Los Angeles herald., 1909-03-10
SQUIRREL HUNTER IS
TAKEN BY S. P. CREW
TO BE TRAIN ROBBtR
POLICE FIND SUPPOSED BAD
MAN is D0ClLE
Desperate Turns Out 20 Be Official OF
Health Office Sent to Externnnate
Initiating Rodents
at Park

| An innocent squirrel hunter looked
like a bold, bad, train robber TO the
crew of an outbound Southern racine
] freight train yesterday, and the po-
| lice were stirred to unusual ACTIVITY
when one of the crew telephoned from
Burbank that a dangerous man, armed
! with long rife, lurked in the pusEes
in Elysian park awaiting the arrival
! of a passenger train which he undoubt-
J edly wished to hold up.
| 1he information was telephoned 10
Chief Broadhead. He, in turn, notl-
J fed Lieutenant Dixon of the Eastslde
substation with orders to investigate
| Lieutenant Dixon decided an insane
man had wandered away from nome
and with two patrolmen, started out to
| investigate. After a short tramp they
found the man in a clump of bushes
near the Elysan park pump station.
| The man was armed with rife, as re-
| ported by the trainmen, and did not
change his position when the officers
appeared.
On being questioned by Lieutenant
| Dixon the man stated his name was
| w. A. Lucas of 653 Towne avenue In
| response to the question as to MS
| business in the park, Lucas stated ne
was one of three men sent out by the
| health office to eXterminate squirrels.
He explained there was danger of the
| little animals ing DuDCIlS Pieto w
infection and the health office decided
to kill as many of the squirrels as pos
| sible.
Lucas was taken to the Eastside sta
ton. His story was verified and he
was released.
+ : \ ! j. i +
by officials of the city of Los An
geles.
Not included in the grand jury's re-
port, but substantially proved by re-
peated proofs adduced by our morning
contemporary, The Herald, it has been
shown that gambling denS are per-
mitted almost openly to ply their for
| hidden traffic, in defiance of the law,
| bringing it and its officers alike into
contempt. Proofs of the existence OF
gambling dens, defining particularly
their location and means of access
with plans showing every entrance and
every exit, have been laid before the
responsible police authorities, without
stirring them to action, though the
places in question then were operating,
and thereafter continued to operate,
with the utmost freedom.
| The Express has commended, and now
contends, that it is precisely out OF
such conditions that municipal graft
and dishonor have always drawn their
| being. The history of American mu-
nicipal government proves that when
| the authorities make a bargain with
vice whereby vice operates with prac-
| tical immunity and in violation of law,
however free from corruption the mo-
| tives which attend the institution OF
such an arrangement, the end is in
evitably the same-graft creeps in,
corruption fattens on the city and
spreads and widens its area of opera
lions. Then follows a riot of extrava-
gance, an era of bribery, then mu-
nicipal shame and unspeakable mu-
nicipal dishonor.
| Los Angeles was in the first stages
of a course which would lead to only
such results. Some of it's officials
chosen to obey and enforce the laws
betrayed the people and violated the
offices they held by granting immunity
against the laws of the state to class
| of professional offenders against those
laws. That represents the beginning
of wrong policy Would you look
upon it's inevitable end? Look, then,
at San Francisco, laid PROSTATE and
overwhelmed by a disgrace from which
the power of omnipotence itself could
not preserve Los Angeles II the condi-
| lions that have obtained proceeded in
the future unchecked in their ultimate
and logical growth.
| Such conditions grow to gigantic
stature with frightful rapidity, and
bear evil fruit those who carelessly
favor them in their beginnings some
times little dream of. Such conditions
were existent in Los Angeles. To guard
the city of the future against disgrace.
against inevitable corruption, against
black dishonor, The Express fought
them in their infancy. A city gov
erned on the basis of a working agree
ment with vice can no more escape ul-
timately becoming a city governed by
such men as Abe Ruef than it can
cancel the laws of gravitation by an
ordinance of it's common council.
We do not believe that righteous
appeal to the moral sentiment of the
people of Los Angeles will ever be made
in vain. United with the conditions
that call to that sentiment for action
is linked the existence of good govern
ment or the triumph of bad govern
ment, with all it's attendant conse-
quences. The recall campaign square
ly presents the great issue. A vote for
Alexander is a vote for Los Angeles,
for it's homes, for it's honor, for the
protection of it's future. A vote for
Harper is vote against Los Angeles.
against it's homes, for its dishonor and
for it's inevitable degradation in
future that may loom closer than any
now can guess.