The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-04-02
EXECUTION OF LAW.


connivance at violations of the law. Re-
| sponsibiity has rested nowhere, and winks
and mods have taken the place of orders. If
| the new board chooses for superintendent
man of character and ability, and places in
his hands plainly-written, well-defined
policy for execution, then the people will
know where to look for the cause of failure
or success. If, on the other hand, the board
retains the responsibility, then the people
can look to the board for it. But in either
case policy is desired which shall have no
fayorites, which shall take no one class under
its protection, but shall hold all alike in
compelling equal and honest obedience to
the law"
That is precisely the kind of police service
the city of indianapolis needs, and it is the
kind the Journal has called for time and
again. A just, prudent reasonable and
equable enforcement of law, an enforce
ment which will recognize tie difference
between the demands of city life and village
life, an enforcement which will not hamper
and restrict and annoy the necessities of such
a city as Indianapolis simply for the purpose
OF avoiding the enforcement of statutes
against evils which tend to overthrow social
order and breed public disturbances. We
have not always had such police service, and
the fact that we have not is, as has been also
repeatedly stated, the principal reason why
the metropolitan police board system is in
! augurated under such favorable state of
public opinion.
But we desire to call attention to what the
News says, and says so truly: Response
|
bility has rested nowhere" and, as the Jour
nal insists there can be no efficient execu-
tive service of any kind without direct and
immediate responsibility. The people, the
voters and the taxpayers of Indian
apolis, have had no direct rela-
tons with the police board of the
Council Members of the Council are
elected from each of the twenty-five wards,
and from these the Council has selected the
members of the board. Responsibility has
rested nowhere No one has known in advance
which members of the Council would be
chosen for police supervision, and, if they
had, there was no possible way in which the
whole body of voters could have reached
them. Now, under the metropolitan system
the lack of direct responsibility is still
greater, the board is still further removed
from the only power which can exercise eff
fective authority, and this is the reason the
Journal so strongly opposed the bill, and
still opposes the principle of it. 1t is based
upon principle utterly destructive of the
fundamental idea of effective executive
government No private business could
prosper under the operation of it for year,
and failure, inefficiency and corruption have
been the invariable and universal attendants
of the board system, whether municipal or
metropolitan, wherever tried. In Indianapo-
expectancy, not based upon the system but
| in spite of the system, resting entirely upon
the high character of the gentlemen who
have accepted the trust for the time being.
But the city may not be always able to Sc
cure the services Of such men as Messrs.
Murphy, Malott and Frenze, and it will not;
and under other and different administra.
| ton the defects and evil tendencies
of the system must and will de-
velope. We protest against the system
because "there is responsibility nowhere"
and it does not better things an iota to change
the system from municipal to metropolitan,
and to remove the board absolutely from
even the remotest relation to the people.
The system must be changed at the earliest
ha s1oft,
TO the citizens of indianapolis. and of every
other city of the State, form of government
that will permit the power of the people to
operate directly, without any intermediary
agency whatever upon the execution of laws.
Give us a mayoralty with concentrated
power" and then the people will know not
only who to 'look to" in case of faulty ad-
ministration, but will be able to apply a
perfect and complete remedy at the
ballot-box. Under the board system
the people know perfectly we'll who to
''look to-" they know thoroughly who is
responsible for the failure of an execution
of the laws; but in the event of such failure
we should like to ask the News, or anybody
else, how they can help themselves. They
are tied hand and foot. They can neither
rebuke nor change. They must accept just
what the board gives. and content themselves
with it. There is only one safe plan for local
government in this country, and that is to
allow the people to come into the most direct
contact with the makers and executors of the
laws. Then it is government of the people,
and by the people, and for the people, which
is the best and most comprehensive definition
of our form of government ever put into
words. And this, government by boards is