A Deputy Sheriff's Home Ransacked
Amid a crime wave and an influx of transient workers, a local deputy falls victim to a daylight home robbery, sparking frustration over the town's inability to police itself.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
For some weeks, not a day has passed but that some depredation has been reported to the police. Men have been robbed on their way home, houses broken into, and a general kind of thievery practiced. The city is overrun with tramps and thieves. Deputy Sheriff De Fries went home Saturday after being on duty at the Prosser House and found his home had been broken into and several articles of value stolen. The robbery was committed in broad daylight between 9:30 and 11:00 in the morning. Mr. De Fries lost a gold watch, a diamond ring, and several other articles. In speaking of this, the Deputy Sheriff said: 'The town is now in just that condition when nothing can be done to prevent this kind of work. Every day someone comes to me to report a loss, and it is very seldom that the goods are recovered. There is a fence located here in some section of the town, but just where, it is impossible to say. There is only one way of preventing the reoccurrence of this: drive out every hobo and tramp and suspicious character.'
“The town is now in just that condition when nothing can be done to prevent this kind of work.”
The rhetoric blaming 'tramps and thieves' for property crime echoes contemporary debates about public safety, homelessness, and the policing of marginalized populations in gentrifying districts.
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