The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 6, 1901, Page 1

Cudaly kidnaping will be foi- by others all over the coun says the great detective, Pin =~ FE lowed i bl s W0 4 s &re & par: abros n the streets while thelr ey = slong N to = wie m alr ¢ some cherished membe fornia 's & para‘ise of plu s ® erness of forested moun- filled wi ne may lo leached to suddenly ve in the . » way they B ess ce than here. But now ore daring than are usual with e been & y practiced in the conditions s scarcely an hour sscls are not departing e les do nct velers are unknown one steps on b s swept him out of civili- the bosom of the end- s round the poles with- he 80 desires, as lost on es though ne had gone to e stars—and all within half an hour from the center of the clity. at swee zat & A RE WE TO HAVE AN EPIDENIC OF KIDNAPING ¢ need no medic leaves them ld m graves It does not require a Pinkerton’s genius Views on HERE 'is no reason why T uld be a gencral epidemic of abductions and kidnaping for the purpose of ex- torting money as is prophesied by Pinkerton. Yet the crime, while not probable, is always possible when there s the monsters capable it are at large. As to methods of prevention it is impossible to do anything in ad- vance to prevent occurrences like It is easy enough to say that children should not be allowed on the streets alone or that men should not go alone into strange places with insistent strangers. Every weck though bunko men are gelting people, smart fellows, too, some of them, into rooms and robbing them. of committing this. gtain Szumclr s ore th a single day's work, “right ur town,” as the adver- wanted’ $10 and $20 plec nd so they got them than most of of hard work them independ- for the fact with monéy lifetime except usually , was galned al- , for the offense ¢ is so slight that nd suffe al- the possibill- as ordinary v most as much 1s done utcher when he 1 what appeared er some inter- tutes, the com- péunding of a felony. He saved his son, but he imperiled the chil~ dren of every man who has the Expresses the Subject. Crooks of this sort come into toun often unknown, hire rooms in re- spectable places and by one of the endless number of devices which they make it their life business to study )hey interest the victim. If he is a mining man they have some wonderfully rich samples to show him from a mine which must be sold for a song. If a farmer they have land maps or any ope of a hundred things and their devices are as witching as those of the Piper of Hamelin. If this can be dome every day with grown smart business men how much easier it is to entice away a child or young person from the streets? They are helpless to de- fend themsclves from capture or to escape afterward. L] R o e B b i 2 SR SR AR A SR ST -® means to www 4 ransom. He gave money and . encouragement to the most horgible criminals that blacken the rogues' calendar—a crime that murderers, robbers, thieves, burgiars and all others shun. and seize red gold that is not theirs, but they will not twist the heartstrings of & there They may cause red blood to flow! {ntended. mother by torturing a child for money. And money so got will forever burn the hand that holds it. ‘Was Cudahy right in giving the money as he did? Going over the facts step by step is there a man who can say that he himself would have done otherwise? At 8 o'clock in the evening, as the 15- year-old son of the multimillionaire was returning to his home from a neighbor's he was selzed by two armed men, who told him that they were sheriffs and that he was one Eddy McGee, who was wanted for some crime which they named. Think- ing it a case of mistaken identity, the boy went along with them, making no outery, as he supposed that identification wauld effect his immediate release. After he was placed in the carriage and they were ‘driving away he saw an acquaintance on @ streetcar and offered to give his captors an assurance that he was not the criminal they supposed. Thereupon they blind- folded him as they drove and sllenced him with threats. He knew that mischief was He was taken to the remote house that the plotters had. secured and confined, chained to the floor night PINKERTON SEY.S SEYMOUR SsiYs NO! and fay, within sound of his father’s factory whistles, while all the men that the Cudahy mil- lions could marshal were search- ing for him. Twenty-five thousand dollars left near a lantern on the road- side by his father secured his re- lease. Time must answer whether it was wrong for him to bave done so. If Pinkerton, the king of de- tectives, and Bage, the king of money loaners, are correct in their cold-blooded reasoning, then the millionaire meat-packer was wrong; but where is the father under the flag who would not have done the same? He was hu- man and humane. Russell Sage says It was