Clifton R. Wooldridge

“ The "poker fiend" will lose his week's wages in a night. Sometimes, to boot, he loses money not his own, but he thinks it the part of the "game sport" if he hides his misfortunes behind the mask of a smile. "Be a good loser" is his never-failing motto. In the long run it is the neglected wife and family that are the REAL LOSERS.
The gambler's life is simply the life of a criminal. ”

“ Until a jury should decide, in so far as human fallibility may decide, just whether or how Dora McDonald shot down Webster Guerin, that victim of tangled love and jealousy, a waiting city hung expectant on every incident bared since the day that the artist toppled before a pistol ball in his studio with a woman of furs and furbelows standing sobbing above him. ”

“ Let those who think gambling an easy way to wealth and power read aright the lesson of the life of Mike McDonald; one continual tissue of law-breaking, imprisonment, divorce, scandal upon scandal, murder, adultery, leaving a name covered over and associated with all vileness, all the mud and slime of society, to go down to the grave with a broken heart. ”

“ Of course, there are a lot of drawbacks to the parole system as it applies to juveniles in Chicago. But free from politics and in the hands of fair-minded, square-leading men it would prove a splendid scheme worthy of the highest praise. In its infancy it might look like a failure, but as time passed it would be perfected, so that in the long run it would prove a godsend to humanity.
When a criminal returns from penitentiary or prison he is shunned by society; he is under the eternal vigilance of our police force—he is walked upon and pushed down. ”

“ They are forbidden to place themselves on an equality with others by narrow, human prejudice—the "holier than thou" attitude of that portion of the public which has not yet been "found guilty."
We are Pharisees, all, and sit in judgment on our fellowman, because we do not yet realize the mixture of evil and good that is in every man—none are exempt—only some are caught and punished.
Men have come to us, desperate, despairing men, crying: "For God's sake, what are we to do? If we get a job someone will tell our employers we have 'done time,' and we are fired. ”

“ Criminals cost honest taxpayers millions of dollars every year. Why not reorganize a system of confinement in such a way as to compel criminals to support themselves?
But financial relief is not the only advantage. If habitual criminals—that is to say, criminals who have served two terms in the penitentiary, and then have committed another crime—were placed in a penal colony, remote from society and kept there for life, the moral tone of the country would at once be raised. The bad example of such men, which leads youths into crime, would be removed. ”

“ Prison Poor Cure for Crime.
Locking a man up for committing a crime does not always cure him. It is now proven that affixed penalties to certain crimes accomplishes practically nothing, for it is based on a wrong principle. The length of confinement ought, confessedly, to be adjusted to the needs of the prisoner. He should not be discharged from his moral hospital until there is reasonable assurance that he is cured. He certainly should not be turned loose on society, on the mere expiration of a formal sentence, when it is known he will begin anew on his old life. ”

“ Open gambling has been placed under the ban of civic reform. While the policy shop, the lottery and other less dangerous methods of swindling have been effectively stamped out of most cities, the "bucket shop tiger" continues to rend the ambitions of young and old, dragging them down to forgery, embezzlement, suicide,—or that which is quite as bad,—broken spirit for legitimate endeavor. Under the circumstances the sympathy of the public should be with the movement to drive "bucket shops" out of business, to close them along with all other gambling institutions. ”

“ Living by one's wits has become a fine art, and it is a profession that is more liberally patronized than any other by the present generation. One of America's leading detectives remarked that there were about seventy-five thousand people in a city the size of Chicago that would bear watching. There isn't a bank, insurance office, dry goods store, restaurant or hotel that does not employ men to watch their customers, and there is hardly a business house in the country that has not some system of watching its employes. Everybody at this day seems to be afraid of everybody else. ”

“ It is not the drunkard only whose red nose, flabby cheeks and rheumy eyes betray him; it is the senualist whose vice is read in his lips, the knave whose propensity is revealed in the shape of his mouth; the man of violence is surrendered by his eyes. An experienced detective policeman, or a trained jailer seldom needs to ask the crime of which the prisoner was guilty. He can tell it by his face.
It is quite evident that in the future the study of physiognomy is going to be pursued more vigorously than it has been. As a means of preventing crime it may prove invaluable. ”

