Salt Lake Telegram | 1928-06-03 | Page 21 | Crime and Quackocracy

TI Crime and 4 J 0 5 fHE HE Illinois Association for Criminal Justice 1 IA I has been making public some very interesting inter inter- esting facts about Chicago Its report on orS organized or- or S crime in the middle western metropolis for those lis us ought to be excellent reading p people ople who believe that our ur democracy has hasS its hardest problems and is now now- S surmounted s coasting gently along tow toward rd the S This report shows that Chicago has been in Sin the grip of its criminal overlords for a I of this tiu that the leaders toad good twenty years S precious gang ordinarily have longer and officials officials officials more secure terms of office than city that are active for a afew afew enjoy gan gangsters few years and then retire as multimillionaires as-multimillionaires that bootlegging ging vice and gambling interests have a skillfully interlocked machine that piles up profits at the rate of some a a. year AU AH of this would be amazing if we al already already at- at 5 ready 5 had bad not reached the point where we expect alm almost st anything from Chicago The great danger to us us' us who live side ou of Chicago is is that that we we are apt to adopt the attitude of the Pharisee thanking God that our cities are not as Chic Chicago go is and and then forgetting the whole business S Chib Chicago Chiago o is in a class by itself of course Yet it jt is only what many oth other r cities are in in miniature Chic Chicago's gos go's troubles did not come comeby comeby comeby by some maleficent miracle they can came came logically logically logically logi logi- logi- logi cally as developments from the regular time honored American municipal system It is too easy to blame the whole thing m on crooked crook d p politicians bootleggers and the like Back of all of 1 these ese elements lies S. S one one major cause the cause the indifference and and blindness of the voter And Chicago has no monopoly on that The Th truth of the m matter seems to be that M democracy came to us s a little tittle bit before we were ready for it Our national history t to date has been heen the story of our blundering effort to make democracy work Veve Weve made I Iome some ome progress ss and we shall make a great deal more just at present however we are arem m mai making i g plenty of mistakes Carlyle dating the birth of democracy from from- the American and French Frelich revolutions predicted rec d that it would have hav to togo go through n gh S two centuries of quad before it could function properly Perhaps he was right Chicago's municipal mess which is only an anS S enl enlarged photograph of what nearly all our cities suffer is one of inevitable inevitable inevitable able manifestations We wont won't get rid of it until we ve have learned a little bit more about out our tit duties es as citizens of a democracy