Show ADDRESS TO PROTECTED CLASSES OF orlden rev elderkin calls special attention to various kinds of business directly or indirectly responsible for some exist ing moral conditions I 1 ain not sure that you will fancy being addressed in that way but I 1 can think of no other word and there can be no question about your privileges of protection I 1 am speaking to you whatever your business may be who carry on a traffic which results invariably in a weakened and sickly manhood and womanhood it would bo difficult to specify all the enterprises which assist in tills holding back and retarding of the wheels of progress perhaps I 1 should not include the keepers of saloons in my list because the law recognizes their right to carry on their business but I 1 believe the saloon has a right to its place in the forefront of those institutions which threaten american democracy wo bave a trinity of evils the saloon the gambling house the brothel the latter two seem to depend for life upon the saloon the three are always closely associated I 1 realize that there are feeders for all of these hoppers and that the city and the churches ought to bo alavo to the problem of ridding the community of the feeders chief browning has told me time and again that the cheap public dance Is the prolific source of a debased morality 1 here can be no doubt concerning the folly of tolerating the various back rooms in cigar stores where boys are allowed to congregate for no good purpose we want to get at causes as much as possible we desire to cleanse the sources but too often it is impossible to reach these causes by means of the law I 1 believe firmly with you that the best thing to do is to stop the boy before he gets to you the law throws safeguards about the boy if he attempts to enter your places I 1 am not positive that you carefully observe the letter of the law or its spirit in tact I 1 do not see how you could well engage in alie boy saving business because all of you need grownup grown up boys for the life of your trade however I 1 may be wrong it may be possible for you to love every mothers son so well that you wish none of them ever to darken your doors such a point may be discussed later on in the evening but I 1 am anxious to lead you immediately to the matter I 1 desire to emphasize tonight I 1 said last sunday evening that every city in the nation which tolerates law breaking you mind I 1 do not say which has law breaking is at work on the local phase of a great national problem we have been stirred up of late by the attempts of president roosevelt to bring the rich and powerful men of privileges to judgment I 1 have no doubt but that your blood boiled as you read of the rich and powerful demanding and securing from cowardly and traitorous officials the abundant protection of authority while they violated every law they cared to or wanted to you dont think it right that the nations wealthy men should be protected in wrongdoing wrong doing you approve of the presidents merciless attack upon their unfair and unjust and unholy means of acquiring wealth you condemn these law breakers for turning upon the president and seeking to discredit him simply because they seek to prevent by fair means and foul any additional legislation which would farther check and restrain them you do not think it just that simply because a man has great wealth he is to go unrestrained and unchecked on his unscrupulous search of more wealth you do not I 1 trust I 1 have estimated your patriotism fairly you do not think that mr morgan or mr har alman or mr rockefeller should be accorded more protection by the law than the humblest man of us I 1 think it has been intimated that all men should be equal in the eyes of the law that justice was blindfolded and could not see whether a man wore purple or rags that wealth and property and position should make no difference when a man and the law were at variance hero tolore these glittering pearls have been cast before us we granted that they were very beautiful and all went merry as a marriage bell A few were getting wealthy not honestly but anyway they were getting wealthy now what has happened A marvelous change has taken place why pray the standard oil co a right to crush the life out of every competitor everywhere why may it not secure for itself everything which will make it stronger and deny to everyone else that upon which life depends ten years ago it could do what it pleased today that powerful monster confronts a new situation it may hear today from a thousand corners that the old morality has gone gone forever the problem is not wholly one of saving ones own soul and feathering a comfortable nest in heaven for ones self we are beginning to think of the other fellow how it fares with him and whether anything we are doing makes it harder for him to get on men are beginning to aay 1 I see no reason why john smith and I 1 should be treated differently you understand that this is wonderful progress the government is attacking the national phase of this problem it Is dealing with big men who do not deny they have heretofore been protected but who protest that they are right good things for the nation and ought to be allowed special privileges until gabriel blows ats horn otherwise bless you the nation will go to rack and ruin it