Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-04-29
Days of Crime Encouragement.

art USELESS. % IL ~ Will the law
+ it is useless to put laws upon our stat.
ute books unless we elect officials II
course pursued by our public official:
is to denounce the tools which have
use in the carrying out their oaths
OF office. then our laws are worse than
and not the tools which counts.
Maine is daily having demonstrated
to her this worse than uselessness OF
tools in the. hands of elected work
men. who are only active in reviling
the quality of the tools. The rapid
increase of all sorts of misdemeanors
and crimes in recent months has been
the cause not only of anxiety on the
part of the better element of Maine
citizenship. but of actual alarm in
several communities.
AT Lewiston almost a reign of ter
ror has existed in the last half year,
All sorts of vile resorts have sprung
up. assaults have been numerous and
brutal. Women have been knocked
dewn in the streets. children cruelty
abused, men held up in broad day and
in dark places at night and robbed of
their money and valuables. Purses
and handbags have been snatched by
fieet-footed thugs. who have so sue
cessfully and universally escaped de-
lection by the police as to convince
the general public that collision be-
tween certain elements of the police
department and the criminal forces
must exist. Saloons and dives and
kitchen bar-rooms are wide open and
defiant in the prosecution of their
evil traffic; while prostitutes as OPEN
IN practice their wlles and devilish In
decencies.
Everything short of murder has been
charged against the hosts of the UNI
derworld in Lewiston in recent months
and now the climax has been capped
by one of the most cowardly and I'M
provoked assassinations in Names
criminal history--a man shot down
and the body robbed by a deliberate
of that class of cut
threats known in Paris as apache"
at his own door and in spite of the
shouts of his landlord who was look
ing out of the window. Yet the police
in this case are apparently stumped
and helpless, and are trying to turn
attention from their own inefiiciency
in the interrogation of this bold rep
of Lewistons officially en-
criminal class, by creating
false rumors of suspects seen making
their way into other cities.
+ No doubt exists in the minds of
leading citizens of Lewiston and Au
burn that the perpetrator Of this das-
bcastfully with others of his kind in
some OF Lewiston's hell-holes. and
awaiting another opportunity to make
a strike in money and jewelry--with-
out murder il convenient with murder
if necessary TO accomplish the ends of
the gang. And yet officials, elected to
use the effective tools of government.
are aiding and abetting this regime
of lust and criminality by denuncia-
tion of law and open encouragement
of the disciples of the underworld.
And Lewiston is not the only com
munity which is facing such prob
lem, half dozen cities in Maine are
in the grasp of the rum pow
or which matches crime of every de-
scription, and which turns the Hitter
ate and charaeterless population, par
ticulariy of city places. into the ranks
of the worst social conditions and
criminal fostering sores with startling
rapidly.
II is useless for a nation or COM
munity TO attempt to find remedies for
its distresses through any act of Leg
islature. A distinguished Maine law
Yer a few days ago assured the writer
that there are ample statutes on the
books already to solve every difficulty
and TO siraighten every social and
business tangle. Our laws are numer-
Gus enough and sufficient in character,
il backed by officials who believe in
law and who are encouraged by, and
seek courage from, the better element
OF our citizens. IL our officials would
pick up the tools given them by the
law-making body, the present era Of
would diminish as rapidly
as II has npgrown.
How long win the voters Of Maine
suffer such conditions 10 exist when
within their power lies the remedy?
II, In September next the voters OF