The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-03-10
SPORADIC GRAFT.

After five months OF investigation into
charges of municipal corruption a commit
tee OF nine aldermen in Chicago has decided
there is no systematic graft in that city
and that such graft as exists there is spO-
radio. The public has heard a good deal
about graft in various cities and has a
pretty definite idea of what ii means, viz,
any form of municipal Matchmaking or
making money at the expense of the city or
the people. There are many kinds of CRAFTS,
but this is the first time they have been
differentiated as systematic and sporadic.
Municipal government in Chicago has been
getting worse and worse for a long time.
1t has been an open secret that the police
were standing in with certain classes of
criminals, sympathizing with rioters and
strikers and that some of the city officials
were making money by illegitimate means.
Mayor Harrison declared in an interview
last fall. which preceded the investigation,
that If he We're to weed out cOrruptionists
he would have grafters jumping out of
every window in the city hall. Finally
committee of aldermen were appointed to
investigate the subject.
The committee inquired into alI-nght
saloons and other night haunts of vice, such
houses OF i'll fame, gambling houses. etc,
and found that they were very little inter-
fered with. 1t is not stated whether the
police or other officials profted by the non
interference. The committee does not think
it possible to suppress vice, but lit should
be possible to prevent practically all
Haunting of vice on the streets or in public
places of any kind including saloons" The
committee seems to think vice is not so
very bad, but Haunting is naughty. AS to
winerooms and side doors the committee
says:
the proposition TO exclude women. from
saloons in all cases, TO bar the side door
entrances. In some quarters of Chicago it
Is common for reputable women to go into
saloons. Some of the downtown restau-
rants frequented by respectable women are
nothing but saloons with restaurants at
tached. While the side door entrance in
many cases is an entrance to an objection
able resort, there is no justification for con-
demning the side door or women's entrance
In all cases.
The committee thinks that while many
all-night saloons are breeding places of
crime it is unjust to include all of them in
that category, and it recommends that "a
limited number of saloons be allowed to
remain open all night, on payment of
small additional license where the saloons
are located in centers of a!l-night industrial
activity" 1t thinks the practice of police
men selling benefit tickets to the keepers
Of saloons and immoral places should be
prohibited. On the question of graft the
committee says: 1T is the opinion of your
committee, judging from the evidence
heard, that there is in Chicago no such sys-
tematic graft, involving high officials.
was shown by the Lexow investigating COM
mittee to have existed in New York some
years ago. Such graft as exists in Chicago
appears to be sporadic rather than syste-
matte
Perhaps the term sporadic is not as gen.
orally understood graft. AS used by ply
sicians relative to disease it means a sep
arate isolated outbreak as distinguished
from an endemic or epidemic disease. A
sporadic disease is not universal or even
general; it occurs now and then and here
and there. The inference from the commit
tees report is that while graft exists in
Chicago it does not pervade and permeate
the whole city government. 1t exists in
places. but there are places where it does
not exist. This is comforting. 1t must be
gratifying to decent people in Chicago who
have thought the whole city government
was rotten to learn that there are some
sound spots. Sporadic cases of disease are
not as hard for physicians to handle as an
epidemic, but as scattered cases always
tend towards an epidemic they are always
alarming. Chicago will be fortunate if her
sporadic graft can be prevented from be-
coming epidemic.