Chicago Tribune
STATE OR NATION TO END
VICE?
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Speaker Says Police, Greed, and Lust for Power Aid City Decay
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"GOOD PEOPLE APATHETIC"
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Rabbi Asserts Reform is Needed on Boulevards; Education Advised.
Ways and means of combating vice in Chicago were discussed yesterday afternoon at an annual meeting of the Illinois Vigilance association in the auditorium of the Y.M.C.A. Lack of law enforcement was held to be one of the greatest foes to morality. Speakers said vice in metropolitan centers would wreck the nation if not checked by state or federal intervention.
"Democracy is stretched almost to the breaking point by failure properly to enforce the laws," said Jenkin Lloyd Jones. "This is the most subtle form of anarchy. It is the gangrene of the metropolitan social system. There are two or three main causes for the prevalence of vice in the large cities.
"I mention first the low ideals of the officers intrusted with enforcement of the law.
Dollars Close Eyes.
"A second cause is the deep seated greed of the human heart; its lust for money. A silver dollar will close the eyes of a dying conscience.
"A still further aid to vice is hard to explain. I refer to the lust for power. There are many men who attain office who would not accept a dollar of graft, but who give way to a lust for power which makes travesty of their promises to serve people. A policeman cannot be a just policeman if he is interested in the political ring. I hope we can develop a Lincoln loyalty to a high standard of purity which will rebuke cupidity of the grafter and the graftee. I feel that the man who accepts graft is worse than he who offers it."
Reform Needed on Boulevards.
Rabbi Tobias Schanfarber said the apathy of the good element in a community was much to blame for the spread of vice.
"I think there is just as much work to be done on the boulevards as in the recognized vice infested districts.
Bishop John H. Vincent pleaded for greater care on the part of parents in the education of children.
It was announced that the association was $1,000 in debt. Arthur Burrage Farwell was re-elected president, and William P. Burgess secretary.
