The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1909-04-30


first, to do their duty; but the police
commissioners, under the infuen>9 or
direction Of Ruef, interferred With
their efforts to close illegal and i'm
moral resorts; the police court judges
allowing themselves to be swayed by
selfish POLITICAL considerations, re-
leased the prisoners whom they ar
rested
! Conditions similar to this have been
shown in this magazine to exist in
New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Pitts
burg, and other great cities Of Amen-
ca. The results have been general
disintegration in the moral fibre of
cities. Life itself is much more un-
safe than under the well-ordered gov
ernment of European cities. The
murder rate in Chicago and New York
is six or eight times as great as IN
London and Berlin. Even such prl-
mary necessity of civilization as the
safety of women is lost sight Of. A
! leading Chicago newspaper said in
1906:
It has ever been our proudest boast
as a people that in this country wo-
man is respected and protected as
she is in no other. That boast is
becoming an empty one in Chicago.
Women have not only been annoyed
and insulted in great numbers on the
streets within a very short time, but
not few have been murdered. In
the year before. the Hollister tragedy
there We're seventeen murders of wo-
men in Chicago, which attracted the
attention Of the city.
The system Of government which
produces this result was well describ-
ed some years ago by the late Bishop
Potter, speaking of conditions in New
York.
! A corrupt system, he said, whose
Infamous details have been steadily
uncovered, to OUR increasing horror
and humiliation, was brazenly ignor-
ed by those who were fattening on its
spoils, and the world was presented
with the astounding spectacle of
great municipality, whose civic mech
anism was largely employed in trad
inc in the bodies and souls Of the de-
fenseless.
Aside from giving direct encour-
agement and propagation to the more
terrible forms of vice, the European
peasant saloonkeeper government of
our cities furnishes fitting field for
so-called respectable men-but really
criminals Of the worst type-who help
organize and perpetuate saloon gov
ernment for the purpose Of securing
by bribery, franchises for public util-
tiles without paying therefor. Thus
American cities have been robbed as
we'll as badly governed.
There are signs Of amelioration Of
these conditions in most of the great
cities of the country. But every ad-
vance is made against the fierce an
tagonism of just such systems as
Bishop Potter described; and those
systems exist in every large Ameri-
can city today-either in direct con-
troll or ready to take control at the
slightest sign of relaxation by the
forces which are opposing them. And
the foundation of this evil structure
is the European peasant saloonkeep-
er.
"McCIure's Magazine,' in the next
wear, will consider the horrible in
fuence Of the saloon in American life.
DR.. Williams will follow his article
in the present number by studies of
the influence of alcohol upon society
at large, upon racial development and
upon the State. The author is espec-
tally equipped for his work. He is
in the first place perhaps the great
est living popularizer of national
science and history in America; and
he has himself made lifelong obser-
vations upon the influence of alcohol
both physical and social-frst as
medical practitioner in the treat
ment of the insane at the great asy-
lums at Bloomingdale and Randal's
Island, and later by study, and OBJ
servation in the chief capitals Of Eu-
rope, where he has lived the greater
part Of the last ten years. The sound
judgment and impartial temper which
have characterized his work in other
fields will be found in his treatment
of this great subject.