Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1897-12-22
METROPOLITAN POLICE.
Republican Medicine is Very, Very
Bitter,-of which They Complain.

Republican Medicine is Very, Very
Bitter.-of which they Complain.
Topeka Correspondence:
Considerable time is being devoted
at present to discussion of the police
force of Topeka. It is charged that it
is too expensive; is populist political
machine, and is entirely inefficient.
To the unprejudiced observer, how
ever, it will seem passing strange that
the present force, viewed in the light
of its predecessors, should receive such
marked unfavorable criticism.
When we consider, however, tina, the
present force is Populist, and is con-
trolled by Populists, and is bar to
Republican manipulation of municipal
affairs, and that this agitation, if it
can be so termed, has been Inaugural
ted by political machine paper, equal
ly corrupt with any possible political
machine police force, we may go farth-
er than mere facial appearances and
find possible solution of the diff
ficulty.
The zeal of these gentlemen to bring
reproach upon the present police force
of Topeka must be considered histori-
ca11y.
Since the adoption of the Metropoli-
tan police law we have had six Repub-
lican governors and twelve years of
Metropolitan police. During those
years some of the police forces of To-
peka have been as large, or larger at
times, than the present force; they
have been as corrupt as the vicious
elements of corrupt machine politics
could make them; they have been or
dered to lie, and they have lied; they
have been directed to perjure them
selves, and they have perjured them
selves; they have been told to turn
their backs on joints and gamblers,
and they have acted accordingly;
while petty thieves have annoyed the
merchants, and burglars have looted
the homes of citizens, the police
have been permitted to sleep on their
beats in summer and toast their shins
at the Capital stove in winter; they
have been so entirely ornamental that
the people have been forced to take
the law into their own hands and make
an example of John Oliphant by hang
ing him to the yard-arm of Autograph
pole. And yet, if you will kindly look
back over the files of the Capital dur.
ing those years you will find twenty
one or twenty-five occasions on which
it has peremptorily demanded an in.
crease of the police force, ''to meet the
needs of the city," and its descriptions
of the heroic feats of va1or and detec
tive work, performed by its political
pet, differed only from the "Capt
O'Faur, the S1euthhound'' style in that
it was forced to admit that the cu1prit
usually escaped
But that force was all right. 1t was
the ideal conservator of the peace; the
Republicans were wise in their day
when they created it.
We may fully agree with the Capita
that the law, as at present applied, i.
a farce. In fact we insist that it is {
decided farce, and that it is a Law
created by Republicans, fostered BY
them for twelve or fourteen years
and manipulated as pet measure, fo
political purposes, and is only one O
the many that have required the ap
plication of some good, who1esom,
Populist horse-sense in the matter o
applying it to Republicans themselves
that has given rise to all this com
plant.
The evidence is insufficient to shov
that this law is a farce because it i
in the hands of the other fellow, and i
is encumbent on these gentlemen t
show wherein it now differs from it
predecessors, except that it is possibl,
under better control.
The stimulus of agitation, based O,
the fact that the law has been a stumb
ling block for every administrator
, since the days of St. John No. 1, is to
shallow to sustain the bill of com
plant.
If not only few Republicans, bu
; the people as well, should demand tn
non-euforcement of the law, and tn
Gripping of Topeka's police force
based on something other than a poll
teal scheme, they might accomplish
something.