The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-01-01


OF all the possible or ascertaina5le
facts in Mr.. Byrnes case
now the presumption is on the side
tof the supsTintendent's being as GRIM
maj as any other member of the force,
so that the hesitancy to handle him as
Williams was handled could not pro-
coed from any prior conviction Of his
Innocence. Wherever they have stuck
in their fork they have found rot, and
whether Byrnes be rotten or not. he
has been in rot for 81 years and has
been the executive head for rot for the
last Two years. The presumption.
therefore, was against him, so the in
disposition to handle him Thoroughly
must have been grounded in other con-
sidera tons than that of his presumabIe
innocence.
Comnittee'e Obligations to Byrncs.
There are two ways in which Mr..
Byrnes has put the committee under
obligations and to that degree de-
stroyed their independence. He put
them under obligations by consenting
to help defeat Tanmany Hall, and it
is to be remembered this committee is
first and foremost an anti-Tammany
committee and came down here for
ianti-Tammany purposes. We are not
saying that it was stipulated that if
he would secure an honest election it
should be remembered in his behalf.
/ but in the very nature of the case. IA
lvors have to be reciprocated We are
not going to disparage Mr.. Byrnes'
good offices at the election, although
I 1t is to be remembered that he did
i ns1thlng more than he ought to have
done without being asked to do, and
nothing that he had not the same au-
tlloTity to do In previous elections If he
had only had the official courage to use
his authority.
The second way in which the com
nittee put themselves under obhga-
, tons to him was by taking him into
their confidence and allowing him to
become a confederate with them in
breaking down the force. To the de-
gree in which they obtained help from
Mr.. .ByrneS they put themselves prac-
tically under obligations to protect
him. Now, I know the language that
Byrne5 used touching precisely this
| point, and when I heard it I knew
everything was up so far as q square
investigation of him was concerned.
This acceptance of it had mortgaged
! the committee to that extent, and one
popularity Of a mortgage is that it has
to be paid off or foreclosed. In this
connection it ought to be stated that
Mr.. Moss declares that he never knew
or suspected that Mr.. Byrnes was fur
nishing information to the committee
or. counsel and It was well known that
he would not sanction any such ac-
ton.
"Mr. Byrnes has frequently attemp-
! ted to play the same game with the
Society for the Prevention Of Crime,
but we have refused to ally ourselves
with man whom we believe to be
| more than any other man responsible
for the condition OF the department.
If we had consented to do what the
committee and its counsel has done,
we would have thereby surrendered
our point of vantage, sacrificed our
prestige and. the Lexow committee
would never have been heard of. We
are not charging the committee nor its
counsel with a dishonest intent, but
/ they, blundered and they Numbered
| badly.
Mr. Byrnes as component element
! of the department was to that degree
: defendant. BY being taken into the
/ confidence of the prosecution he would
I himself have got out of the box and
on to the bench, where he could kick
out against the very men who were
no more the subject Of indictment than
/ he was.
I'VE are not saying that there was
any understanding, or at least any
written stipulation that if he would
tell what he knew about the men in
| the department that were criminals he
Should not be called to the witness
stand, or, If called, should be allowed
to use the stand for histrionic oppo--
| tunity for eliminating his official asso-
ciates and celebrating his own personal
and official innocence. But whether
| there was any such stipulation or not,
the acceptance of his assistance practi-
cally involved the deal. and when the
/ committee came down from Albany for
( the express purpose of investigating
deals it ought to be punctihously care
full to avoid even the appearance of
having a susceptible side for the sort
Of offense that they were designed to
detect and adjudge.
Contest With Byrnes.
1--WE of the executive committee feel
that our fight during the last thirty
years has been a contest with Mr..
Byrnes. He has known very well that
our intention has been to secure the
enforcement of law in this city, yet he
has dogged our steps from first to
last, and has omitted no efforts to dis
credit us in the estimation of the COM
muni'ty. If the executive element of
the police department had been able to
accomplish it's purpose it would have
crushed the Society for the Prevention
| of Crime; there would have been no
Lexow committee and Grant would
have been mayor today instead of
Strong.
while our agents were making 1t
uncomfortable for their associates, Mr..
| Byrnes represented to the police jus
tees, SO the press informs us, that the
issuing of warrants to irresponsible
parties ought to be stopped. We raised
no question as to the wisdom of the
rule proposed by Superintendent
Byrnes in this particular; we are only
calling attention to the fact that it was
| he who ruled in the matter that the
| immediate effects of the rule so adopt
ed would be to retard the operations of
our detectives. We understood and the
community understood that that was
the object which MIR. Byrnes had in
view"
| Here Parkhurst mentions what he
calls the efforts of Byrnes to discredit
the society by the arrest of its private
detectives for levying blackman and
continues:
| Attack on the Society.
within three days of the attack he
struck our society another blow by try
ling to discredit its president. Unless
IL the newspapers Of that date lied,
ne called together the reporters and in
terms of unrestrained bitterness, pub
Hshed to the world a mass of black
guardism touching the motives Of my
work, the base impulses that inspired
it-all of which were solid and con-
temptibIe falsehoods. ] am writing
this without animosity. but he lied all
the same and the object of the lie was
to break the power that was exereis-
ling against the viciousness of his de-
partment. He made vile, sneaking