Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-02-24
OTTumwA's PROCLAMATION.

VI lUMWAS fHUClRWA IUN.
The mayor of Ottumwa has issued
Il proclamation ordering all Migrants
and those coming under that more or
less indefinite classification to leave the
city inside of twenty-four hours. it
may be inferred to mean all gamblers,
prostitutes and the criminal hotsam
and jetsam and the loafers who have
/ lived by beachcombing the purlieus of
a city which has earned. whether it de-
served it or not, the reputation of the
! wicledest city of its size in Iowa.
| Criminal assault multiplies in OF
tumwa Murder selects a victim upon
the streets The city awakes and mob
violence is threatened. Then the mayor
pioclaims an exodus of Migrants and
criminals.
| 1t is the old story over again. IL the
| preacher was to search a figure to fit
the case he would point to the
ancient cities that partnered with
crime and vice until the fiery rain of
Gods wrath began to fall from heaven
and the terror of death made itself
manifest Even the least observant
knows the outcome of the years of con-
donation of vice that have made OF
tumwa notorious. When communities
become cities of refuge to the undesir-
able when gamblers and proprietors OF
booZing kens and keepers of worse dens
become a power in city politics and
force in city elections, when the vote of
the loafer and the criminal is bought
and paid for in privileges there is but
one certain and logical conclusion.
Crime spawns and increases until II
finds assurance in numbers and i'm
munity and assume TO rule. There
comes time when terror and decency
combine to call out q proclamation.
But murder and outrage are always
but the fear of foulness drives to Sc
verify.
theory often advanced is that
mayor Is mayor of all the residents of
city: that all have rights that are
to be respected and that the mere fact
of residence calls for an extension of
privilege not accorded to the loafer and
the lawless who are not residents and
voters 1t is bad theory and against
..ool
There is no real citizenship outside
the law. To assume that ten or one
hundred or ten thousand outlaws have
right to representation and are to
be acknowledged or privileged by the
governing power simply because they
are alive is to promulgate an evil and
put premium on outlawry No one be-
lieves it, not those who advance 1T. The
fact that the vicious are permitted to
exercise the right of franchise, that
the vote of pimp or piano player
from the lowest resort counts as
much as that of the most christian
preacher or preiator of the cleanest cit
izen is responsible for the theory. And
the theory and the practice that fol-
lows upon it are responsible for con-
The mayors proclamation is sug
gesttve. If there is an army of dam
gerous Migrants and criminals In OF
tumwa some one in authority should
have known of it long before success
i've assaults and the outrage and muir
der of women drove q community to
gather lin mobs and threaten lynch
law. Under what theory of municipal
government has this licentious popula-
tion grown numerous and bold? Why
has nothing been done to drive out the
dangerous and undesirable, the vicious
and the criminal until innocent blood
steamed in the street and violated wo-
manhood hid it's face in the agony of
shame? Why have the authorities
waited? The people of Ottumwa are
asking that question now. The stay-at-
home citizen, the citizen who is will
ing to trade his franchise for some
present advantage, the business man
who condones the wide open town thru
the mistaken belief that it makes
things lively will all come in time to
ask the same questions that they are
asking in Ottumwa when his theories
have worked out to a logical conclusion
in his own city.
The reaping comes after seed time
and by cultivation. Ottumwa is har-
vesting crop that has been years ma
turing Not only wisdom but ordinary
precaution and common sense would
counsel other cities against making her
bitter experience theirs.