The Fairmont West Virginian. (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1904-1914, 1905-12-02
Il DANGER that
NEW YORK FACES.

u the mere literal enforcement Of .
statute, is desirable, regardless Of
weather wether good or evil results
IL the community, it cannot be ques.
toned that Captain Dooley's new cam
palgn against dlsorderly houses is
to be complete success, says the
New York Sun. He has adopted the
plan of compelling owners of real es.
tate rented to women of evil life to
eyict their tenants under pain Of pros
ecution. To enable them to effect
such evictions legally and to- take
away all excuse for failure to evIct, he
and his officers stand ready to furnish
TIE necessary evidence when the cases
come up in the municipal courts
II he rigidly puts this plan into
operation and II he escapes transfer
long enough, Captain alqeley can no
Goubt clean up the Tenderloin. The
question for the public to consider is
whether, when he has cleaned 1t, any
good has resulted to the people Of the
city at large. In fact, we might say
the question is whetrer very serious
injury has not been done them. When
The job is completed, will it mt be
true that the Tenderloin has been
cleaned up at the expense Of the city
at large2
Nobody capable of taking a sane,
comprehensive view of the subject be.
llcves that the people whom Captain
looley is driving out of the Tender
loln are going to get off the earth.
They are not even going to leave New
York. Least of all are they going to
change their way Of life because some
body has secured a dispossess warrant
against them. What they are going to
do is to move into some other part of
the city where they can enjoy tolera'
ton until some other police captain
has spasm of activity to make a rec.
crd or save his job" ),
They are going ii carry the oflense
of their presence, the poison Of their
example, into precincts and into
streets where heretofore decent PEG
pie have lived under decent conditions,
In the next few weeks they are prob
ably going 10 do more positivg'active,
aggressive injury to the morals Of New
York than they could have effected ,ip
a decade in'their old haunts in the
Tenderloin. which all decent PERSONS
steered clear of. ~
The problem Of these women and
their abodes, one OF the most juggling
that civilization presents, is not to be
solved by the crude and petty activit
ties of n Captain Dooley trying To
shcw what a reform" he can accom-
plish in his little corner Of the city,
What would be thought of health au-.
tEolities who supplemented clean
only to deposit the filth in another
and transfer the infection Of disease
to adjoining thoroughfares? Unless a
broa9 policy can be devised for the
city as whole and enforced for the
good of the people in general and NIT
u erely to make local showing, nothing
but harm can result from stirring up
the social kennel,
There are. things thesauthorities can
DO. They can keep vice within bounds.
They can keep 1t from Haunting itself
in rGblic. They can keep 1t from for"
ing itself into direct contact with the
homes of the people in general from
corrupting youth and insulting 'lnno
cence. There is a wide fold for their
in these lines without resort
to grand stand displays of radicalism
which they know, even bette than the
est OF the community, re based on no
rational theory Of repression.