IN 1906 San Francisco was before the world prominently because of her great disaster of earthquake and fire. Immediately following this calamity, strong and courageous men took hold most vigorously of the work of restoring the city. Those who saw San Francisco in her ruins, and who have kept track of her rebuilding, have regarded the work accomplished as nothing short of the marvelous.
This work of rebuilding has been done in the face of some severe handicaps. For instance, when the city was a tangled mass of ruins, the mayor and his council formed a league with an army of lawbreakers to reap a great harvest from vice and crime and every kind of crooked work. Detective Burns was secured to get the evidence against them, and Mr. Heney was chosen for the prosecution. But some large moneyed interests had to be met, and hence only a small portion of those who were charged with guilt were ever sentenced. A number of men, however, were sent to the penitentiary as the result of the prosecution; and the claim was made, from the rostrum and through the press, that the exposure would drive the criminal to cover with such a fright that he would never come out again.
These prosecutions of crime in San Francisco followed the celebrated land fraud cases of the Northwest. Other big cases of a similar character were fought out in various parts of the country, and men were buoyant with the thought that this exposure would give us clean governments in city, state, and nation. Expose the crime, and make the criminal odious, was the cry, and we will soon allow the right and justice to triumph. But those who held this pleasant view but little realized the strength of the forces of evil that have gathered in this time, and how strongly and permanently they are entrenched. Exposures of crime in Seattle, in Chicago, in New York City, and many other parts of the country, have been prominent in the news of the day ever since the case of San Francisco was made so prominent in 1907. And it must be apparent, to any unprejudiced observer, that conditions are growing worse and worse in all our large cities. It is not that one city is worse than another and is to be held up to the odium of ridicule and shame, but all are alike in the struggle against a deluge of criminality.
Photo by Paul Thompson, N. Y.
San Francisco had her great fight against crime in 1907. Mr. Roosevelt and other leading men of the nation were interested in the combat, and gave their influence with the forces of righteousness to stamp out the evil. Mr. Ruef, the “arch-grafter,” was sent to the penitentiary, and a few others with him. But this did not deter the forces of evil. The battle went on. It is not essential to give the details, but the present mayor of the city was elected by the better element. He was elected on a reform ticket, and expressed himself in favor of law, order, and decency. He seems to be laboring hard to give the city a good administration. He is seeking to have it represent the best of American progress when it becomes the center of attraction to the world in 1915. He has good men who are working with him to this end, but he has on his hands a stupendous task.
At the present time the city is rounding up a gang of “bunco men” and “gangsters” who have been secretly preparing the way to reap a big harvest from crime when the Panama Exposition is opened. Some of these have already been driven to acknowledge their guilt, and it is openly charged that they had formed an alliance with certain ones of the police force, and were beginning to reap in advance of the main crop that they were planning for in 1915. It is affirmed that they have stolen some $300,000 during the last three years. This seems like a small sum when compared with what has been stolen in a similar way in New York, but it shows that the rascals are organized and at work.
San Francisco can not be wholly to blame for producing this gang of criminals that are operating there now, for it has been ascertained that expert crooks have been gathering there from all parts of the world. But it must be evident to any one, that we do not have the criminal element suppressed. It must also be evident that they are becoming more and more cunning, and have perfected an organization with certain officers of the law that makes it very difficult for them to be caught and brought to justice.
It is to be hoped that Mayor Rolph of San Francisco will be successful in his efforts to dethrone the bandits who are planning to make our world’s exposition a camping-ground for thieves; and he should have the assistance, in this, of every law-abiding citizen. But we should not lose sight of the significance of this tremendous conflict that we have to fight with criminals. The love of money and of luxury is at the foundation of it with many; the love of money in order to satisfy the gnawing desires of depraved appetites and passions is at the foundation of it with many others; and perhaps all the rest would come under the head of the love of money and the determination to get it at all hazards without working for it.
One man is successful in acquiring a great fortune through some speculation, or by getting a corner on some one of the commodities of nature; another man is unsuccessful in his attempts in those directions, but by some fraud he manipulates things so that he can wrest money from his more successful brother. And in the great scramble for money, crime has ceased to be heinous in the minds of many men, if only they can keep out of the clutches of the law and gather wealth rapidly and in large sums. The cutthroats and rascals who infest San Francisco and other great cities are merely the lower order of the gang. The prevailing iniquity of the age is the scramble for money. It has always been a curse to humanity, but it is intensified in this time. It would be well to heed the following words of the apostle:
“But they that are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” 1 Tim. 6:9; 10.
“All kinds of evil” are in the love of money, and the end is “destruction and perdition.” The nations of the past that have gone down have first given themselves to wealth and luxury, and then every kind of evil and vice and criminality has come in to produce general decay, and the end is complete overthrow. Each nation has the example of those that have gone before, but humanity seems loath to heed the warnings until it is forever too late.
