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Show CUT THE PROFITS, CURE THE EVIL. From time to time the police forces in Chicago and New York are exposed. ex-posed. The exposures are all alike. The one of this year differs from that of five years ago only in respect to such details as names and dates. We suppose there never was an honest police administration in cither city; never a time ' when policemen were not drawing an illicit revenue from connivance at some form of law-breaking. law-breaking. Of late, in Chicago, old police officers of-ficers have been telling the Civil Service Ser-vice Commission how,- time out of mind, they have been mulcted for contributions con-tributions to the campaign funds of the party in power. W5th the party grafting upon him, graft, to the policeman, po-liceman, becomes a matter of self preservation. The policeman's graft comes from connivance at certain forms of law-breaking law-breaking at which the city itself connives. These forms of lawbreak- ing flourish in big cities because they M arc commercially profitable not at M all, as the thrifty and practical politi- 'M cian alleges, because they arc an in- 'M hcrcnt necessity to a great population. 'M It is considered good, if cowardly, M politics to say as little as possible up- M on these subjects. There is a theory M that many business men do not wish ,fl to be asked to vote upon them, lest M on the one hand they do violence to M their morals, or on the other they M drive away business. M So long as metropolitan politics ac- M ccpts as fundamental the idea that M there must be some laws which must M not be enforced, we expect that ex- M posing the police will continue a M standard form of metropolitan ac- M tivity. H |