took a big nation to go after so big a problem of course you see where our argument is leading this mighty national problem has a local phase will be courageous enough to face it if you do you will see why what seems to you an attack of brainless bigots upon the liberties of god fearing men is going on in our city and state if it is unjust that mr rockefeller should be protected in his breaking of law you will graciously concede I 1 am sure that it is unfair for you to have privileges in this community which the rest of us do not enjoy law is for all or for none we pay men to enforce the laws upon the statute books if to laws are bad and oppressively caruol there is a remedy that remedy Is not the payment of a few dollars to kill the conscience of tho states officers I 1 grant that there is a most successful and soothing remedy it lulls most ot us to sleep the remedy however la the demand that tho legislature yield to public opinion and remove the obnoxious measure from the books you have the right of appeal it ogden wants gambling if it must have the brothel if it insists that the saloons be i allowed open doors on sunday and the privilege of selling to minors and drunkards make bour demands openly appeal to the people to elect men who will make these necessary changes dont be afraid speak openly this is a democracy lets have the contest in the open but cant you see that the money you pay each month for protection is bribe money it bribes the city to overlook your offense against the law surely you cant reconcile that with your sense of justice if an organized band of highway robbers came to ogden and offered the city a month to operate do you think the privilege should be granted you say no we have laws with severe penalties for robbers and highwaymen or 1 a blackland Black hand society for the promotion of murder and violence should apply for a charter from the police permitting them to cut throats and cast bombs would you favor their demand of course not you would say we dont in tho state of utah you see I 1 can ask but one question then why should the city of ogdon permit men to rent buildings where they know and everyone knows a gambling bouse is to be conducted or a brothel is to be opened and why should the city permit men and women to carry on those traffics which are expressly forbidden in the law you see I 1 am not discussing the question of morality I 1 may be narrow and puritanical I 1 may have come from a home where the father and the mother take a large view of life and for that reason they sent two lads into the world stunted and dwar tedi but I 1 am discussing with you quietly and soberly the one fundamental problem of american democracy it is a question of the enforcement of law without fear or favor if the law is enforced against the poor man it ought to be likewise enforced against the rich man otherwise there can b no liberty and no equality here s a young man who lost 10 or a small sum in one of your gambling houses one saturday night I 1 think it was his weeks wage he hated to go home to the mother without his money and so determined to wait till the house was closed and to steal 10 he was caught on his person was found tho exact sum he had lost brokenhearted broken hearted he was sent to jail the case was disposed of very que itly I 1 hope the papers rejected the story because it newsy only a was imposed because of the boys shattered health spon after he died he was violating and you were you were carrying on an illegal business when you were you left the courtroom unpunished he crushed beneath the burden of conviction dont you see as fair minded men that we can rear no enduring structure upon such injustice and you haye privileges in the community I 1 have said which th e rest of us do note enjoy you would not think it fair if we were permitted to prey upon you and your famines you arc waylaid as you jump from your carriage in the early morning hours by some hoodlums they attempt to rob you immediately you demand the protection of tho authorities whose business it is to enforce the laws against such undesirable citizens wo grant you that privilege but see here you too are breaking the law yon pay for protection and get good measure pressed down running over suppose the robbers paid for protection and the police when you cried for help that hazy morning had replied well now mr brown wed like to assist you in this matter but you see the city Is dependent for its financial existence upon this class and anyway mr brown robbers and highwaymen are the necessary adjuncts of a twentieth century city and apart from their financial backing we should be powerless to carry on the government to such a reply what would you say why you would say this is a pretty state of affairs the idea of protecting open breakers of the law because they pay to be protected I 1 shall call upon mayor brewer tomorrow and have the entire police force removed the very foundations of democracy are being undermined my friend if you will let me use the word I 1 have the profoundest profound cst respect for your reply it Is sane logical your demand is fair you will find mayor brewer so just a man that bitter investigation he will readily grant your request that last remark of yours I 1 am especially interested in lodged in it Is the philosophical basis