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ical brute is armed with club and
gun and then sent out to do the
work of a pirate master.
Under our present police system
few policemen can remain honest
and humane.
Our police sjstenris a putrid mess,
and while it remains as it is a sys
tem of protection for predatory in
terests and other wealthy lawbreak
ers it can be nothing else.
I have thought for many years a
great city would have more decency,
more peace, less thievery and black
guardism, and surely less taxes on
the overburdened taxpayers if it had
no police at alL
But if we are to have police let us
select them for their general intelli
gence, the information they can give
the citizen when desired, their kind
ness of heart, their education, and
not for the strength of their arms or
thighs. T. P. Quinn.
POLITICAL SUPERSTITION.
During the last municipal election a
group of Chicago workingmen were
ignorant and foolish enough to pub
lish a full-page advertisement in the
newspapers asking other working
men to vote for Thompson for mayor
because his election, they declared,
would restore prosperity to the city
and in particular to the steel indus
try. Conditions in the steel trade and in
general are now better than they
were early last spring, and undoubt
edly many of these workers think
that Thompson's election is the
cause. But how can a local election,
or any election, affect an industry,
the prosperity or depression of which
depends on the general market and
trade conditions not only of the en
tire continent, but of the world?
There is more work in Chicago
now than last winter and spring, but
this is not due to the present city ad
ministration, and no one knows how
long it will last Production and ex
change are governed by economic
laws and are not affected by elections
and politics any more than a dog's
barking at the moon affects the
movements of the planets. Theodor
Johnson.
NATURE'S ANALOGIES. All liv
ing things have their origin, maturity
and decline. Swarms, flocks, herds,
arise, increase arid perish, as do
bands of humanity, whether in tribes,
cities, nations, races, bound together
as governments, churches, societies
for whatsoever purpose; all of them
start from small beginnings, whether
individuals or combinations of indi
viduals; each and all of them develop
and rot.
It looks as though some human
races have outlived their neighborly
past and decay is overtaking many
social aggregations, such as neutral
pacts, etc., through holy graft ahd
political corruption, comparable to
the spread of tuberculosis, pellagra
and cancer, increasing in malignancy
in spite of efforts at prevention, but
aided by the abominable ignorance
that fights against sanitation.
Grasshoppers have swarmed in
clouds through Dakota, Nebraska
and Minnesota, eating every green
thing for a thousand miles in a path
a hundred miles wide; but an insig
nificant little red parasite under the
wings laid its eggs in the same holes
dug by ovipositers of the grasshop
pers. The parasite developed first
and feasted upon the embryo hop
pers. Norwegian lemmings, a small ro
dent, three or four times in each cen
tury migrate in multitudes devasta
ting great valley paths toward the
sea, into which they jump to self
destruction. Similarly governments, religions,
societies as well as persons, may
adopt a policy that is destructive.
Greed, scheming, plotting, lying, fo
menting hate, spying, intriguing
finally react upon their authors to
clean them out as the parasites clean
up the grasshoppers and as ignor
ance and ferocity persisting in the
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