The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-10-15
DRUNK WITH THE WINE OF HER PRosT1-
TUITION

Thirteen dead and horribly mutilated bodies,
wives and children broken-hearted and left desti-
tute, and one hundred thousand dollars worth of
property blown to fragments, is the toll exacted by
the vengeance of some demon or demons from
General Otis, proprietor of the Los Angeles Times
TIL Los Angeles hecatomb of mutilated dead bodies
tells American society that the red flag of anarchy
is at hand ready to be sent up to the masthead of
the ship of state. For some time the people of
the cities of California have supped full of mys
teries. The dual lives of men have been exposed;
a young man in the prime of life has been cruelty
murdered by his mistress; young woman fresh
in her maidenhood has been ravished and foully
done to death. The courts TEEN with incredible
spectres of domestic life, with the strangest OF
tales. An old and bedizzened woman appears in
court to prove herself the wife of ibertine who
was mysteriously killed murdered year ago,
while young woman seeks to dissolve her unholy
relations with an aged reprobate who claims she
is his wife by natural marriage. Then comes the
slaughter of the typemen and employees of the
Times. and dire warnings sent to General Otis, f,
B. Zeehandelaar and others.
And so instance after instance might be culled
from the Los Angeles daily papers showing and ex-
ciety Our great cities are hotbeds of crime,
land reeks with crime, and many, alas, too many of
our citizens drip blood The confessions of our
newspapers are but examples, among countless
proofs that we are drifting the precipice of an
archy. Our divorce courts have become criminal
courts and their operations have destroyed the
sanctity of married life and are turning the sacred
rite of matrimony into shameful animalism
If what comes to the surface in our courts or
what appears in our newspapers were all there was
to reveal, conditions would be deplorable but as
everyone knows who knows anything of the hidden
wickedness of cities these printed revelations
but reveal the outcropping of the hidden mass OF
corruption.
The inner life of the truly pagan class dwelling
in our large cities is simply indescribable And
this social depravity is not confined to our large
cities that boast every form of modern civilization
What the meaning of those terrible stories that
came to us of lonely murders on the ranges and the
deserts; of the atrocious crueties perpetrated on
helpless women and children; of the fraightful ex-
cesses prevalent in some of our inland towns
rendered almost wholly to crime in It's various
forms, and peopled by few except criminals; where
brothes carry hallmark of responsibility, bills
of divorce as cheap as mules and murders common
as divorces.
What has there been in modern times to equal
the sugar frauds the election brberies of Illinois,
the mutilation and lynchings of negroes in Spring
field, and the shameful and unpublished corruptions
of San Francisco Pittsburg and other cities. As
a matter of fact, all these savageries and crimes
are the natural outgrowth of the irreligion, the
shameless license, the intense selfshness, the
shocking depravity and personal impurity of the
pagan and irreligious members of our population.
The men who do they please in morals will do
as they please in politics, and the vrulent poison
and the seething crime of great cities are
our village and rural life. We boast
before the world of progressive civilization.
We have sown our land with schools, academies and
universities, and reaping empty cradles and
empty churches.