The labor argus. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1906-1915, 1909-12-02
To the Rich Criminals
Flayed by Judge
Ben Lindsay
Denounces Those Who
Apologize for Corrup-
tion---Raps Education
al Pharasites who De-
bauch Youth.

Judge Ben Lindsey, who fought again
st corruption in high places and knows
what he is talking about, declared that
among the greatest debauchers of the
morals of the young of this nation are
the college presidents who became apollo
gists for rich criminals. Judge Lind
sey said in part:
The apologies of pious plutogogues
whose bountics they have shared are
doing more in this country to inflame
the passions of the envious the ignorant
and the debased and to raise up anarchy
than all the rawlings of all the dema gogues
and Emma Goldmans. If the vile mon.
ster of anarchy flames and Kisses it is
largely because of the injustice and evil
that men do.
Just as some of the courageous col
legc professore and university presidents
are strengthening the morals of the youth
of the nation in fearlessly pointing out
evil in high places regardless of con
sequences, so among the greatest de-
bauchers of the morals of the youth f
this nation are those colleges presidents
who became apologists for rich criminals.
"This is very seldom direct and open
though it has been amazingly so in a
few instances. 1t is often veiled in ad-
dresses abounding in high platitudes
warning us against the radical and the
anarchist, and insisting that we should
be let alone, should be safe and sane
or smile and push; constantly pointing
out the dangers of being envious of the
rich, as though the American people were
generally given for that monstrous crime.
1t is one of the most effectual schemes
of intellectual sissies who are afraid to
attack evil lest it involve them in a row
with the leader of the bad gang, which
they are forced to follow. Rebellion
might bring smash to the face with the
Withdrawal of financial support.
From ten years experience in seeing
the government of a city and state cor
rupted and democracy murdered, and
knowing that the conditions in one state
are not different from those in other
states where the same temptations exist
to steal public property and trample upon
justice to men and women, am pro
foundly convinced that many college
presidents and college professors know
'i''iN '''ou' tHe ietti or their
country.
4 know some of the street bows and
any number of saloonkeepers and eamb.
lers who could tell them more truth about
it than they know.
4 think one of the greatest things
that could be done for some universities
IN this country would be to get some
ward boss to deliver few truthful lect.
ures to the presidents upon how thei,
country is governed.
They could tell who are the real
criminals; they could tell them who are
responsible for the debauchery of the
home and the ruin of the child that comes
through political corruption, involving al
ways partnership with vice. and through
the corruption of courts and legislature.
the Withholding of that economic Justice
that is the chief weakening of the Ameri
can home, and from which the chile
suffers most, both physically and morally
know positively from actual ex
perience and personal knowledge that
some of the men directly or by inuendc
thus held up as models to the youth OF
the nation are the men who debaucf
! city councils or legislatures in order +,