A CORRUPT POLICE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1504, 29 July 1912, Page 5

A CORRUPT POLICE.

HAND IN HAND WITH CRIME. By Teleffrapli—Pre6s Association—Conyrisat New York, July 27. In connection with the murder of Hermann Rosenthal, a noted gambler who recently charged the police with "graft," nu investigation showed that no gambling dens can remain open in New York except with the connivanco of policemen, w'ho have received large Bums in the form of "graft." The District-Attorney, Mr. Whitman, asserts that every man participating in tho murder has been located except one, the chaffcur of the automobile in which tho assassins escaped. Those arrested havo confessed their identity, and tho authorities are giving them tho "third degree," with the object of securing full details of tho crime. New York is greatly excited over tho Rosenthal case, which reveals the existence of unparalleled corruption in .the police force. MORAL CESSPOOLS. LAWLESSNESS IN AMEBICA'S GKEAT CITIES. "In three of our largest cities there lias been, in the last few weeks (said "Current Literature" 1 in May, 11)11) an opening of moral cesspools" that makes the ordinary work of the magazine muckraker saem tame by comparison. In New York City tho man to perform tho disagreeable job of taking off the lid was Police Magistrate Corrigan. In Pittsburg, the president of the Voters' League, A. Leo Weil, did the work, and in Chicago a Vice Commission appointed by the Mayor undertook the duty. The revelations arc local in their character, and the discussion that has ensued has been chiefly of a local sort; but in the midst of it comes Mr. S. S. M'Clure, the uiagnaziuo publisher, who has been for years collecting facts concerning the lawlessness of tho American people, and the local revelations assume a national significance in the light of his sweeping indictment. "Thero are ten, times as many murders," so runs one of his statements mado in an address in New York City, "in the United States per million inhabitants as in any other country." He added: "The number of murders in this country in thirteen years, makes as great a death list as that of thoso of the "Union army, who died on the Southern battlefields in the Civil War. Last year saw twenty-nine murders in Detroit and two in Toronto. Our civilisation has not broken down all at onco under this advancing lawlessness. It. has taken time. In 1881 there were twenty-four murders for every million of population. In the next fifteen years tho murder rate grew six times taster than the population, till to-day wo read with indifference newspaper headlines in any paper such as, if they appeared in any European paper; would cause a downfall of tho form of. government." "I have in my possession at this mo ■ mont," said Magistrate Corrigan, "a list of 312 criminals, all of them out-of-town-ers, who have couio to New York since the opening of tho year." Thcso names, he said, were given to him by one police officer and one store detective. "I could give you," he continued, "the names of a lot of confidence men yon can see around .Broadway and Forty-second Street any afternoon, or'fifty-four badger.women plying their trade, or forty-six burglars, and all of those- I got in two or three minutes from a policeman." Not content with figures, the magistrate named a few of these shady characters and told of the haunts wh'ich they frequent. The very names are picturesque: i'og O'Day, hnock-out-Sheel:nn, Ycddo November, Kid Twist, Denny Slyfox* Ho told whore Monk Eastman, just' out of tho penitentiary, had started an.opium joint; where Jerry Lay,ton, was running four sluss games without even paying for police protection; where Canfield's old resort had been roopened, and where, in "a certain downtown district," were SOO unlicensed places in which liquor was being sold. He told of "the carbarn.gang" and their dead-line for policemen, and of tho "riot of vice found in Coney Island last summer by tho then acting-mayor, Mr. Mitchell, and of "the most wonderful procession that has over occurred In the history of a civilised community," caused by Mitchell s active efforts: "Mitchell gave the word to close, and then all the human rate that infested the place got together; they got a brass band and marched down Surf.Avenue, headed by tho brass band, and, 500 strong, dancing and singing between . two linos • of cops tho painted women in tights, the liar's and pickpockets and panders and moral degenerates, all of them walked down there between two police lines, jibing and jeering, and took tho tram for New York. That, is what Mitchell did, and did that in two weeks' tune. O'Brien, ■ the inspector for the Coney Island district, was put on trial, for the condition he had permitted to exist The evidenco was all received Tho. law in the case was. simple. But decision was resorved bv. the commissioner, and, asserted Cordgan, it always will be reserved because O'Brien knows too much I challenge the commissioner, saul Corngan %o decide tho ease of .Inspector O'Brien, and I say to you that until he does that, his department rests under the deep suspicion of the public.