SHALL THE SPECIAL INTERESTS RULE?
Kittle, William
Shall the Special Interests Rule? BY WILLIAM KITTLE VIII. The Alliance of Big Business ana Vice In Chicago. By Charles Edward Russell In the March, 1910. Hampton's* in an article entitled, "Chaos...
...The combined expenditures of Sibley and Dalzell in these two districts were nearly $50,000...
...The total sum expended must be limited as well...
...But these count for little in the actual government of the city...
...The Union of Traction and Vice MR...
...The Democrats renominated Mayor Dunne...
...They must be put out of politics...
...They were the result of ousting one gambling association for the benefit of another...
...A contest ensued for years over the granting of new franchises...
...On the Saturday night before the election, there was the usual rounding up of secret polls and reports from the wards...
...Infesting this district are the armed and uniformed policemen and the detectives who systematically and carefully protect both vice and crime and extort from it a constant revenue...
...This element includes all social and industrial groups—merchants, manufacturers, contractors, jobbers, skilled artisans, the professional classes, clerks and laborers...
...This last has proved to be the star "joker" of all the jokers ever hidden in Chicago ordinances...
...This is a striking example of how special privilege is farmed out even in the field of crime...
...Such a system classifies and organizes vice with exclusive privileges r.nd with ample police protection...
...The companies agreed to reconstruct their lines, to adopt the latest and best equipment, and to furnish good service...
...At the primaries in the Thirtieth district of Pennsylvania John Dalzell spent $9,200, most of which was contributed by manufacturers...
...Russe was elected, carrying the Democratic wards, and the traction ordinance was adopted...
...Kittle's unique and interesting series...
...They become indignant at the grafter who is occasionally found out...
...Paul: "The overshadowing question before the American people today is this: Shall the nation govern itself or shall the "Interests" run this country...
...Above all, the city was to receive 55 per cent, of the annual net operating profits—so-called...
...You will be interested in reading what Mr...
...An emergency conference was summoned and met in a room over Righeimer's saloon at No...
...and very often the railroads and also the industrial combinations of capital...
...They are always divided into two or more political camps which make decent city government impossible...
...In April, 1907, the traction cempany interests submitted the ordinance to a popular vote and also nominated for mayor, Fred A. Busse...
...Next week will appear the last article in Mr...
...Into this district go the politicians to levy their toll and at election times to round up the floaters and repeaters—gamblers, criminals and hoboes, and to purchase with a little money or drink the thousands of ignorant voters...
...175 Clark Street...
...These various companies are directly and powerfully interested in the city government for the franchise to be granted or held and for the cost and kind of service to be rendered to the public...
...Hampton's* in an article entitled, "Chaos and Bomb Throwing In Chicago...
...They were the direct result of the agreement that night over Righeimer's saloon...
...Tkese reports showed that Busse and the traction ordinance would fail...
...The Democratic and Republican factions afford an annual Punch and Judy show which is adroitly manipulated by Big Business in close alliance with Vice...
...2. "The city to be run on the wide-open policy...
...They want good government but they cannot get it...
...Among those present were representatives of the great financial Interests, managers of the machine, (Republican), and certain Democratic leaders that controlled thousands of lodging house and fraudulent votes...
...For more than three years, the vice district has had the direct protection of the Republican and Democratic officials, politicians and policemen...
...The franchise was to run twenty years with the right of purchase by the city...
...These were not thrown by anarchistr or by the usual kind cf criminals...
...RUSSELL in his article shows clearly how the traction interests of Chicago united with the politicians of the "levee" and vice district for the corrupt government of that city...
...On July 1, 1903, the franchises on all the principal and important street railroads in Chicago expired...
...Sibley received 10,446 votes at the primaries, and each vote represented an expenditure of nearly $4...
...A corrupt boss is bad enough, but when the electorate itself is debauched, what hope is left?—New York World...
...3. "Hinky Dink" and "Bath House John," Democrats, "to be allowed a free hand in the First Ward where the vice toll is the heaviest...
...Just before the city election of 1907, "the ablest attorneys of the traction companies drew a so-called ordinance (in effect a contract) so worded that the city appeared to be endowed with enticing advantages...
...Gifford Pinchot recently said at St...
...As his plurality was only 689 it is fair to say that his nomination was brought about by the sheer power of money...
...I believe the young men will do it...
...The people of the United States demand a new deal and a square deal...
...Most people see only the spectacular disclosure of sordid ambition, graft, vice and crime...
...Their nominations, therefore, cost almost $20,000 more than the emoluments of their office, exclusive of mileage and stationery allowances...
...The newspapers display in big headlines the Punch and Judy show of the Republican and Democratic politicians, the abomination of the First Ward Ball, the explosion of a dynamite bomb or a murder in the vice district...
...4. One gambling association to be ousted in all of its operations and another "to have exclusive gambling privileges in Chicago...
...From July 8, to October 31, 1907, 34 dynamite bombs were exploded in the central part of Chicago...
...CANNON'S LIEUTENANTS PAY IT cost Joseph C. Sibley $40,698.83 to win the Republican nomination for congress in the Twenty-eighth district of Pennsylvania...
...They insist that the Special Interests shall go out of politics or out of business...
...Their combined salaries as representatives in congress for two years will be only $30,000...
...To permit a candidate to pay more for his nomination than the salary of the office is to invite corruption of the most wide-reaching and demoralizing kind...
...Kittle writes about the question "Shall the Railroads Throttle the Panama Canal...
...A Bi-Partisan Bargain AT THAT meeting, certain Democratic bosses representing Vice, agreed with the Republican bosses representing Big Business on the following terms: 1. Busse to be elected and the traction ordinance adopted...
...It is not enough that law merely restricts the purposes for which money can be used...
...They execrate the politician or the policeman who for protecting vice and crime levies a toll upon it...
...2. The vice district with its gambling dives, wine rooms, disorderly houses, stall saloons and dance halls...
...3. The great mass of the people comprising four-fifths of the population...
...IN EVERY large American city, three more or less distinct elements have to be considered: 1. The city utility companies—traction, light, water and telephone...
...EDITOR'S NOTE...
...But they do not see hack of all this comedy and tragedy of life, the real cause of corruption in American city government...
...That cause is the control of the city government by the public utility companies or other combinations of capital...
...By "profit scalping" and bookkeeping and under a favorable administration in the City Hall, the traction company has not yet enriched the city treasury...
...He will discuss four important articles that have recently appeared concerning: the Panama Canal...
...by John L. Mathews in Everybody** and by Ref r Admiral R D. Evans in Hampton's...
Vol. 2 • July 1910 • No. 29
