Amos Griswold Warner

“ This conviction, that crime is all pervasive and that government is simply one of the tricks in the trade of dog-eat-dog which all are playing, will paralyze the conscience quicker than any other belief that can take possession of the human heart. ”

“ They do not think themselves responsible for open gambling dens and scandalous police courts, but they are. I have known more than one promising movement for municipal reform to be wrecked on such hidden rocks as these. When the criminal indicts the community because of corruption in some branch of local government he is usually right. If we try the case on its merits, the indictment stands. The only way that you or I can clear ourselves of complicity is by showing that we have done the utmost humanly possible to bring about a better state of things. ”

“ There must be in each locality a body of conscientious voters slightly more numerous than the criminals and semi-criminals, and just as active politically, just as non-partizan in local affairs, and (here is usually the rub) just as coherent. Much good breath and good energy has been wasted in denouncing "machine politics." Machine politics are inevitable as the good government clubs and civic federations of the last few years well know. ”

“ In fact, as already indicated, the blight of spoils politics is upon the various branches of local administration in a large proportion of the cities and towns of the United States. I venture to guess, and it is nothing more than a guess, that in three-fourths of the cities of the United States having a population of more than 50,000, there are frequent though informal conferences between the officers of the law and habitual law breakers as to how far the laws will have to be enforced—how far it will be necessary to pander to the moral sentiment of the community. ”

“ And yet what other thought can be instilled into the mind of a young man whose wildness has not yet ripened into crime? He can get his drinks on Sunday in violation of the law, perhaps because money is paid the police, and perhaps because the saloon-keeper that he patronizes is a city alderman. The gambling den to which he goes is immune from interference, the light in the passageway leading to it shines out on the pavement where brass-buttoned policemen walk with eyes that see not, because the man who runs the establishment is the Republican committeeman from that ward. ”

“ Our supposititious young man sees relatively decent people who have business with the police magistrates brow-beaten, insulted, and perhaps fined without cause. When some of his wealthier comrades, or those he has watched from afar, actually have to go to jail on some serious charge, their money procures them all the luxuries of life, even to the joys of "taking in the town," an official being detailed to accompany and bring back the debauchee. ”

“ I refer to times when crime becomes epidemic, and our industrial problems are lighted up by the flames of burning property, and sometimes by the flash of army rifles—times such as we saw in 1877, 1886 and 1894. At such times there is a dangerous tendency through our whole community to tolerate and even sympathize with acts of violence on the part of strikers. This tendency has its origin in a latent belief that the capitalists whose property is in danger are themselves sinners, and that in these times of outbreak. ”

“ Wherever politics is a wholly selfish business, and "the art of winning elections" is practiced as a means of livelihood by men not qualified for the offices to which they attain, we have a blundering, obtuse and conscienceless management of institutions. A teacher who was looking up local conditions as a preparation for lecturing on crime found that the only man connected with the county jail who had an unselfish interest in prison reform was one of the prisoners. ”

“ It was shortly before the advent of such sensible and efficient organizations as these that a politician said to me, "The trouble with the good people of this town—the trouble with the good people is that they are such blamed fools." ”

“ The corrupt practices at which the country threw up its respectable hands in horror had for years been the accepted and commonplace facts of their lives upon which all their activity had been conditioned. ”

“ As attorneys, or investors, or business men, they are likely to be interested in building contracts, or paving contracts, or electric lighting, or a water company, or a gas company, or street railway franchises, or in "placing" the bonds which the government may issue from time to time. For such reasons as these many citizens who think themselves respectable, and are in fact highly influential, are willing to contribute to the support of a corrupt or semi-corrupt party, and ask no questions except questions as to the treatment to be accorded to the enterprises in which they are interested. ”

“ The commonest arrangement is for them to unite themselves in each locality with whatever party has there a majority on national issues, because only a party in power can give them what they want. It thus comes about that in most communities the party in power is more likely to be corrupt than the party of the minority, for, as an acute observer has said, you cannot expect right conduct from a party as long as it contains within itself enough criminal votes to defeat it. ”

“ Petty offenders and those living on the verge of criminality in our large cities, seldom get past this line of guardians of the peace, and live always more or less in their presence. The policeman to them represents the state. Three classes of persons who commonly offend against the law have an especially intimate acquaintance with policemen and police courts—I refer to gamblers, prostitutes and saloon-keepers. There are not very many criminals who do not either belong to these classes or to their patrons. ”

“ When certain of his cronies are arrested on rather serious charges he finds that the police court is presided over by a man without dignity and without honesty. The judge's predecessor eloped with a prostitute, and the one before that was a defaulter. ”

“ Again and again improved methods of dealing with crime, modern reformatories, the parole of prisoners, police supervision of discharged prisoners, the indeterminate sentence, and numberless other improvements work unsatisfactorily because we have not officials honest enough, intelligent enough and diligent enough to carry them out properly. ”

“ If he finally goes to jail himself, he will spend most of his time discussing with others such things as these, and will come to feel that they are the ordinary facts of social life. He may hear of small towns and rural communities in which conditions are almost as bad as those with which he is personally acquainted—places where the constables and justices work together to catch as many tramps as possible and give them as short sentences as possible in order to collect fees from the county for this, their official activity. ”

“ Now it is not likely that any one young man would have all these experiences in any one month, in any one town, but there is not a single supposition in the whole string of them which has not its counterpart in definite facts for which I could furnish names, dates, and localities. ”

“ Some are even free from annoyance or danger in this regard because their managers have made their peace with the officials by money payments or otherwise. He may even know that the degraded street-walker who solicits himself and others without shame and without fear divides her earnings with the policeman on her beat which is also his. He finds that many of the police arrests are "fakes;" ”