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to assess the culpable, if not the criminal, negligence of F. W. Young in furnishing the opportunity for the striking of a dastardly blow at the repute of this community.Next comes the brainless, poppinjayish vanity of an administration that seeks publicity and exploitation regardless of the costs or consequences to the people of Joplin.And last of all comes the man who by profession wears the accollado of the “better element''; who pretends to the gleam and gloss and shimmer of a righteousness that marks him “holier than thou and infinitely finer than our own poor, common clay. We refer to Mr. P. E. Burton, Joplin’s defamatory journalist.We do not know what Mr. Young’s plans are; nor do we care to know. But if he remains as manager of the Connor hotel we suggest to him that he get acquainted with the persons employed In the several capacities of the management of that hotel’s business. We believe that the force of his employes could be so organized that it would be impossible for another gambling outfit to establish themselves surreptitiously and without liis knowledge under that roof. For instance, if Mr. Young should request an audience of his housekeeper this morning, we have no doubt that the audience would be granted. And if he should instruct her to inform the employes under her supervision that they were to report to her whenever beds were removed from rooms and mysterious furniture substituted, she to relay this information to him, we fancy that Mr. Young’s unsophisticated ignorance would he suddenly punctuated with enlightenment in the event of an incognito gambling joint being set up in his menage.As for the administration, with its Nick Carter detective agency and Its coadjutors of chameleon politics and tessalated moral Impulsions— well, gentlemen, your souls of tinkling-hrass dimensions have again been Boaped and sopped. You, Mr. Mayor, of Pecocklan length, breadth and thickness, have had your picture again on the first page of the Kansas City Star a^id the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. What matters it that the degradation of Joplin has been widely bruited? What matters it that Joplin, In point of barefisted truth as affluent in morals as in money; as rich in Christian character as In her magnificent material resources; as vigorous in her charities as in her energies; as progressive and achieving In the beautifying and uplifting efforts of life as in the sterner strife of the day’s work; what matters it that Joplin be painted as scarlet as a harlot’s flaunting Invitation, or drab as the depd malice of unsavory falsehood, so long as the notoriety of metropolitan Journalism accrues to you?Let us tell you, Mr. Humes, and your associates and your press agents, that we make no apology for the negligence of the manager of the Connor hotel. But for the honor of Joplin and in justice to the memory of a man who has placed this city forever in his debt you should have foregone, for once, an opportunity for Bpeetaculariem.Why could you not have gone to the manager of the Connor hotel and told him gambling was going on there and informed him if he didn’t eject the gang immediately and throw their devices out of the place that you would arrest him and prosecute him to a finish? Why, every man in Joplin would have applauded the common sense of that act. And you know, and every man in Joplin knows, that such a warning would have been sufficient to purge the Connor hotel of the disgrace attached to it then and there.But that sort, of policy, e\en under the urgent petition of this particular circumstance, is utterly beyond your comprehension. No; the shame of the thing had to be paraded to the world. The evening paper's editor had to peddle this infamy to the country as a correspondent for newspapers that never published a line about the building of the Connor, hut are eager and willing to give first-page space to tearing down the reputation of the Connor.The editor of the News Herald has been the implacable enemy of the Connor hotel from the very first. As a correspondent it is easily recalled that the first evidence of his hatred for Tom Connor and the hotel project was when he sent out a story that the site of the structure had been undermined. That statement, of course, was false, and the motive that inspired it was vicious. Later, while the building wras in construction, and even the princely fortune of Tom Connor wras being strained to meet, the immeiise obligations that had been contracted, the editor of the News Herald malevolently inquired whether another story on that hotel wouldn’t have been good for another thousand votes. The implication of that miserable paragraph was that Tom Connor, at that time a harassed, dying man, had built that hotel to buy his way to the state senatorship. l\ It is no wonder, then, that Mr. Burton seized the opportunity to defile this splendid testimonial of a man whom in life he hated with an adder’s hate and whom he strikes at in defenseless death with all the foul poison of an adder’s bite.
Newspaper Details
Joplin Daily Globe
Joplin, Missouri, US
Wed, Dec 15, 1909
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
MO, USA 26 Apr 2018
Other Publications Near Joplin, Missouri
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Joplin News Herald
Joplin Daily Globe
