Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1895-01-11
WAR ON THE POLICE
lexow Committee Denounced
for Shielding Byrnes,
fLlNCHED AT THE CRISIS
Tom Piatt Confidently Believes the Rev
erend Gentieman Has an Attack
OF Swelied Head.

New York, Dec. 3l,--Dr. Parkhurst to-
night gave out the subjoined statement |
after IL had been read before the execu-
tive committee of the Society for the
Prevention of Crime. and endorsed by
that body:
I'm stating my position touching GER
tain questions now lying before the pub
lie mind l cannot express myself too
approximately for the plendid work that
has been done by the senate committee.
There has been created through their
fundamentally an epoch in the history
of our city, and there has been secured
at the polls municipal revolution that
would have been impossible except
through their agency or the agency of
similar kind Lexow's committee,
Goff and his associates do not stand
in need of our commendation. but it is
a pleasure to accord it. and it is accord
ed with earnest cordiality.
I'VE are justified in saying that while
the committee stood up to the rack
magnificently through all the other por-
| lions of the investigation, they finched
| at the crisis. AS long ago as when
Moss undertook to adduce evidence
against Byrnes in a direct manner. the
| investigating committee sprang to
Byrnes' assistance. Now, Is it not a
| thing to be debated? Their attitude
was instantly recognized by those in at
| tendance and distinctly stated in the
! journals of the next morning. The
pursuit of lines that might possibly
have conduced to discovery of the real
inwardness of Byrnes' conduct and
character was ouraged-discourag
ed, as it has been discouraged in the
case of no other man. Now the pre-
sumption is on the side of the superin-
tendent being as criminal as any other
member of the force, so that hesitancy
to handle him as Williams was handled
could not proceed from any prior con-
viction of his innocence. Wherever they
have stuck in their fork they have
found rot, and whether Byrnes be rot
ten or not, he has been in the rot for
81 years, and has been the executive
head for the rot for the last two years.
The presumption, therefore, was
against him, so the indisposition to han
die him thoroughly must have been
grounded on other considerations than
that of his presumable innocence"
| FdTkIlurSC mentions what lie Calls lHe
efforts of Byrnes to discredit his So
ciety by the arrest of its private detec-
tive for levying blackmail
Mr.. Parkhurst at this point of his
statement incorporates the interview
published last year with Superintendent
Byrnes, in which the letter execrateo
Dr. Parkhurst and tacitly charged thai
members of the doctors church needed
more watching than did the police force
| The statement proceeds: Our agents
! acting in the legitimate discharge o.
! their duties of representatives of tn,
society chartered by the state, wer,
, mobbed year ago by the toughs ant
thugs that sprang to the relief o
, Byrnes and his department, when WI
pressed them uncomfortably at the Es
: sex Market police court. If Byrnes
T with a characteristic disposition to ge
his own neck out of the yoke, says HI
has been so handicapped as to be prac
2 tically powerless, want to say that al
= such excuses are evasive and cowardly
= Men with as much influence as Byrnes
a; who has been in the midst of iniqut,
t for 30 years, can fight iniquity IL the,
= want. and If they are clean, they wan
| n