The Wichita daily eagle., 1893-12-05

TOPEKA, Dec. 4-Governor Lewelliug
this afternoon spruGg Il highly sensational
document, in the shape of AL executive
circular addressed TO all the boards of
metropolitan police commissioners. The
letter Is very lengthy. After picturing
the distress existing in the United States
and Europe, it orders the police boards o
arrest no tramps on the charges usually
brought against this class, namely, riding
On freight cars, vagrancy, begging, etc.
The governor says that the city ordinances
lining tramps and compelling them to
work on rock piles is unconstitutional
and opposed to the liberties guaranteed by
that instrument. He declares that the
tramp is arrested and made municipal
slave" The fines cannot be paid, and the
tramps are put on the rock piles and into
bull pens. These forms of slavery are
not imposed as a punishment, but solely
as means of collecting debt, and are
Instruments of torture aud compare with
the auction block, and should be relegat-
ed TO the past no longer 10 be disgrace
to the cities of Kansas.
Continuing, the circular says: "In this
country the monopoly of labor-saving ma
chinery and its devotion TO selfish, instead
of social, uses have rendered more and
more human beings superfiuous, until we
have standing army of unemployed,
numbering, even in the most prosperous
times. not less than a million able bodied
men,"
Section 81 of the general statutes of
1889 is a disgraceful reminder of how
savage. even In Kansas, have been our
treatment of the most unhappy of our
human brothers. Under this statute, and
city ordinances of similar import, thous-
aDds Of men, guilty of no crime but that
of seeking employment, have languished
In the city prisons of Kansas or performed
unreQuited toll on rock piles as municipal
slaves, because ignorance of economic con-
titions had made US cruel The victims
bave been the poor and humble, for whom
The police courts are the courts of iasJ
resort-they cannot give bond and appeal.
They have been too poor to litlgate with
their oppressors, and thus no voice from
this underworld of human woe has ever
reached the ear of an appellate court.
But those who Sit In the seat of power are
bound by the highest obligation to
especially regard the cause of the oppress-
ed and helpless poor The first duty OF
the government is to the weak. w ho
needs TO be told that the equal protection
of the laws does not val where this
hnman vagraucy law is enforced? 1t
separates men into two distinct classes.
differentiated as those who axe pennilesS
aud those who are not aud declares the
former criminals. Only the latter are en-
titled to the liberty guaranteed by the
constitution.
81 have noticed in police court reports
that sleeping in box cars is among the Va
rieties OF this heinous crime of being poor
Some police judges have uSurped sover-
eign power not permitted to he highest
fuDctionareS OF the states or of the nation,
and the victims of industrial conditions
have been peremptoriiy ordered 10 leave
town. The right to 20 from place to place
in search of employment, or even in obedi-
sonal lber guaranteed by the constitu-
tion to every human being on American
soil. lam aware of no power of legisla-
lures or city councils TO deny man the
right to seek happiness in his own way, so
long AS he harms 40 other, rich or poor;
but let simple poverty cease TO be a crime.
The rock pile and the buil pen have only
been used III Cases OF the degraded, friend
less and poor, aud are relics OF the departed
auction block era. Cease 10 disgrace the
cities OF. Kansas. and let the dawn of
Christ Mas day find the rock pile, the bull
pen and the crime OF being homeless and
poor obsolete IN all cities of Kansas gov
erned by the metropolitan police act. Il is
confidently expected that their own re-
gard for consti rulional liberty and their
humane impulses will inuuce the police
commissioners 10 carry out the spirit rs
we'll as the letter OF the foregoing sugges-
tiouS -