feeling of relief; and as one does so
one adds, "Here at least were men."

The story of Chicago is little worse, according to her population, than
that of New York, of Boston, of any large city. Foot up the total of the
thousands of murders committed every year in America. Then, if you wish
to become a criminal statistician, compare that record with those of
England, France or Germany. We kill ten persons to England's one; and we
kill them in the cities.

In the cities it is unlawful to wear arms, and to protect one's self
against armed attack is therefore impossible. In the cities we have
policemen. Against real fighting men, the average policeman would be
helpless. Yet, such as he is, he must be the sole fence against the
bloody-minded who do not scruple at robbery and murder. In the labor
riots, the streets of a city are avenues of anarchy, and none of our
weak-souled officials, held in the cursed thrall of politics, seems
able to prevent it. A dozen town marshals of the old stripe would
restore peace and fill a graveyard in one day of any strike; and their
peace would be permanent. A real town marshal at the head of a city
police force, with real fighting men under him, could restore peace and
fill a graveyard in one month in any city; and that peace would be
permanent. If we wished the law, we could have it.

The history of the bloodiest lawlessness of the American past shows
continual repetitions. First, liberty is construed to mean license, and
license unrebuked leads on to insolence. Still left unrebuked, license
organizes against the law, taking the form of gangs, factions, bandit
clans. Then in time the spirit of law arises, and not the law, but the
offended individuals wronged by too much license, take the matter into
their own hands, not waiting for the courts, but executing a swifter
justice. It is the terror of lynch law which has, in countless
instances, been the foundation of the later courts, with their slow
moving and absurdly inefficient methods. In time the inefficiency of the
courts once more begets impatience and contempt. The people again rebel
at the fact that their government gives them no government, that their
courts give them no justice, that their peace officers give them no
protection. Then they take matters into their hands once more, and show
both courts and criminals that the people still are strong and terrible.

The deprecation of lynch law, and the whining cry that the law should