The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-09-28
NEEDED POLICE REFORM.
FEY. DR. SMITH or TIE Law IND
 ORDER LEAGUE SPEAKS AGAIN.

ORDER LEAGUE SPEAKS AGAIN.
 " ,%
 Now Haven Did Not Vote for an Enforce msnt of . Fraction of the License Law Defiant Transxrsssion of the Law Due to the Protection of poiiticisns-spseiais se- cret Service Much Needed.
 President Newman smyth of the New Haven Law and order league has sent another communication to the police commissioners of this city. It is sub stantiaily as follows:
 New Haven, Conn. Sept 2s. 1894. To the Board of Police Commissioners:
 Gentlemen-when representatives of the New Haven Law and Order league last appeared before you. we reserved for future consideration the question of the enforcement of the liquor law in this city. Having taken time to gather definite and extensive information in this matter. we now beg leave to call the attention of your board to the following statements of fact, and in view of the facts to present also our petition for certain specific and de- cislve acts on the part of your board.
 We submit, first, that while the peo- pie of New Haven have by & large ma jority decided upon the license system of regulating the sale of intoxicating liquors in this town, they have not voted for the application of one-half or one-third on any fraction of the H. cense law of the state at the option Of the administrative authorities.
 We beg leave to submit, secondly. that complaints have come to us from responsible sources of the habitual violation of those sections of the liquor law relative to the closing of saloons on Sunday in ninety-seven places; ana we hold at our disposal. If you desire 1t, a list giving the streets and num- bers of said places where violations or the law are alleged to occur.
 We would further submit that an analysis of these complaints will dis close the fact, with which you may already familiar, that some Of these alleged violators of the law hold off1cial positions in the town and city goV- ernment.
 In order that we might verify the information which had come to us with regard to the habitual violation of the law by one honorable official, we have sent three different men to his saloon, and have their testimony as to the sale of liquor there contrary 10 law on several different Sundays, on one occasion so openly in lighted room that the violation of the law was seen through the window from the sidewalk by . passer-by.
 We have also thirteen bottles or whisky, which have recently been sold in this and o+hev saloons on Sunday, which tangible evidence we shall also be pleased to put at the disposal Of your board. We would further state that in the case of this city official we made complaint at police headquarters on the 18th of last June; but no action has as yet been brought against him by the efforts of the police.
 We submit that we, privaie citizens ought not to be subjected to the an noyance and expense of prosecuting this notorious offender iif the courts Calling your special attention to this case, and standing ready to furnish you with any required details as. tc names and witnesses, we present the prosecution of this case to you as test case of the independence of poli- tics of the police department.
 Reference to one other concrete case may serve to illustrate the, existing non-enforcement of law, as well as throw light upon some of the causes of the failure of justice, which you will find it possible to remove. We ask you, therefore, to make inquiry into the case of T. J. Coffee, as the history of his case lies open to investigation in the records of the courts, in the reports at police headquarters, in the information lodged at the office of the prosecuting attorney, in the last warrant issued for his arrest by MT. Matthewman, and also in the reasons for nolling 1t as giv. en to me by MT. Fox, in the light moreover, of such information as we may be able to furnish concerning 6 boasted and thus far successful escape from the descent of the police and the judgment of the law. -.s...
 You will understand that neither in this case nor in any others are We dis. posed to put upon the department Of police blame for the failure of the law which inquiry into the facts might dis tribute among other departments oi justice such, for example, as political nolles,, calling the bonds of offenders hardly out Of hearing of the court the activity of "jury fixers," and other familiar methods by means of which judgment is perverted in this ancient community. %.
 Neither would we demand of your de- partment any achievement of millenial virtue beyond what sane men have a right to expect under existing condi. tions of human nature.
 Neither do we care at present to ore. fer charges before you against individ- ual patrolmen who have been reported to us as conveniently looking the other way when saloon doors have been open. ed on Sundays for thirsty customers, or who have been seen to receive drinks while on duty at night from the side doors of saloons, before the front doors of which by day the same policemen might have observed the delivery wagons of the temperance drinks of we'll known soda water hottIers in f3,o,