Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1906-06-16
THE GREAT CITY.
A battle-ground Between Vice and vir.
tue-Dr. Lyman Abbott's Stirring
Description at National Municipal
League Meeting.

/ is a battlefield between the confiictln
forces of good and evil, and that tn
only way for the uplift of the world
by and through battle, living in grea
city is a great exhilaration, not a dis
eouragement; but it is the exhilira
tion of g-eat fight, and fight that i
going on and on and on, after you an
are in our graves, although do no
think but that we shall still continu
to look upon 1t and be interested in it
What is it that is characteristic O.
a great city9 Great vicesi No. Th'
vices that are in the city are every
where, just as truly in the country a
in the city. A liquor saloon in the city
is no better than liquor saloon il
the country; the gambling that goe'
on in the back parlor of a country inr
is just as bad as the gambling that
goes on in NJ. Canfield's premises; the
prostitution that faunts in the streets
of a great city is no worse than the
p1otitu'iOn that hides at the corners OF
country Villages; and as to political
cal corruption, why, the clean and vir'
tuous representatives of our rural dis
tricts are today trying to steal from
New York it's grandest feature, Mag.
ara Falls (applause).
Vice gathers in the city, organizes in
the city, and am glad of it. / am
not glad that there is vice, but / am
glad that it sequestates itself where
you and can get at it if we have any
soldierly qualities. You remember that
when Lee was retrahting and Grant
was after him, Grant said, or is re.
ported to have said: "The one thing
/ am afraid of is, they will get away
and there will be four years of guer-
lila warfare to follow this. What !
want is to got the army together" !"
Now, we have the army together in a
great city; they have guerilla warfare
in the country. We have the forces
lined up-the good, uhe evil, the best
and the worst. That is just what we
ought to want if We are soldiers
well, and even if we are not soldiers
and this lining up is not alone in
conventional lines, either. 1t would be
easier If we only did have the sheep
all on one side and the goats on the
other, but we have not; the most of
them are all mixed up; most of us are
both sheep and goats.
You cannot say that the people in the
churches stand for virtue and the peo-
pie out of the churches stand against
it. You cannot say that the Anglo Sax
ons are all right and the foreigners are
not. You cannot say that people who
live in fine brown stone houses are the
saints, and the people who live on the
east side are the sinners. IL is not
true. There is just as much vice in
tenement house as in palace, and Just
as much vice in the palace as in the
tenement house; we are all mixed up
together, and if We want long range,
fight. it is bad, but if we believe in
hand to hand combat, il is first rate
plan, and the very existence of good
and evil inextricably inte-mixed into
society is, If men have courage, what
they want.
We want new spirit; 1 do not agree
with DR.. Adler that changes in form
count for nothing A change in law
does whati Mr.. Gladstone said some
thing like this; "The object of law
is to make vice more difficult and vir.
tue more easy" The Australian bal
lot makes bribery more difficult and
honest voting more easy, and that is
gain. 1t does not do away with cor.
ruption, but it makes it easier to avoid
corruption, which is all you can ask
of government.
Now what do we wanti What is the
spirit We wantf Civic pride, a civic
spirit. pride in our city, moral pride.
an ethical pride. am afraid there
are a great many of us who look up
ON New York city as a first class fac.
tory whore We can make money and then
60 away somewhere else and have a
good time. And am afraid there are
a great many of US who have pride in
certain aspects of the city which won Z
do. I speak Of New York city because
I suppose what is true of New York
city Is true of other cities; you can
judge Of that better than can. 1t
won't do il we are going to have a
public spirit that is going to accom-.
plish what we want, to reclaim. the
eity-it must be pride in the whole
city, not merely pride in Fifth avenue
and its palaces. (well. some of them it