Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1904-01-07
SAFETY IN

The Chicago holocaust will Tail oil
its most valuable lesson if it shall
not impress the jewellers in Ameri-
can cities with a new sense of the
importance of strict obedience to
law; obedience not merely to some
laws, like those regulating the con
struction Of theatres, but obedience
to the whole body of law as found
in municipal, state and national
statutes. There is no telling at
what moment a law, heretofore little
thought of, may become an essential
factor in the safety Of the individual
or of the multitude. Just as there
would have been safety for the hun
dreds in the audience of the Iro-
quois theatre, on that fatal night,
had the ordinances relating to veh-
tilating flues, fire escapes and exits
been strictly observed, so on other
occasions, may the safety of many
depend on general obedience to the
regulations prohibiting lettering on
the streets, the carrying of pistols,
the sale of liquor to certain persons
and after certain hours and the rails
ing of Unnecessary disturbances. Some
accident may transform a crowd of
~loiterers into a dangerous mob. Sud
den anger may make the pistol an
instrument of murder. A needless
disturbance may bread panicin some
neighboring assembly room. The
glass of liquor illegally sold may
breed a riot. That particular form
of disobedience to law which mani
tests itself in attacks on persons and
property during strikes, and in
lynching bees, is peculiarly charged
with danger. Mob RIGHTEOUSNESS
grows with what it feeds upon. One
act of lawleness begets another and
often "A worse m The lawless
group of men grows by accretions
from the lawless until it may hold a
city in its grasp, like Paris in the
time of the Commune or like st.
Louis at the time of the railroad
strike. Men who find themselves
committing deeds prescribed by the
law are prone to a fever of lawless-
ness, increasing step by step the
~atrocity of their deeds, until they
find themselves capable of acts at
which, a few days previously they
would have shuddered.
The intention of all American law
is protection. Within its bounds
all are safe. Whoever overleaps
these invites more or less of danger
to himself and others. Ii law seems
at times oppressive or one-sided,
this will not excuse it's violation. IL
must be viewed in the light of it's
efficacy in promising "the greatest
good of the greatest number"
Whoever violates it, be he million
aire or laborer, is to that extent an
anarchist. In REFRESHING disobed-
fence we put down anarchy. In toll
Grating it we connive at undermin-
ing the foundations OF the republic.
The reform which Mayor Harrison
is now enforcing in closing of places
Of assembly in Chicago is in fact but
a restoration of law-law Frustrated
under the spread of anarchical ideas,
Indifference and selfishness. Such
a restoration is needed, along not a
few lines, in probably every city in
the country. Let it be made, and
made complete, and not only viii
life and property and liberty be
made more secure than ever before,
but administration will be purified
and made more progressive every
where. There is NO factor in the
progress Of civilization quite SC
important as obedience to law.-Pio-
neer Press.