The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1906-01-19
THE WAVE OF REFORM

1t is a remarkable fact that the
great moral wave which is going
over the country, causing the down
fall Of politicians, bankers and high
financiers and leading to new con-
ditions and higher standards in
social, political and business circles,
was started by the newspapers. 1t
is strange but true that the press is
the alpha and the omega of this
great reform, while the great reli-
gious and reform organizations,
churches and civic leagues, prose-
cutting officers and high state and
national officers, whose particular
business is to deal with such mat
ters, have contributed comparative
ly little to the results. Whatever
reforms have followed in the wake
Of this moral wave have been du5
not to the reformers, professional
or otherwise, but to the mighty
power for good which the news
papers WELD in shedding the light
of publicity and as everyday preach.
ers driving home the lesson from
the facts.
The St. Louis Doodle cases,
which made Folk famous, and
which, he claims, started the wave
of reform over the country, were
started by newspaper reporter,
Calvin Beginning with the small
shredS of fact he patiently followed
up one little clew after another and
finally developed an array of evi
dence convincing and overwhelming,
pointing conclusively to the crimes
and their perpetrators. The ex-
posnre was so complete that Circuit
Attorney Folk had only to follow his
nose on broad trail to reach re-
suits. That the results were so
meager, as embalmed in the law
reports, in the prosecution and pun
ishment of the GRIMM ais, was not
the fault of the reporter. He did
his duty well, with such skill and
fidelity that although Mr.. Folk sent
only half dozen of the little fish 10
the penltentlary, the reporter con-
victed them all, rich and poor,
great and small, at the bar of public
opinion, and the sentences which lie
caused to be pronounced sand to.
day, irrepealable and irrevocabe.
So, too, in the great life insurance
scandals that came as the culmna-
ton OF this moral wave. The in
vestigation which has upset financial
methods in New York, forcing mil
lionaire officials to resign in dis.
grace and driving others into exile,
was started by newspaper reporter,
David Ferguson, OF the New York
World. At the outset, when Fer
guson wrote up the Hyde dinners
and the enormous salaries of the
insurance officials as evidences of
ruinous waste, he was Simply
laughed at-and none laughed
louder and more scornfully than
the insurance men whom he at
tackled. When he exposed the ca
balls of the Hyde Alexander cliques
the unfriendliness between them and |
their efforts to get exclusive control
of the huge sums in the treasury of |
the Equitable, everything was
solemnly denied. The authorities
took no notice, the state insurance
commissioner and the district at
torney were alike silent and apath-
etc. But the reporter kept on
patiently digging until he upturned
4 mass of evidence which has re-
suited in the greatest upheaval In
he history of American finance.
And although the courts are still
'sleep and the jails are as yet empty,
he sentences Of Condemnation
which the newspapers invoked, and /.