Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1897-01-15

ly be made OF official derelictlOn in cases
of failure to prosecute for violations of
law within his personal knowledge, yet
it has never in practice been regarded as
the prosecutors duty to play the part of
spy or detective, unless the pursuit of
proof In cases pending, or where notice
of some crime has been given. The
function of the prosecutor is professional
and the judicial forum is its appropriate
field of exercise. The requisites for its
successful performance are learning,
skill, courage, vigilance, fidelity. In a
government by the people, the officers
of their choice are as good, and no bet
ter, than they deserve-and in the last
analysis the efficiency of all criminal
law, and especially of police and sumpt-
lating to traffic in intoXicants) is in
exact proportion to the public interest
felt and manifested in its enforcement.
When such interest is relaxed either
through indifference or cowardice, the
law to the same extent becomes a dead
letter. 1t is quite common to attribute
such result to the neglect of the prose-
cutting officers. This view seems to
overlook or ignore the truth that the
citizen and the prosecutor must be CO.
workers in the enforcement of the law.
That the citizen owes obedience to the
law, is truism, but obedience limited
to abstinence from personal ntraction
of the law fails to'meet the full extent
of the obedience required 1t is the
moral duty of every citizen to give posi-
tive aid to the enforcement of criminal
law by exposure of every violation
which comes to his notice.
With reference to the higher crimes
this duty is universally recognized, but
in practice distinction is made between
these higher crimes, which are against
the individual rights of person and prop
erty, and sumptuary statutes which are
in the nature of police regulations. To
state the case in concrete; the same man
who would hasten to the States attor-
ney with notice of his knowledge of a
burglary or an arson, or murder and
z3alOusly assist in the arrest of the Of
fender and in gathering evidence of his
crime, might be personal witness of
numberless violations of the liquor law,
even participating therein, and keep ut
ter silence thereupOn without qualm of
conscience. Its precisely here that the
real difficulty lies in the failure of pro-
hbitory law in the larger towns and not
in the dereliction of the prosecuting
officer.
| doubt if well established instance
can be named where a Vermont States
attorney has refused to act promptly
upon complaint by respectable citizen
of the violation of any law. Besides all
this, the doors of the grand jury room in
every country are periodically open to
any and every citizen who has complaint
to make.
Whenever and wherever there is an
aroused public sentiment hostile to the
liquor traffic. which finds expression in
action rather than in speeches and resO.
buttons, then and there the law will be
enforced; nay more, ten men, even five
men, resolute and vigilant. in any town
or city in the State, can shut and keep
shut every resort within their precint
where the sale of intoXicants is prac-
ticed
The extent to which citizenship shirks
this duty and puts the responsibility of
initiatory action upon the public prose
cutor, will furnish the precise measure
of the laws failure.
That the evil suggested has not been
cured by strngencies which have from
time to time been added to the law, is
quite apparent. However drastic statu-
tory provisions may be, they are not
self.eXecuting and whether mild or Sc
we're, as before stated. their successful
enforcement must depend upon public
sentiment, and how this may be brought
into working harmony with the object OF
the law is another question.
My only purpose here is to call atten-
ton to the situation.
JOHN w. STEWART.
Middlebury, December, 1896.