Show POLITICS AND MORALS 1 1 What the Garden City Is Doing 1n i t Each A Bad Showing Made for ChIcago 4 0 5 Political Topics ECorietpondence SALT LXXK HKEJLLD CHICAGO July 12 1880 Tho political campaign baa not yet reached a etue of activity that promised to exhaust the partisan before the summer solstice bn waned Neither party here seems to be di6tre sing itself About matters of organization Noted as is Chicago according to our daily paper aa a summer resort everybody who can iflord the time end money will icatf town for ft week or two in July or August and aa Uese getaways cootpriae a Urge proportion of tb < leading people in meat public aclivi tiEd and enterprises it id sate to say hat not much will bo done during these two months and thaI little will be merely spasmodic and nub flueutial Still the world has to move or make a point of it all the time The Board of Trade men continue to exercise their longs as fiercely aa ever the daily gapers have to appeal whether or no and it is their business to keep up an excitement in startling head lines and horrid topics no matter it the people are too hot or too lazy to move It is sometimes quite agonizing to witness the efforts of the city editors to create a sensation sensa-tion among their readers The Times of late has been vigilant in quest ol rich and raro physical and moral scents with which to regale its crowd of panting citizens It possesses the art too of dealing with odorous properties without using a disinfectant disin-fectant and manages that the stench shall lose none of its richness by the stirring up operation Its descriptions of the filth of the Chicago river were faithfully drawn and its characterization of General Hancocks alleged physical peculiarities peculiari-ties were artistically lucid Itt latest presentation of one of Chicagos great industries however hag attracted more attention perbaps than any other of Us recent sensations since it is regarded as an authority on the subject On the 9th instant the TIDHS pub liaised a remarkable editorial on the qnestoaablo tocial relations of Chicago Chi-cago starling out on the basis of 1200 open prostitutes in the city or one to tvsry 420 inhabitants or about one to every 60 or 70 of the adult male population Adding tj this number at vile women another 1200 oi the same character estimated esti-mated aa living not in houses in common but in apartments by them schtp a total of 2400 women of this cUt ia Lund bringing the supply ol at leutt I one of these women to SO or 35 ul our adult population of Hid stronger sex But eveu this is uot the worst There is another cati harlots in everything but the name made up of women ol every grade of eociety and who resort to prostitution from the preesure of an almost inconceivable number of motives These aro servants ser-vants sewing girls clerks and others of this grade who have an occupation and with whom harlotry is epizootic and who resort to it in the main to increase their tlender aarnings Above this class in social standing but infinitely below it in moral is another which is made up of women who occupy good positions in society and who have lovers apart from their own husband etc etc Both of these latter classes tho Times allows Iare just as much prostitutes as tho women who have no concealment of their position and they are thrice as do graded and vastly more dangerous and demoralizing to society But it seems unnecessary to follow the editorial l in detail It is sufficient to say that its final estimate makes the number of lewd women in tho city one to every ten or fifteen of our adult male population If this population may be estimated at 100 300 and it i is probably more than this the prostitute class would reach from 7000 to 10000 souls The Times moralizes on these results of course advocating a public registry of all prostitutes male and female on the principle that the extent of an evil known and understood its availancc or suppression becomes less difficult than when it is carried on in secret I But the oracle fails to suggest any I plan for completing its registrywhich i evidently would involve greater labor than tikiog the United States census I Perhaps the enterprising Tunes detectives de-tectives might undertake the job and make a great success of it as they I are reputed 10 know tho slum and pitfalls of Chicago better even than the regular police force I observe that the Times rehashes my last letter to the HKRALD in its editorial columns taking Eome exceptions ex-ceptions to its language But tho Times aside from sneering at all parties and all politicians invariably wastes its ammunition iu faultfinding faultfind-ing That it is thoroughly independent independ-ent in politics cannot be doubted but its editorial writers seem to have no comprehension of such a thing asa as-a constitutional I principle One of its recent sage ideas was the discovery discov-ery that the governors of eighteen republican states could legally con vene their republican legislatures who would have tha legal right to appoint the 198 electors for president to which those Elates are entitled In making this announcement the editorial writer did not stop I imagine imag-ine to consider the several constitutions constitu-tions of these eighteen states many of which probably preclude pre-clude Euch an assumption of power on the part of their legislature nor did he care to allude to the fact that such appointments made at this time would be of an ex postefacto nature or that they would violate the fundamental fun-damental principle of our government govern-ment and especially of our presidential presi-dential elections the neglect of the majority to vote for their public servant Such considerations are matters ol email importance doubt less to the philotODbers of the Times 1 i but they are of some significance in a popular point of view The fraud issue is destined to grow with the campaign It did not need Mr Tildene candidacy to save it for the benefit of the country and the success 01 the democracy The people not Mr Tilden alone were cheated out of their rights and unless our history and Torn Benton are all wrong the fate that met the Adams party in 1828 will befall the Garfield party in 1880 In 1824 Andrew Jackson Jack-son received a plurality of the popular I vote but not a majority of the elect ors and John Quincy Adams was chosen president by the House of Representative His election though legal was in opposition to the popular vote and Tom Benton shows that the issue thus created drova from power the party and the men who engineered engi-neered and carried through this reversal ot the peoples decision History repeats itself The fraud iseue will overtop all ethers in this campaign and drive the republican partr into merited obscurityE E N F |