Daily Kennebec Journal

The Chicago Election.

The Chicago election is one of the elections which the democrats are exulting over. And yet it is such a result as ought to shock all decent people and arouse them to the necessity of united and strenuous effort against such victories in the future. All the better elements of Chicago were in favor of the republican candidate, who represented the idea of reform in the city government, particularly in the matter of licensing saloons and houses of bad repute, and dealing more stringently with the criminal class. The places and classes which supported Carter Harrison, the democratic candidate, were mentioned by the Chicago Tribune, before election, as follows:

"There are hundreds of whiskey dens, of dance-halls, of low theatres which have beastly exhibitions every afternoon and evening, of houses of prostitution, of assignation houses, of French cigar-stores which are the vilest of the vile, of restaurants which are intended for the purpose of prostitution, of buildings set apart for unlicensed vice of all sorts, of fences, of boozing kens, of second-hand dealers and pawnbrokers in league with thieves, of every possible resort, in fact, for vice that can be mentioned. It is the rendezvous for the vicious and criminal of every class. There is not a vice known to the world that is not practiced in these sinkholes. There is not a crime that has not been practiced there. The worst prostitutes, male and female, swarm in these places. In an area of half a mile square there are 225 hell-holes, patronized by abandoned men and women, not secretly, but openly and publicly, and in the most brazen manner, right in the eyes of respectable people, and right in the eyes of the police. By day no woman can pass them without insult. By night no man can pass them without danger of assault and robbery. They hang out their signs and advertise their practices by bawdy pictures and other allurements. They stand in their doors and solicit passers-by, especially the young, reviling those who pay no heed to their foul entreaties. What goes on within these foul dens could not be told on paper."

Carter Harrison had been Mayor of the city four years, and had permitted these sinks of iniquity to grow up and flourish under his administration without molestation. Why did he not attempt to close them up? The Tribune answers in these words: "If they were closed up and the riff-raff and scum that keep them were driven out, he wouldn't get 15,000 votes in the city. The strength of his vote comes from the rum-holes and gambling houses, and every house of prostitution electioneers for him, and its bedaubed and bedizened inmates advocate his cause. There is not a thief in Chicago who will not vote for Harrison. There is not a sand-bagger, slugger, pimp, gambler, bruiser, concert-saloon keeper, pickpocket, or hoodlum who will not vote for Harrison. There is not a prostitute who would not vote for him if she had the chance."

Such a victory as this will add no strength to the democratic party in respectable communities. What democracy is in Chicago it is in New York, Boston, New Orleans, and all our large cities. Its strength comes from such places and classes as are above described by the Chicago paper, and those who are opposed to the increase of these will take care not to encourage or strengthen the democratic party.