The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1916-08-10
Flirting With Bandits.

Flirting with bandits is bad bust.
ness. They found it out over at Detroit
the other day when the cashier of an
adding machine company, hurrying
back to the plant with a pay roll of
thirty three thousand dollars, was shot
down in the automobile in which he
was riding and the bandits got away
with the pay roll That same incident
caused lot of fellows in Kenosha to
stop and think Kenosha may not be
nearly as big as Detroit, but when it
comes to pay rolls Kenosha has some
that would make even Detroit envious.
1t is not improbable that bandits who
have worked in Detroit, have had oc-
casion to look with envious eyes
toward Kenosha and it is not beyond
the pale of the possible that these same
bandits might seek to work in Keno
sha. It is easy enough for a manu-
featuring concern to insure its pay roll
against raid by bandits, but it is not
easy to insure the employee who han
There is lots of money in the world
and lots of it is available for pay rolls
but when bandit s bullet kills an en-
ployee there is no way of bringing back
that life. Flirting with bandits may
be foolish business for the man who
has the money to meet the pay roll,
but his allowing his employee to firt
with them is lot more foolish.
Time was when Kenosha manufact-
urers carried the pay roll in an inside
pocket in dollar bills, but that was be-
fore Kenosha began to come into her
own. Now it takes pretty nearly a
wagon load of silver dollars to meet
the pay roll of the smallest of the
plants in the city and it would take
pretty close to a carload of the same
coin of the realm to meet the big pay
rolls. Kenosha is going to have police
officer for each one of its thirty thous-
and people and one of these police Of
ficers should be available at any time
it, is necessary to carry any great
amount of money through the streets.
The police are willing enough to take
chance themselves and the past per-
formances in Kenosha gives the assur-
ance that the bandit who attempts to
pull off the "wild west'' stuff here is
pretty certain to be hauled away for
the coroner to look after him. Of
course the fact that it has been pretty
well noised about that Kenosha police
officers can pull gun and pull trig-
ger quick will have tendency to dis
courage even an invasion of the ban
dts. But there is no reason to take
these chances. Proper protection should
be accorded at all time to men who
handle the pay rolls of the city. Let
the police provide it and let the men
in charge Of the big plants see to it
that this protection is afforded, not oc-
cassionally as bluff, but every time
the bank vaults are opened to get
pay rolls.
The police force of the city is for
the protection of the people, but in
order to get the greatest value the
people must show some willingness to
do their part in being protected.
Caution is one thing that is needed in
handling large sums of money and the
same is true of people who have val
uables in their homes. If you are go
ing to keep thousands of dollars worth
of jewelry it might be well to have a
place to keep it and have that place
one that would resist for a little while
at least, the efforts of thieves to take
the jewels. Every business man has
his safe to store the receipts of the day.
A lot Of them employ a Waterman to
keep track of the building at night.
Many homes in Kenosha have valuables
far in excess Of those to be found in
stores and yet they are left practical
ly unprotected. We do not believe that
it is necessary to have safe in every
house built in Kenosha but little care
in keeping the police posted on the ap-
pearance Of suspicious looking charac-
ters would save a lot of crime.
After the recent arrest Of two men
for burglaries it was found that no
less than half dozen people of the
city had seen these fellows walking the
streets and every one of those people
had noted their suspicious appearance.
If just one of these people had notified
the police that these fellows were walk
ing about without any apparent reason
for their being in the city, they would
have been looked up and it is pretty
certain that one of them would not
have been taken to the penitentiary
with a bullet in his arm. Interest of
people in just this class of characters
would reduce largely the crime in the
city and reduce largely the annual cost
to the city of watching and Furnishing
this class Of criminals. It doesn It
take long to use the telephone and
the police ara always ready to inves-
tigate such reports.
Prevention of crime is just as neces-
sary as the punishment of criminals
and it works out wonderfully. A real