The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-03-15
THE POLICE COMMISSION LAW

In his message vetoing the code,
Governor Wells referred to the unsat-
isfactory administration of the police
and fire commission law, though he
expressed the opinion that it was still
a step in advance. In New York they
are having an experience with this
same kind of commission, and there
are many objections to providing for
| a four-headed one in the charter for
Greater New York. The New York
Times, commenting on the subject
says:
The wearisome and exasperating tur-
moil in the police board is the result
of the internal cOntrivance by which
the power of the department is sub
i ject TO deadlock, and responsibility is
fixed nowhere. 1t may be all the worse
because the members of the board are
able and honest men with irreconcil-
able differences of opinion, for if they
were pliable persons with easy-going
consciences they could reconcile their
differences with compromises and bar
gains, by which they would individ-
ually benefit at the expense of the
public. Then all might be smooth and
plausible on the surface and rottenness
beneath. as was the case with the old
Tammany- Republican combination
Nothing but the old inefficiency and
corruption could be worse than the de-
moraliZation to discipline and the I'M
dermining of public confidence that
come from the present state of chronic
controversy in the department, which
forces everybody concerned into a
false position. No matter how the an
tagonism started, its result has been
to breed distrust and suspicion on both
sides, to evoke methods of warfare of
which the participants cannot fairly
judge, and to produce perverting
views and perVerting statements of
purposes and motives on all hands.
= The whole trouble springs
from the law which makes such a de-
partment four-headed at ALL which
makes it possible to pit one commits
sioner and the chief of police against
the other commissioners for the pro-
duction Of dead-locks over promotions.
and which so divides authority and re-
sponsibility between an administrative
board liable to an even division and a
single executive officer that it rests de-
ciSively and surely nowhere. 1t is
perfectly plain that the administrative
duties of the department should be
vested in one commissioner, or at all
events not in board that can be di-
vided against itself, and that the ex-
of the force should be clearly defined
and lodged in the hands of a chief un-
der regulations and a supervisory au-
thority which cannot be mistaken or
evaded
And yet in framing a charter for a
Greater New York the commission has
insisted upon perpetuating a system
that has been prolific of evils and
abuses and proved itself a failure, and
for which no defense can be made.
Exec ot in rare cases there seems to
be something inherently wrong in the
idea of a bipartisan commission (peo-
pie long since dropped the misnomer
non-partisan commission) to control
the police and fire departments of
cities; they afford such grand oppor-
tunities for putting the chiefs and
men at loggerheads. This much is
certain where all seems so uncertain:
no law is well administered when those
who execute it are not in full accord
with the spirit and principle of it.