As a result of the terrible theater fire in Chicago, Mayor Harrison has ordered the closing of all the theaters in Chicago, as well as the large and small auditoriums and dance halls, pending a thorough investigation of their fitness as public assembly halls. It seems probable that this investigation will lead to the permanent closing of most of the dance halls. Some of the theaters may suffer the same fate.

The investigation has even been extended to include the hotels and also those many business places which are called department stores. But the investigation does not include all public buildings; the churches have been exempted. It would seem as though the officials in our city believed that God would hold His protective hand especially over those wooden and brick buildings on the roof or facade of which a cross is placed. Or do the authorities believe that the pain is less intense when people are suffocated, or trampled upon, or burned to death in a 2church than [when they suffer the same fate] in a theater? Most churches in Chicago are worse deathtraps than the theaters. For of the former have more than one exit, and the windows either are usually placed too high to be reached from the floor or else are made of glass of such strength that a hammer would be needed to break them. Those of our fellow citizens who visit our churches are not calmer or more courageous in the face of danger than those who attend the theaters--rather the opposite [is true]. If a fire were to break out in a church, it is quite certain that the children of God would prove just as relentless in trampling down the feebler ones in their midst as theatergoers would be in case a theater were to catch fire, exposing the children of this world to danger and death.

Why are not the churches also being closed until the investigation has taken place? We doubt very much that our board of alderman would be fearful of a great increase in sin here in Chicago if the churches were to be closed for two weeks or for as long a period as the investigation would require.

The sharpest criticism of our mayor and board of aldermen for laxity in the inspection of the destroyed theater as well as other places of amusement came from 3the pulpits. From those places, the thunderbolts of wrath were loosed, and lightning bolts of censure were aimed at the mayor and his board. From the pulpits, the officials were condemned before the facts were heard.

Many of the ministers were standing in crowded buildings that are worse firetraps than the Iroquois Theater and are less fireproof than most of the dance halls--yet there they stood, hurling their bolts of lightning at the heads of the city officials.

Let us suppose that the paper streamers and other objects used in decorating the Christmas tree at some Sunday school festival were to catch fire..a match has been dropped on the floor and lit by being stepped on. Then the judge in the pulpit would grow silent, the prayers on the lips of the faithful would cease,..and the fear of death would take hold [of everyone], paralysing judgment and commonsense action, and awakening the slumbering brutality in the breasts of the stronger ones. And the next day, the newspapers would carry the story of the terrible 4calamity in which eight hundred people were killed in the fire at the----church.

The churches have privileges which the theaters do not possess: they do not pay taxes. For this reason, the government of the city would be far more justified in closing the churches than in closing the theaters, if the city government has reason to believe that the churches are firetraps.