The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1895-01-05
Lexow Committee Denounced
for Shielding Byrnes.
FLlNCHED AT THE CRISIS
Tom Platt Confidently Believes the Rev
erend Gentleman Has an Attack
of sweIled Head.

New York. Dec. 31,-Dr. Parkhurst to-
night gave out the subioined statement
after it 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 / cannot express myself too
appreciatively 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 a municipal revolution that
would have been impossible except
through their agency, or the agency of
a similar kind. Lexows committee,
Golf and his associates do not stand
in need of our commentator, but it is
a pleasure to accord it, and it is accord
ed with earnest cordiality.
1--WE are justified in saying that while
the committee stood up to the rack
magnificently through all the other por-
lions of the investigation, they flinched
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 Recommendations
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 fol
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 beer
grounded on other considerations thar
that of his presumable innocence"
Parkhurst mentions what he calls thu
eIOftS OF bylIleS TO QlScIeull MS 50
ciety by the arrest of it's private detec
tive for levying blackmail.
Mr.. Parkhurst at this point of hi
statement incorporates the interview
published last year with Superintendent
Byrnes, in which the letter eXecrate,
DIR, Parkhurst and tacitly charged tina
members of the doctors church neede
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 a year ago by the toughs an
thugs that sprang to the relief @
Byrnes and his department, when w
pressed them intentionally at the Is
sex Market police court If Byrne;
with a characteristic disposition to sc
his own neck out of the yoke says n
has been so handicapped as to be praC
tically powerless, want to say that a
such excuses are evasive and cowardly
Men with as much influence as Byrne
who has been in the midst of iniquit
for 30 years. can fight iniquity if the
want, and if they are clean. they war
to-"