p. 8 | REIGN OF VICE by C. Winfield Richmond

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 2, 1901

“REIGN OF VICE.”

By C. Winfield Richmond

Thus reads the heading of a column article in the Boston Globe of November 19, and the subhead adds, “More Evident in Chicago Than Ever Before.”

The mayor of Chicago, thru the chief of police, issued an order to the effect that all saloons in the Harrison-Street police district which are frequented by women, should be closed at midnight Saturday. This order was issued at 2 P.M. on that day. No sooner had the order been passed than “vigorous objections were raised by the keepers of the dives affected by the order.” “Politicians rushed to the mayor’s office,” and speedily brought the mayor to “their way of thinking;” for “these politicians have certain privileges with which even the mayor may not meddle.”

At 4 P.M. went forth a second order countermanding the first decree—the mayor could not withstand the “howl of protest,” and the dive-keepers and politicians had gained the day.

Such a state of municipal affairs is exceedingly deplorable, and could but result in the way it did.

“After midnight the effect of this second order was plainly visible on the levee. The noise and shouting of drunken men and women was even louder than before. A conservative estimate placed the number of women on the levee Saturday night at 4,000. In Tuckhorn’s saloon at Van Buren and State Streets, there were 200 women sitting at the tables, drinking, at 1 A.M. Most of these women are well known to the police, as they have been arrested scores of times for robbery and other crimes.”

“There are 300 saloons in the 22d precinct police district, and out of this number 200 are all-night places, which are frequented by thousands of women whose livelihood is gained by robbing the unwary. ‘This place is a thousand times worse than even Paris, with all its vice,’ said a policeman who had visited nearly every large city in the world. ‘Why, in Paris,’ he continued, ‘the authorities would not countenance such open debauchery right in the heart of the city’s main thoroughfares.’”

This is the condition of one of the largest cities of a so-called Christian nation. Such a reign of terror far eclipses the outrageous deeds of the ancient Romans, and surely does not presage the long-looked-for, long-sought-for millennium. And yet how clearly and vividly God’s Word portrays the picture! “Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity can not enter.” Isa. 59: 14.

“The good man is perished out of the earth; and there is none upright among men; they all lie in

wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.” They “do evil with both hands earnestly. . . . The day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.” Micah 7:2-4.

To the student of prophecy these facts are very significant. They call upon people of God to awake to a realizing sense of the situation. The worst is yet to come. The dark midnight of sin is around us now; “but joy cometh in the morning.”

C. WINFIELD RICHMOND.