The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-03-18

One phase of the process by which cit
 izenship wrought out the transition
 from the old methods to the new ma.
 be unfamiliar to you since it has passe'
 away with the need for it. 1 refer t
 the rise Sof volunteer citizens organiza
 tions. It appears from the records tha
 a serious condition of things prevailed in Connecticut toward the close of thu
 nineteenth century. Half the saloons
 in the cities did business on Sunday
 gambling flourished in gigantic propor | tions, other forms of vice were rampant 1 The courts combatted this state of af
 fairs but feebly, the police acted gen | erally as if in sympathy with it, ant l prominent officials in many places ap-
 peared to be drugged by the potent in
 fluence of corrupt politics. Despairine
 of relief through the ordinary channels | citizens of the highest character ant
 standing formed local vigilance clubs
 known as Law and Order leagues, hay.
 ing for-their object the enforcement o1 i law against public nuisances. In 1S9t l there was formed a state oa organiza-
 ton of the same title The Law and | Order league of Connecticut must be
 credited by the impartial historian with
 an important part in the reform which l gradually followed. It was Doth a re- suit and a cause for awakened citizen | ship. Its agents were secretly where they were summoned They tested, not tempted law breakers, and their testimo- ny could not be overthrown in court. The league operate with Hateful cer- tointU a I ct oun n Inc GnllIc Df the lawless. In a few years public
 gambling had been declmated and viola tons of the liquor law had fallen off
 one-half. It met and throttled the ma
 lgnant nuisance of obscenity. Later it
 levelled both it's search light and its
 guns upon the social evil with salutary
 effect It taught the people to employ
 their legal right to curb abuses and as
 sist in maintaining public order. It
 taught them to watch and direct their
 own servants, a lesson which they have
 learned so well that officials now dare
 not ignore their masters. The Law and
 Order league combined with other influ-
 ences to produce such sweeping changes in public sentiment and in the administrative and judicial domains, tIdI IL DStohiS llstl4 ilp lOuSSi liSSV9Setb y and joined the company of departed movements that served a useful part in the time of them.
 One reason why the need of a civic league for law enforcement has ceased is found in the reform of the judicial system The method of appointing judges of inferior courts and prosecut- ing officers q. the beginning of the twentieth century were extremely crude and faulty. Few things could be more offensive to modern taste than the spectacle of such lofty and responsible offices being footballs of shifting poli- tics, so that judges must needs cringe and scheme to secure reelection. and prosecuting attorneys feel compelled to hob-nob with the very classes against whom their office Is at war, in order to retain their places. I do not exaggerate, these are facts of the good old times gone by. The influence of the saloon upon politics in those days was very great. and reached 10 the bench itself, since the bench was dependent upon politics Gan we wonder t.:at judges scarcely ever sent a man to jail for vio- lating the liquor laws, that they treat ed gambling offenses as of minor im- portance? What could our fathers have expected when they put their magls- trates in so difficult a position? It is a part of the history of those times, au- thentic though seldom seen in print, that judges frequently postponed liquor and gambling cases till after election, or, if they tried them just before treated them with notorious leniency We, who exempt the appointment of judges almost completely from politics. shield them thereafter from partisan in- fuences by assuring them possession of their offices during good behavior up to the age limit, and render them liable to censure or impeachment by the board | )f censors for any breach of official ! 1uty CT decorum, we 1 say, wonder that our fathers endured system which lent itself so infallibly to abuses. | The severance of Judicial from politi- | eal relations has been a measureless ! gain to the cause of order and impar- ,ial justice Human nature vested in robes is the same as it ever vas doubtless but we have guarded against it's weakness, and put all the ! incentives ot interest and ambition on he side of the rigid performance of iu- licial duty.
 Another great victory which militant has achieved within the cen ury IS in the constabulary system Some Of my younger auditors may be unaware of the revolution that has talk n place here. We have grown up fa- niliar with the present system. We are used to the idea of state de- artment of public safety, with it's office t Hartford, having jurisdiction over Il local constabularies. The fact that ts trained detectives are sent to all arts of the state as needed is known to g. The fact that the police general can nd frequently does make requisition pon local police departments for spec Il service in other parts Of the state ; also familiar The present police so systematized through ut the tate, and brought into relation rith ttose O. other states, works with uch business-like completeness, dis and repressing crime, that it
 hard to believe that it is little more nan fifty years old. Such is the fact. t the period we are considering, the eginnng of the twentieth century. , lere was no .rolice general, no state apartment of public safety, systema- zing and co-ordinating all the local apartments of police but the lottar