wrong because it will encourage man- stealing In general, and he has had some experience of the sort himself. A crank once came into his office and demanded a largs sum of money, threatening as an alternative of not being instantly paid that he would blow up ev- erything with an Infernal ma- chine, which he held in his hand. With characteristic economy Mr. Bage refused to give the money, and with equal presence of mind pulled a young clerk who waBs present in front of him as a shield. The ex- piosion happened. Russell was unharmed, thanks to his improvised human fortification, and the last memory of the public is that the young man was still using his somewhat damaged mouth to whis- tle for compensation. That 1s the point of view the great money lender takes. He chose to stand the consequence of a dynamite blast rath- er than submit to extor- fion, and he does not see why Cudahy could not submit to the test of having his son’s eyes put out with vitriol. It was not a thoughtless act on the part of the wealthy father to pay his son’s tor- mentors rather than take the risk of their putting their threats into execution. He is a man of phenomenal good sense in all matters of business. He has c'imbed to the top rung of the commercial ladder by the exercise of quickness, Industry and discretion. Iie the time of trouble, when the life of his son and his own happiness hung upon his judgment, he did not hestitate to cast asife the advice of the thief-catcher who Kkrew criminals, and the wrey who knew laws and customs of men—ieft them both talking, deaf-cared, to follow his own decision. It showed that In his opinion the man of money was helpless in the power of the childstealer. . A beef baron with all the power of his millions and the law of the land behind him, yet there was no hope but in surrender. If the captors carried out their threat, then All the King's horses and all the King’s men Could not put Humpty Dumpty together again. YES! Evidently Mr. Cudaly’s estimate of fhe power of the ldw to protect is thet M amounts to nothing. He did net gmve Away the gross price of a hundred (hea. send tins of corned beef without doing some quick thinking 0 turning it over to the men whom of all in the werld r rate. nd is king whem reign. The he may opes segen to may that ut with the mem- vidly ta his he must Mr. Ross of Philadeiphia was, like him- P ttle son was stolen ice the father took d have ade to pay the blackmedl ransom. result was t - Tt & for years he - s country huating /herever a stray boy was found whe came near the descrip er rushed, only to find du Tricksters and charlatans of detective variety saw m they laid money He gradually spent his entl in fruitless payment of rewar were earned. His search ended only at his death, and the latter part of his traw do only by betr ty: for he died poor and the son is still & synonym for Ban Francisco has already had an eple sode of this sort, which, fortunately owing to the bravery of the intended viotim, Wwas not & tragedy J. A. Campbell, the private that his misfortune fm an easy subject for them, snd schemes without end to get his ng he was enabled te the recipient of chari- pame of his & wealthy planter of Hawall, was accosted at the Ovcidemtal Hotel by a stranger who sald that his invalid wife had been ered to Homo- lulu for her health, but that she feared the trip and cilmate; would the Xkind planter come out to the house and reas- sure her? On this errand of mercy the oid man went. He was overpowered, gagwed and bound as he entered the door of a cottage at 4108 California strest. Iers he was tortured and threatened with death un~ less he would sign and cash a check fow $25,000—a favor! m, sapparently, with kidnapers, For two dayw the brave old man restuted, saying: “I have but a It time te live; XM me; but my family shall bave the money for which I have worked so hard. I will not rob them.” n dewpaln, Winthrop, who planaed the nduc'(on decoyed the aged man to the lonely house and th knocked him senseless, was soon ca K lice and still iives serving out a life sentence. For many reasons It looks as theugh the Cudahy abduction have been carrfed out by some who participated in the or by persons who had mad and avolded its mistakes. In the Campbell al thieves had reasoned well, to fallacious con n’IJn old man, wealt a study of it from being feeble and captors with a blow o more, the very fact of b put such a light value upon mainder of his life that h ffection for his fam- ily n\urwd&/ll ) a3 the captors foot, and It was young to m and that pow tion, which, bre t to ers all other human e 1\ ed upon the side of 3. Cudahy may have technically nded a fel- ony, but he did It in obeyance of an over- mastering force passions. Where is the man who, In his place, would not have done the same? that eclipses all other