EFFORT after effort has been made to rid San Francisco of graft and political corruption; but still the difficulties remain. The same efforts are constantly put forth in other large cities as well. Sometimes it is Chicago, sometimes it is New York, sometimes it is Philadelphia, or some other city; and just now it is San Francisco again. This time the great effort is on to rid San Francisco of her “Barbary Coast,” the name that is given to her vice-laden district, which is known quite as well as the “Bowery” of New York City. The present effort was started by one of San Francisco’s leading daily papers, and the watchword is to free San Francisco from “commercialized vice,” and make it a place fit for decent people to dwell and enjoy themselves. It is desired that San Francisco shall be made a famous playground and great pleasure resort that will attract the people of the world, not only during the time of the great exposition, but during all time to come; and in order that it may be such, it is believed that the city must be freed from every taint of commercialized vice. Ministerial associations and various kinds of civic, social, and religious organizations are taking up the watchword to make San Francisco a clean city. There is no question but that movements of this kind serve to hold the elements of lawlessness in check. They serve to spread uneasiness and terror—temporarily, at least—in the vice-laden centers of the city. The efforts that will be made will be largely of a secular character. They will undertake to enact laws, to enforce laws, and to do all sorts of things of that character, that they believe will make the city genteel and refined, so that people of gentility and refinement will love to come there. But are such efforts deep enough to cleanse the cancer spots that are infesting all our great cities? This question of “commercialized vice” is one that afflicts not merely San Francisco, but it is world-wide. We have numerous associations and organizations, such as the American Vigilance Association, that are working for the suppression of vice and the overthrow of the traffic that is making money out of the sins and debaucheries of men and women. But the efforts that are made are quite largely secular, and while these may partially smother the flames of passion and of greed that are burning in the hearts of men, yet they do not put them out. What San Francisco needs, and what every other city in all this world needs, is the strong voice of one like the prophets of old, who will lay the ax at the root of the tree, and who will show men in high and low places alike that their sins are bringing this world to its great and final doom, and that the putting away of these sins from the heart is the only thing that can effect a cleansing worthy the name. The great sin of the Barbary Coast in San Francisco, according to what those are saying who are laboring to cleanse the city, is that of hilarious drunkenness and prostitution. They think that if these things could be done away, then the city could put on her beautiful garments and be respectable. But it is an interesting thing to know that the very paper that is carrying on this crusade runs a regular series of cartoons that make a joke of infidelity in the marriage relation and of sensuality. These cartoons sometimes take one form, and sometimes another; but they invariably endeavor to make it appear exceedingly funny for a man to leave his wife and go on an escapade with a lot of other women. They will have him make very close escapes from being caught in their company by his own wife, to whom he has taken the vow at the sacred altar to be true, loyal, and faithful. And how can men hope to work, in a part of their pages, to belittle and to overthrow the sacredness of the marriage altar, and yet at the same time, by means of other of the pages, to destroy “commercialized vice”? Now these cartoons that appear in the body of the paper are usually read. If you do not believe it, get on one of the street-cars in the early morning, or take a suburban train, and notice what the people in the cars, as a general rule, invariably read. You will see that they never miss these cartoons and silly caricatures of the marriage relation. There must be a great demand for that class of literature, otherwise high-priced men could not be kept on these papers to produce it. That paper says, on its front page, that the Barbary Coast must be done away. In its cartoons it says that it would be a great joke for a man to go up and down the Barbary Coast, and come very near getting caught, but still get through without being found out. Why can not men see the absurd inconsistencies of such attempts at reform? Why can not men see that the ribald songs, the silly jokes, and the miserable cartoons, that are working to destroy marital honor and decency, can not be kept up and made popular, and still our “Boweries” and our “Barbary Coasts” and other similar resorts be destroyed? We are not making very much headway while tearing down with one hand and attempting to build with the other. The tearing down process is much more rapid than the building one. It is well to favor every reform movement that is working for reform in fact; but we ought also to be consistent. Neither should we allow ourselves to be deceived in regard to the conditions that prevail in this world, by the clatter and noise of many of these so-called reformers. To the superficial observer they may appear to be very strongly reformatory; but if you take away the glamour and the display, and closely observe the facts, you will see that the actual conditions in this world may well cause deep anxiety and concern.