The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-02-15
SENATOR TAYLoR's IDEA.
Why Not Pay the metropolitan POIics
Force Ont of the State Fund

Why Not Pay the metropolitan POIics
Force Out of the State Fund?
State Senator Edwin Taylor of Ed
wardsville, Wyandotte county, has writ
ten an open letter TO Governor E. n .
Morrill, in regard to the metropolitan po-
lice conditions at Kansas City, Kan.
Senator Taylor writes concerning the
efforts now being made to have
the governor abolish the metro
politan police system. He says
that prohibition does not prohibit
in Kansas City, Kansas, because the
police have laid down" He says the
police have "laid down" because they
were dependent on the city for the rev
enue to pay salaries and the only place
where the revenue could be raised was
from the joints. He then says the citi-
zens approved of the action of the police
because they are tax ridden.
sThe bulk of the taxes in Kansas
City, Kan, are paid by minority of its
citizens. A large fraction of those citi-
zens are too poor to be taxed. A smaller
fraction ara too rich to pay their share.
The burden falls in the main upon the
homes of the city and its small busi-
nesses. Everyone of those businesses is
a struggle The homes are fairly stag
gering under their burden of debt and
taxation, without assuming $4,000 year
in addition for paying the police"
city control would not change the pres
ent status, as candidate for mayor run
ming on platform to put the $4,000 a
month necessary to keep up the police
department on to the city would not get
one vote in three.
He says the metropolitan police sys-
tenn is the only hope of prohibition in the
large cities, but that the police CON-
missionerS have been "playing horse"
and there is collusion between the police
and violators of the law.
Senator Taylor then makes some sug-
gestions as TO how prohibition can be
strengthened.
He says: LET the state pay for its
own machinery. Wherever it assumes
control over the police of a city let it
pay the bills. There is plenty of
properly in the state now untdxed, or
under-taxed, from which to raise twice
the needed revenue, without increasing
the present per cent of taxation a single
mill. When notes, mortgages, bonds,
stocks, judgments, Industrial plants, and
municipal franchises all pay the same
per cent of their value that four-room
cottage does, the state can pay its police
and also lower the rate of taxation.
"Put the states police on some efficient
civil service footing. Let there be a
regular term of enlistment, as into the
army, and let all applications for posi-
tions be decided on the ground of fitness
alone.
''The political manipulations, comb bina-
tions contentious and exertions of the
different police boards Kansas City has
endured would astonish the uninitiated.
Take politica out of the metropolitan
system and it would work with less fric-
ton; give it money to pay its way with
in addition ard it would be a complete
success.
submit to the people of the state, at
the first possible moment, a proposition
to amend the constitution of the state SO
that the verdict of a jury will be the
finding of nine instead of twelve. Not
only in trials under the prohibitory law,
but in all other jury trials. every con-
sideration of public welfare demands
that that venaI, perjured, prejudiced,
stupid or contentious twelfth
juror be deprived of his power to hang
the jury and thwart the law"
Grand Jury Won't Adjourn.
The grand jury will not adjourn to-
night II will be in session next week