The Atlanta Constitution,
Thursday, 13th November 1913,
PAGE 1, COLUMN 4.
Photos by Francis E.
Price.
Chief
Beavers, who stamped out Atlantas segregated district, and Virginia Brooks,
who started big fight on vice in Chicago. This picture was taken Wednesday
afternoon by The Constitutions photographer, in Chief Beavers office.
When yesterday afternoon at 5
oclock, a loud report, as if from a miniature cannon, resounded from the
private office of Chief Beavers in police headquarters, and activity there for
a moment ceased. It was only a local photographer who caught the chief just as
she grasped in warm welcome the little hand of Virginia Brooks, that celebrated
young western woman who cleaned up the town of West Hammond. 111., started
the same crusade in Chicago, led the women who won the fight for suffrage in
that state, and is today one of the most-feared and one of the most-loved women
in the west. Feared for her courage in condemning evil where she sees it; loved
for the good she has done.
In the east, she is called the Inez
Millholland of the West, and in the south I predict she will eb called the
beautiful messenger who came to tell us the relation of womans cause to civic
and social betterment.
Warning Against Vice.
She arrived Wednesday from Augusta,
where she stirred the women of the Civic league to undertake a vital work for
the eradication of vice. She goes to Rome today, and to Macon tomorrow, and
incidentally she is accompanied by her husband. Charles Washburn, city editor
of The Chicago Tribune, who is just as warm a supporter of womans cause as
is the charming woman who bears his name. She gave up the name of Virginia
Brooks shortly after the press of the two continents rang with praise of her
work in West Hammond, Ill., when, through her leadership of a group of social
workers, she cleaned up the town, not merely from the standpoint of
sanitation and health, but morally.
With the abolition of the segregated
district went the loafers, vagrants and undesirable characters, who are a
menace to any community where the town is open, claimed the young
philanthropist in her interview with Chief Beavers, when she congratulated him
on reports of the work he had done in Atlanta.
When the bad places disappeared,
industry in the town took on new life; men acquired better positions, better
wage; the homes became more prosperous-looking, and the schools better. The
method pursued in the campaign there inspired a similar work in many towns of
the west.
Men and Women Work Together.
How did we do it? Men and women worked
together for the betterment, just as they are doing in Chicago in the crusade
being successfully waged there against vice. WE did it by publicity, took. When
men in office failed to enforce the laws, failed to support the police in their
efforts, we published them. We had posters, distributed literature, telling the
truth, and then worked for the men who were willing to undertake the offices
and push the reform.
Mrs. Washburn was most interesting in
her comments on womens suffrage. Chief Beavers acknowledging his belief in the
cause. She told of the last six months of the campaign waged by the women in
Illinois, and the men in sympathy with them, she having stumped the state in
the doubtful districts.
PAGE 11, COLUMN 3
NOT
GUILTY IS PLEA
CONLEY
WILL MAKE
The case of Jim Conley, negro factory
sweeper whose testimony was the main factor in the convention of Leo Frank on a
charge of having murdered Mary Phagan, will probably be placed on trial today.
His case was not reached in the superior court before Judge Ben Hill Wednesday.
According to Conleys attorney, William
B. Smith, the negro will not make a plea to either counts in the indictment
against him, charging him with being an accessory after the fact in the slaying
of the factory girl.
There is no
law against this man, said Smith on Wednesday, and he will go free if it is
within my power to free him.