The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1941-02-22
MIAMI'S VICIOUS CIRCLE

ter city, Miami has fallen; we can draw
lesson by which Key West may profit and
place it on the record against those times
when some easy money expert, some car
nival promoter, will bangle q glittering bait
before the city if we will just let him use
Key West as am ambush from which he may
sally forth to raid the general pocketbook.
A nationally known sports writer who
does daily column bewails the fact that in
Miami the season for collecting getaway
money advances every year so that If 1t
continues to progress at the present rate,
the thugs will be meeting the arriving
suckers at the trains, instead of waiting
until the end of the season which would
make it very bad indeed for the night clubs,
the race tracks the protected gambling
joints and kindred industries.
Miami believed that to prosper, it must
become all things to all men and saw no
fatal flaw in assuming the role of a devout
church goer who is also fascinating lady
of the evening" And few there be that get
away with it. So there was splendid en-
couragement Of churches and universities;
protected brothels and crooked dice games;
art centers and clean wholesome sports;
race tracks and obscene night clubs at
which the degenerates of Paris would have
found themselves at home. And did
No less a person than J. Edgar Hoover
has placed himself on record as saying that
these leper spots can not exist in any COM
munity without the knowledge and protec-
ton of peace officers sworn to uphold the
law and paid by it's violators to protect
them. So the vicious circle does its deadly
work Miami may choose between civic
revolution or becoming pre-eminent among
the wide-open towns of ancient and modern
history and emulating them in phos-
phorescent brilliance.
What is the lesson for Key West?
Observe the sequence of the events
that have overtaken our sister city. A class
exists so wealthy that they have forgotten
how to amuse themselves. Their jaded
senses no longer respond to healthy stimuli.
The earning of moIey is no longer even con-
templated by them. They are self-anoint-
ed outlaws and they demand outlaw en-
tertainment, where the songs are most
"audacious'', where the entertainment ap-
breaches most nearly to the lowest forms of
perversion, where the M. c. will make his
audience gasp with the mos, risque de-
pravities there will they go to spend their
money; and if the seasons to be prolonged
the vicious circle must ever become more
vicious.
So. the word goes forth that no form
of entertainment is to be interfered with
(providing it pays for recognltlon) the
faded crowd goes where its wants are pro-
vided for and the underworld, as deadly
wise as any serpent, hangs on the flanks of
the fat, degenerate herd and makes Its XIII.
Hence the Miami Police Department sends
out list of 80 items, ranging from diamonds
down, that the strong arm gentry have col
lected within the, last few days and daily we
read of other rich strikes that they nave
made.
All this is the penalty paid by Miami
for mistaken idea that there should be no
limit in the federation extended to any at
traction" regardless of what it attracts.
Kew West is regarded as a precious
place by many of our visitors because OF
the absence of these low grade "attrac-
tons, We are urged to keep it so. We
can do this only by a united front that VIII
make it plain to our city fathers that no
matter what inducement they may be Of
feretf to prostitute Key West, they will be
much better off if they decline the offer.
But if only the lower world offers en-
tertainment. and we offer no competition
in the form Of clean. decent entertainment,
we abandon Key West to the wolves
An earnest effort is now being made to
provide a community center where whole
some entertainment can be made.
How much does the confessediy de-
cent element in Kew West care? Ten dol