Evening star., 1926-08-18
LASSTTUDE OF CANTON VOTERS
BLAMED FOR MELLETT DEATH

Continued from First Page)
Gated the largest United Brethren
Church in America. The other de.
have exceptionally strong churches
| here.
Has Largest Bible Glass.
Canton has the largest Bible class
In the world. Canton has Sunday
schools which overflow every Sun
day from the huge auditoriums built
to hold them. One Of the largest
buildings in the city houses the
Y. M. c. A. The work Of organization
| Is praised unstintedly. its influence
| Is wide. :.
The business district of Canton Is
and clean. Two men threw some
newspapers in the gutter the other
day and were quickly hailed into
court and fined IS each for the
| offense. The residences in the best
districts are set far back in green
lawns. From the doors of the hotels
| are hung attractive shields designat-
ing the meeting places of Kiwanis
Clubs, Rotary Clubs, and on busy
corner stands the Elks' Club,
ready to welcome beneath its shell
tering antlers any stray Elk who
may come to town. Civic pride Is
high.
Thought Vice Protected.
On the other hand, there is Can
toms underworld. Much Of the for
eign population lives there. There
Is the usual amount of vice in an
industrial city of this size. Per-
haps there is more vice, and young
Mellett believed this vice was
openly protected by the police. There
is no conclusive proof that it was.
however. than the fact that vice
nothing to clean 1t UP. Mellett
hired informers to tell him what was
going on. He centered his guns on
two members Of the police force IN
particular and the rest of the police
force and underworld in general.
He told the people their police and
city government were corrupt.
Perhaps he was altogether right
and maybe he was partly wrong.
Plenty Of good people in Canton are
willing to swear either waye The
preponperant opinion, though. was
that he was right.
But did the good people Of Can
ton respond? Did they group them
nant citizenry? Did the revelations
or the accusations Of Mellett
astound them?
Let Matter Drop.
They were surprised, but that was
all. They may have been outraged.
but that was all. They may have been
worried, but that was all.
''Mellett is right" was what they
said. He seems to have the goods. !"
But there they let it drop.
That's what we hire policemen
for" said the good people Of Canton.
Let them clean things up"
That's the result Of crooked poll
tics" they said. Maybe we ought
to have change. Politics are GER
tainly rotten" But they didn't vote.
They left Mellett to fight it out. It
seemed never to occur to them that
this is their city. It seemed never to
and battle to preserve what their an
cestors, with coats off, fought to win.
They let it slide. They passed it up.
Mellett was killed.
Shocked by Murder.
They were terribly shocked when
Mellett was gone. Some Of them or
ganized a civic committee to help seek
revenge. The civic committee was
composed Of two representatives from
each Of the civic clubs They started
off with a grand slam, with much
talk and probably closed their meeting
with prayer, but 1t was not so much
a prayer that justice be done. 1t was
not so much a prayer that the right
triumph. 1t was a prayer-an un.
spoken prayer. perhaps-that this
thing be not allowed to reflect on the
good name Of Canton; that the muir.
derer should be caught, but too much
fuss shouldn't be made about it, for it
might discourage business.
That was probably what lay in the
back of their hard craniums in op-
posing the bringing in of Roach, the
Chicago attorney. His coming was
hailed in bombastic headlines, which
annoyed the business men Of Canton
extremely. It wasn't Roach so much
as 1t was the publicity. The civic
committee decided just how to iron
out all the difficulties which 1t de-
cided were impeding the progress of
the investigation. It engineered a
very nice little agreement, which was,
IN erect, that 1t would take the chief
OF police OFF the force by having him
given a leave of absence and that his
pay would be contributed by the com.
mittee until time for his retirement. in
nine months. In return for this favor
to the Daily News and the friends
or Mellett. Roach, the Chicago at.
torney, would be removed. and to
please everybody and even things I'm
generally the director Of safety. a
Daily News appointee, would also be
removed. "
The stumbling block was that the
MAYOR wouldn't agree. The civic com.