The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-03-22
TO CLEAN CHICAGO.

rubbish of crime and vice out of the hooks and crannies. It is expected that it will require 9 month to organ lze and instruct the new men. Then the sweeping will begin. On June another six hundred new men fill be assigned to duty and the work carried on with the increased vigor and efrec- tiveness of larger numbers. By July l, Chief Collins says, habitation In Chicago will not be attended by the dangers incident to the pernicious act Vity of the "stick-up" man, the burg lar and the degenerate.
 It will be hard for Chicagoans tc grasp at once the full significance of all this. It sounds utopian, chimercal- like the fancy of the dreamer of dreams Long suffering, crime ridden Chicago safe at last? Are we within four months of the time when the pedestrian at night need not take to the center of the street to escape the lurking foot pad? Is 1t possible that by midsum- mer the Chicago woman may venture to the corner grocery or streetcar af- ter dusk and feel that her purse and person are secure? Are we to sleep in safety without prison bars at flat and resident windows and without re- volvers under our pillows? Chief Collins says, "Yess."
 Nh superintendent of police in this or any other American city ever had the opportunity that has come to Chief Collins through the action of the Council in raising saloon licenses from $500 to $1000 annually. This action was two-edged weapon in the fight against crime, for it weakened the power of the enemies of law and order by eliminating many of the objection able saloons and at the same time gave the friends of law and order the t4ews to fight their weakened foe. The demand for crime suppression never was so urgent as now. The crime sit- uation never was so menacing. But the facilities for accomplishing reform never were so complete. The broom Is new and the floor dirty--therefore the opportunity.
 The police force is to be doubted numerically as to patrolmen.
 As the new men will be young, active, ambitious and uncontaminated by the blight that has settled over the old force they reasonably, may be ex- pected to treble the patrol efficiency of the enire force.
 There will be eighty mounted police men immediately, and more later.
 The present detective department, which conspicously has failed to de- tect, is to have 8 thorough shaking out and is to be supplied with an intelligent head.
 Chief Collins and Assistant Chief Schuettier are to take night about doing "Caliph of Bagdad stunt watching the operation of the reor- ganized force and injecting the long needed ginger" into the rank and file.
 About two hundred oldtimers among the present policemen, men who by handicap of age, avoirdupois or ill health are disqualified for proper per- formance of duty, are to be pensioned and retired.
 All this is not theory. Chief Collins has promised, and he has the means of fulfilling these promises.
 The first visible sign Chicago will have of a new police order will be the appearance of city policemen on horse back. That these will be a novelty here does not argue strongly for Chi cagos progressiveness in policve mat ters, for several other large cities throughout the world have employed the mounted Copper" successfully for many years.
 The first move that will be made in Chicago toward the installation of the mounted service will be the selection of eighty men and the purchase of enough horses to mount them. Chief Collins has been advised by the department superir tendent of horses that such mounts as will be required will cost from $175 to $200 each. One horse will not carry one man the required num- bers, so that allowance must be made for relays of horses. Chief Collins purposes to detail half of the first eighty men selected for mounted ser- vice to the downtown district to regu- late traffic, and the other forty will be detailed to duty in the outlying dis tricts where the districts are so great that it is impossible for the unmount- ed patrolman to cover his beat without riding through it on streetcars. As more mounted men are added they will be detailed to the outlying and more sparsely settled districts.
 There are many men who have watched the progress of police affairs who are still skeptical about the fu- ture; but to strengthen the faggng hopes of the persistent doubters it may be pointed out that all indications suggest new deal-the substitution of real effort for the official police "con" game which has been worked on the Chicago public for many years Chief Chicago, will be in the spotlight until crime is suppressed or the public is convinced 1t is not to be suppressed. He has unlimited faith in his ability to make Chicago too hot to hold the vicious and criminal and when he brings down a very large fist on his desk to drive home the point that he has not only the ability but the de- termination you feel that Chicago soon is to be as safe as a country vil- lage.
 It's a fine feeling, and so novel in Chicaeo.-Chicago Record-Herald.
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