“ A 'grafter' is one who makes his living (and sometimes his fortune) by 'grafting.' He may be a political boss, a mayor, a chief of police, a warden of a penitentiary, a municipal contractor, a member of a town council, a representative in the legislature, a judge in the courts, and the upper world may know him only in his political capacity; but if the under world has had occasion to approach him for purposes of 'graft' and found him corrupt, he is immediately classified as an 'unmugged grafter'—one whose photograph is not in the rogues' gallery, but ought to be. ”

“ Making such a nuisance of herself in the penitentiary as no longer to be tolerated in a refined convict community, she proves her madness. In the locked, barred, asylum she proves her cunning at escape. And, once more at liberty, the abandon with which she goes after personal property in any form, at any time and under any circumstances, proves her skill as a thief and her unbalance in the "get away." ”

“ If, then, a citizen is content to enjoy the comforts and the quiet of American life without rendering any return therefor, he may justly be called a grafter, and a grafter of that worst sort, who robs his benefactor. For, with duty faithfully performed by the citizen, public opinion is readily shaped, laws quickly secure enforcement, and public servants are kept clean and true. It all comes back at last to the individual citizen, upon whom must rest the responsibility for failure or success of government. ”

“ The police of Chicago have done much in recent years to make it a better city. To them is due the credit more than to anyone else for better conditions in our moral life. If they are encouraged and allowed to work out these problems in their own practical way they will do more for our city's good than all the theoretical reformers combined.
Many conditions ought not to exist, but they must and will remain for the present. Your reformer, so-called, writes and pleads for the ideal. The police force deals with what is and knows best what can be done. ”

“ One reason why quackery flourishes is the fact that medicine is not a science. Ask any honest physician and he will tell you the same. A drug that will help one person will have no effect on another. There are in the realm of medicine no such things as "cures." People who are sick recover, but they would do so whether they took "dope" or not. All disease is self-limited. The doctor who talks of curing smallpox, measles, typhoid fever, is a fool. Natures cures, not the doctor. People get well of these complaints, and many others who take no medicines and employ no physicians. ”

“ Protection to society, as well as the reformation of the criminal, call for the retention of the latter until he can be trusted with his liberty, and affords proof that he is fitted to take his place in the world as a useful, law-abiding citizen. This system alone permits the fullest scope to reformatory methods, and leaves to the court the right of sentencing indefinitely, and to the tribunal which has to do with the prisoner's release, to say when there is reasonable ground for faith that if discharged he will not prove either a burden or menace to society. ”

“ Professional criminals pride themselves quite as much upon their ability as men engaged in legitimate occupations. A thief, for instance, is as vain of his superiority over other thieves as a lawyer, politician, or clergyman might be whose talents had elevated him to a commanding position in the eyes of the people. And the talented thief is as much courted and sought after as the successful man in the honest walks of life. ”

“ We ourselves have reared most of our criminals. They are a Chicago product. They have received their notions of right and wrong here among us. We are responsible for them.
What is the matter with Chicago? What are the elements in its life that breed criminals? What causes thousands of young boys to take up a criminal life? What must we do to change conditions?
These are questions that should engage every good citizen in anxious endeavor to find answers to them. If we are to reform criminals and lessen crime, we must first learn how to reform our own city. ”

“ The attack from the thug on the highway comes so suddenly and unexpectedly that there is rarely an opportunity to use a weapon in defense; and, even if it should occasionally happen that a man would be at a disadvantage because he had no pistol, this loss to the community is outweighed a thousand to one by the evils which follow its use.
Why should we permit men to manufacture and sell instruments of crime—weapons which are designed for no other purpose? ”

“ For these swindlers were coal dealers who robbed the poor that bought coal by the basket. They STOLE money from their customers, just as the short-measure milk trust conspirators robbed their patrons. We repeat that they ought to be in the Bridewell.
Giving short measure is the dirtiest, smallest, most cowardly form of commercial rascality. The hold-up man who takes his life in his hand and robs on the public highway is a model of decency and courage as compared with the pitiful rascal who steals the pennies of the poor by selling coal or milk or any other necessity of life by short weight. ”

“ The unsuccessful gambler is one of the worst of wrecks. He runs his little course of dissipation, dishonesty, cheating and swindling. He is over-matched and eliminated by the bigger, keener, self-controlled gambler, who eats him up as the big spider eats up the little spider. Hanging around saloons, [Pg 360] begging for a little money with which to bet, doing the dirty work of the bigger gamblers—that is the fate of the little gambling cast-off. ”