New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1906-03-04
oHIoAGo's "CARyIVAL OF CRIME"

Chicago's mind is now entirely diverted from
municipal ownership. immediate or ultimate or
any other kind. The fierce Joy Of combat with
street railway corporations has palled, and all
the passion OF It's citizens is turned toward
keeping their heads uncracked after dark 1t
is motive assured of universal sympathy. The
publ.c is going about it with all that earnest
ness characteristic of Chicago. Having recently
humblet the Gas Trust and being occupied with
crippling the street railway combination and
bringing TO. its knees the telephone monopoly,
Chicag, has enough interest and energy left
over TO come TO a deadly grapple with vice and
crime. To be sure. 1t is as yet al! tax. but in
that Chicago Is now like a frontier town just
putting a summary end to the rapturous days
Of free shooting. Chicago, say the more enthu-
siastic advocates of law and order, Will make an
end of crime, If it takes ropes and bonfres to
make It, There Is ripeness "for lynch law" "a
whirlwind of wrath" will sweep the city, COM
pared with which the present agitation will be
like summer breeze to cyclone"
The newspapers print long stories Of hold-ups
and honicides. The Mayor, that hero of year
ago, concentrates the fire upon himself for the
moment by offering some statistics TO the effect
that there were in January only sixteen hon.
icides-enough in ell conscience, it would seem,
TO satisfy the hrmest advocate of the wide open
town and the open door to the yeggman; but
less, say the veracious figures. than in January
of the year before Therefore, plain as pike
staff this is no carnival Of crime"
But statistics fail TO convince; the people are
in no mood for arithmetic; they want law and
order and uncracked skulls and immediate police
efficiency. The unfortunate confession of police
failure involved IN the advice Of the chief Of
police a few weeks ago, who. when confronted
| by the concurrence of three or four murders Of
women within q fortnight, advised women I'M
protected by men to keep of the streets after
dark, outweighs in the angry popular mind the
calmative effect Of the mere sixteen statistical
| murders. That advice sounded too much like
the familiar adjuration of the Health Depart
ment, Boil the water before drinking" The
! city's police were no more able to catch thugs
| than the citys physician TO nab germs.
| But even If crime Is really no more frequent
IN Chicago today than 1t was q year ago. as
seems probable enough. despite the cutlery Of the
press yet there are two explanations possible
| as TO the excited state of the public mind
against the persistence of evil, though wonted,
| conditions. One is the increased sense of the
public power 10 combat evils. The success of
| the city In exacting favorable terms from the
| gas company, its prospective success with the
telephone monopoly, its superior position to-day
for dealing with street railway corporations If
desirable, have combined to awaken civic pride
and create feeling OF capacity for civic better
ment Another occasion for the present agita-
| uon Is the complication of the question OF crime
with that or higher liquor licenses.
Chicago Is not only temperamentally, but in
| its organization, an overgrown Western village
X is cramped in its swaddling clothes 1t is
| legally prevented from raising the money for
| ordinary municipal necessities. One of these
! things with which. despite all its wealth, the