The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1910-03-01
4 new AMERICAN INDUSTRY
By George H. Maxwell

A slash in the dark with a stiletto
and human life Gibbs away. The
victim dies alone. The crowded
tenements of congested city swallow
up and conceal the murderer. Charles
Wiltshire. the Chicago glove manu-
facturer. is the latest victim.
Every few days an assassination in
some city furnishes renewed evidence
that the crimes of the Malta and tho
Camorra have been transplanted to
this country. but without the syste-
matte organization that would make
1t more easy TO enforce measures for
public protection.
Not long ago a young couple were
beaten to death with bludgeon in
their New York fiat. A short time
afterwards a Chicago storekeeper was
murdered in his store. Robbery was
not the motive in either case. It was
revenge or blackmail. 1t is manifest
that there is widespread and de-
liberate purpose, by series of shock-
ing crimes. to so terrorize those liv-
ing in the great congested centers of
the large cities that they may be
| systematically blackmailed.
The stiletto and the bomb have be-
come the tools of an established trade
in American cities. AS China i'm.
ported the curse of the opium habit,
SO we have imported the industry Of
blackmail by assassination, with this
difference: China undertook to throw
of the evil, but was prevented from
doing SO by the strong hand of an
other nation. We created the evil
conditions that have spontaneously
I developed the trade of blackmail
among the people who bred the Ca
mora in their own country, and not
content with that we are perpetually
working and planning to aggravate
those conditions by making cities big.
ger.
The larger the city. the safer the
crime, and the more abject the terror
of those selected as its victims. They
have learned how powerless is the
law to protect them. A murderer is
absorbed back into the seething mass
| that swarms in the labyrinthine net.
work of the tenements. and his iden.
tity lost. just as falling drop of wa.
ter is absorbed into the ocean.
| Every black hand bomb that startles
the crowded streets of an American
city today is an echo that has come
down to us through the centuries
from the brutality. cruelty and cor.
ruption that was bred in the tene-
ments of Rome. And every black
hand murder or bomb explosion that
takes place in this country is the
death toll we are paying for the priv
ilege of. following faithfully along the
same road that the Roman people
followed to their destruction.
| The similarity between the tene
ments of Rome and those of New
York is strikingly described by the
late Bishop Hugh Miller Thompson,
in an article entitled THE Tenement
House" published in one of his books
called More Copy Space limits the
quotation from it to few lines:
ut is curious that New York should
have reproduced style Of building
which has had no existence since the
fall of Rome The New York tene-
ment house is only the modern type
of the Roman insula.' The insula
was block distinct and apart. with
surrounding narrow streets and pas
sages. and therefore insula. or island)
of vast height. divided into lodging
rooms. in which a common class of
Romans were herded and for which
they paid rent The patrician had his
'domus or home. and he only. the
distinct or separate dwelling place
for the family. The masses had no
homes: they swarmed in the insula
like mites in old checses Each fam
lily. had it's lair
In these modern days. any family
that transfers its life from q farm,
or cottage home in a country town,
to city fiat or tenement bites large
and deep into Dead sea apple.
Job never had telephone hung I'm
on one side of his tent.