The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1909-11-11

A8kx0AO. AOOS 0D60 WSAS u
precedence over those Of all the rest
Of the country in preparing the tariff
bill.
SAN FRANCIsCo's BARBARISM.
A special dispatch from San Fran
cisco reporting the result Of the city
campaign there, says:
The one great overshadowin9 is
sue was Francis j. Heney. Putting
IT in another way, so az 70 bring out
the principle involved, It VAS: Shall
the San Francisco graft trials 20 on,
OF shall the city wipe ttS slate clean,
forget the past and Try to do better
In the future? Heuey ran for dis
trtct attorney against Charles II.
Ftckert. Heney stands for hunting !
the men responsible for the debauch-
Ing Of the city into their last holes.
FIcksft stands for dropping the pro-
s~ecutons. Heney for . month be-
fore election day spent virtually all
his time among the voters, pleading
with them for their own s~elf-respect
to retain him in ONCE. 70 that he
could. to use his own expression,
drive the grafters into the ocean,
Ftckert fought under the surface.
All the power that corrupt corpora
lions could muster and all the Wiles
b q a complacent business element
could invoke. we're used against the
reformer. Some of the corporations
and the big men behind them knew
that the struggle "a one of life and
death to them. II Heney was elected,
they felt, they could not escape the
r%eparation which their. crimes
against San Francisco have earned"
There is only one difference be-
tween organized society and anarchy
and that difference is law. There can
be law only to the extent that it is
enforced. Consequently this San
Francisco campaign, which was
fought out frankly to determine
whether the laws against bribery
and graft should be enforced in the
city Of San Francisco or should be
ignored and fiouted. runs to the very
foundation Of government. When any
community sinks SO low as to even
tolerate a candidate or a political
platform that deliberately proposes
not to enforce the law. 1t is in q state
worse than barbarism. For the saw
ages themselves give no such moral
spectacle as making laws and then
saying they mean nothing.
! San Francisco. in her disgrace, en-
courages bribe-givers, bribe takers,
loot-mongers, thugs and crooks
everywhere. San Francisco, like
other cities that have been shame
less before her, holds out to law vio-
lators everywhere the hope that il
only they persist long enough, they
will go their way UNPUBLISHED. The
whole world knows that the city sup
ervisors OF San Francisco were
bought and sold by franchise-seekers,
white slave traders, dealers in vice
and other enemies Of the public good,
a. II they had been 90 much beef. Yet
not q single n Of the men who pro
stituted the government Of San
Francisco has been made to pay the
penalty the Law provides. Mayor
Schmidt wal convicted. only to be
freed by . supreme court created
while the state government Of Cali
fornia was absolutely dictated blythe
Hartman railroads. BOSS" Ruef,
who conducted an exclusive bribery
brokerage In San Francisco. escaped
conviction. when after a trial Of six
months. the jury disagreed. Now
San Francisco, by electing the can
didate OF the boodlers and the graft
ers and the indicted crooks and the
corporations that sought bigger prof
it's by corrupting government, vir-
tually directs that no further at
tempt be made to punish the offend
,ers.
It all means that good men tire
sooner than wicked men,. It means
that reforms are correctly described
as waves. while the vicious never al
low their activity to ebb. It means
that the enforcement Of law, as