Park district in which Fullenwider
lived, the abode of many Of the leading
and most influential citizens of Chi
cago.