of reform every free leopla has some principle to uphold just at present tho whole nation is struggling to maintain the contention of every mans equality before the law you complain because a wave of reform is assailing your stronghold I 1 want you to see tho underlying principle of this movement it mr rockefeller is allowed to break the law and i you are allowed to break the law it wont be long before the rest of us will say alright if these men want anarchy 1 and confuso on lots have anarchy and confusion but you seo that ft would bo preposterous to allow every man to hold your views that young man who broke into your police protected gambling bouso and stole 10 or 11 really did the community very little harm ahe was arrested and punished his example stands bo foro the ogden youth ahey see that wrong doing leads to ne punish mant and disgrace just a moment please I 1 have fallen into an easy er I 1 should have said not wrongdoing but one kind of wrongdoing wrong doing and it Is precisely there the trouble begins all law breaking which is not protected and which can be apprehended is punished certain kinds of law breaking which are protected and most of which can be apprehended are not punished instead it is bruised bruited about that the life of the city depends upon permitting you to carry on an illegal enterprise or a legal enterprise in an extra legal fashion we hold up one kind of wrongdoing wrong doing and applaud it the other we thrust upon tho rock pile or give it thirty minutes to get to salt lake or huntsville and a few of us stupid ones have intimated that we did not understand and have cautiously apologized for being alivo but would some one please tell us why put aside it you please the question of whether or not you do any moral harm in the community put all that to one side and tell me what you think the influence of your example is ou the city Is it good to have one protected in defying authority and another punished I 1 have tarried so long upon this matter because it Is vitally important that everyone should see the principle involved in the present demand for change wo must come to it sooner or later we may as well settle it now once for all this first appeal is to your sense of justice the second is to your manhood and your love of men stevenson said be heard as it were through a veil the clear note of the clapper on the cross and the b sea cry alls well and that he knew nothing whether lor poetry or music that can sur the of these two syllables in the darkness of the night at sea but if one should cry alls well when the hold was gulping water in angry and breathless haste what then it is so I 1 come to a larger ideal oe brotherhood and fraternity I 1 wish we might be rid of the words in their narrow restricted meaning the samaritan whom jesus called just and we call good helped a helpless man back to helpfulness brotherhood hath no bounds I 1 may give to no man that which I 1 know will help him no whit your fraternal organizations are hastening toward the light it Is ony a matter of time before you will reach the borderland of a universal brotherhood we are interested in the poor and in their struggles upward great orders are organized whose object to loose the bonds of the poor and to strike the oppressors hand from the lowly and humble thousands of men are now bandec together to relieve distress and poverty they freely and gladly give succor it is a splendid sight here is an order which gives its members 10 a week when sickness overtakes the bread winner that helps to ease the blow and should death come to the home of its members the widow and the children are given that helps to case the blow but that man now in a drunkards grave spent thousands of dollars in his life in the saloons conducted by his brothers he was so weakened by the stimulants which the had given that he could not success fully resist the inroads of the disease then death stalked in and laid his hand upon the shattered frame there was no resistance at the open grave these brothers lifted up an carnesi prayer that god would give the homo journeying soul bate entrance I 1 am not saying that all this DO of money and respect and sym pathy Is empty and heartless I 1 an convinced that it is done with thi largest of feelings with a desira t help a yearning to pour soothing balm into a torturing wound bu aoe men there a nobler way t help we baij we put that man li a drunkards gravo thousands an put there every year the which perhaps you conduct put ana man where he is and the family when it is now A small portion ot tha 10 a week was youra and a bit of tha but soon that is gone and thi widow who need not have been one must go out and toll to keep alavi the children now dependent upon liei those acts of yours in anc bouso 0 pain are generosa gene roua and kindly am brotherly but let me point you to more generous and kindly spirit 0 brotherhood liquor was the curs of that man it Is to millions of oth ers why not figure it out so an say 1 I believe in fraternity brothel hood helpfulness this thing which am selling and urging men to buy 1 apparently what killed john salt and brought tears and pain to tn innocent ones in his home are not other homes suffering in like mar ner surely I 1 nm not helping thor by killing the father it is not a in thing to do |