Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-12-09
A PARADISE FOR TRAMPs.

Governor Lewelling has issued a
circular letter to all boards of po-
lice commissioners in this state de-
nouncing the present manner of
enforcing the vagrancy law and it's
special application by those in pow
er to the unfortunate poor who are
compelled to travel about from
place to place without visible means
of support.
He intimates that the city author
tiles are unnecessarily severe on
this class of offenders and over
jealous in their efforts to collect
revenue for the city by consigning
such unfortunates to the "rock pile
and bull pen," sometimes for the
simple offense of sleeping in a
box car" He urges the abolition of
the custom as a relic of barbarism
and suggests that the law be per-
mitted to become obsolete in all the
cities of Kansas governed by the
Metropolitan police act. The exc
cutive letter is as follows:
To All Boards of Police Commits
sioners:
In the reign of Elizabeth the
highways were filled with the
throngs of the unemployed poor,
who were made to "move on" and
were sometimes brutally whipped,
sometimes summary hanged, as
sturdy, Migrants" or "uncorrigible
vagabonds.' In France, just pre-
vious to the revolution, the punish
ment of being poor and out of work
was. for the first offense, a term of
years in the galleys, for the second
offense the galleys for life. In this
country the monopoly of labor saw
ing machinery and its devotion to
selfish instead of social use have
rendered more human beings super
fluous until we have standing
army of the unemployed number
ing even in the most prosperous
times not less than one million able
bodied men. Yet. until recently. it
was the prevailing notion. as it is
yet the notion of all but the work
people themselves and those of
other classes given to thinking, that
whatsoever is able bodied and will
ing to work can always find work to
do, and section 81 of the General
Statutes of 1880 is disgraceful re-
hinder how savage even in Kansas
has been our treatment of the most
unhappy of our human brothers.
The man out of work and penni-
less is, by this Legislation, classcd
with confidence men," Under this
statute and city ordinances of a
similar import, thousands of men,
guilty of no crime but poverty, in
tent upon no crime but that of seek
ing employment, have languished
in city prisons of Kansas or per-
formed unrequited toll upon crock
piles" as municipal slaves, because
ignorance of economic conditions
had made us cruel. The victims
have been the poor and humble for
whom the police courts are courts
of last resort-they cannot give
bond and appeal. They have been
and uncared for by the
busy world, which wastes no time
prisoners in Jail. They
have been too poor to litigate with
their oppressors, and thus no voice
from this underworld of human
woe has ever reached the ear of an
appellate court, because it is no.
body's business to be his brothers
keeper.
But those who sit in the seats of
power are bound by the highest OBJ
legation to especially regard the !
cause of the oppressed and helpless
poor. The first duty of govern J
ment is to the weak. Power becomes |
fiendish if it be not the protector
and sure reliance of the friendless,
to whose complaints all other ears
are dumb. 1t is my duty ito see
that the lawS ara faith ftIIIv eye.