New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-07-10
LAW IS GAYNOR'S THEME
Stonybrook Chautauqua Hears
Mayor on Enforcement.
LAXITY IN SMALL VILLAGES
Declares New York and Other
Big Cities Are Stricter than
Small Country Places.
by Telegraph to The Tribune.

by Telegraph to The Tribune
Stonybrook, Long Island, July 9.-"Ten
thousand policemen in New York, and peo-
pie think. you should have ten thousand
honest ones, when the truth is it is. pretty
hard to get an honest police commissioner.
was the message Mayor Gaynor gave to
the Stony brook Chautauqua at Stony
brook Long Island, last night.
The Mayor was talking on the enforce
ment of the law in cities. and he declared
that the first and hardest step was to put
our laws in such shape that they would
not be a temptation to petty grafters.
Many agents of vice societies in New York,
said the Mayor, are petty grafters who
use their places as a lever to pry graft
from liquor sellers, gamblers and others
whom he forbore to specify.
-If man wants to drink on Sunday"
continued the Mayor, sit is a pretty hard
thing to stop him, and if a large minority
want to drink on Sunday it is an awful
hard thing, to stop them. Laws that the
community don't back make all the
trouble.
eff you tell your policeman to arrest
every one who drinks, IT is inevitable that
he take money from some to allow them
to drink
The Mayor divided the agents of vice
societies into two classes One lot of them
he described as quiet men and women who
honestly strive to accomplish good in New
York, While the others he classed as cheap
Sensationalists. =
Passion for Arrest of Others.
When meet man whose chief passion
is the arrest of others 1 know Immediately
that I face man of criminal life" said
the Mayor. He may. not show it, but he
is vicious and criminal at heart"
Mayor Gaynor declared that he thought
New York would be better off if it would
go back to, what he termed the old-fash-
toned method of using warrants instead OF
the method of immediate arrests.
There are many little things he sad,
that don't need attention from the police
If man hits another one in the face, As
things are now he is arrested he is locked
UP over night and in the morning he is
brought to trial. Wen and good; but it
would be so much better if the accuser
would wait until the morning, and then,
if needs be, get a warrant; but the chances
are that for such little thing a blow
in the face the victim would be so cooled
off by morning that he would not go to the
bother Il
The Mayor voiced the opinion that we
now have far too many laws in New York
City and STILL he went on, every reformer
who writes to the Mayor wants law
passed for this or for that.
They say pass law, and that is a
great mistake. for we already have far, far
an instance IN point he cited the recent
agitation in regard to the pictures of the |
Jeffries- Johnson fight
Letters Against Fight Pictures.
He had received hundreds of letters Oh
that subject, ne said, and those who did
not ask him to order the pictures stopped
wanted a law passed to cover this special
case. ..-
Some of Them. said the Mayor, tell me
that the pictures may be. stopped because j
they are indecent and immoral. But Ill the |
first instance that question would have 10
go before a magistrate, and what magls- |
trate could say that pictures of prize-nsht- |
ers were immoral indecent? We have |
seen them published for years in the |
Hearst newspapers.
If he had the say of it. the Mayor SAID |
there would be neither prizefghts nor |
pictures of them in New York, but ne was
bound by the laws, and he asked his audi
ence not to lose sight of the fact that it |
was well that he
otherwise, he said, he, any one occC-
pying his position, might too easily DC |
come despot.
Ours is "a government of laws, and not |
a government of men," said the Mayor,
and 1 wish these letter-writers would APP
preciate that point /
In ending the Mayor pointed out that |
with all the hue and cry, as he put it, as
to laxity of law enforcement in New York |
and other large cities, there was much l1ss
Of law in the small villages
In St James, he said, though it was |
against the law to sell liquor on Sunday, it
was sold, and sold freely.
The only way I know to enforce the
laws, in city or country said the Mayor, !
lis to enforce them in just :the way the
laws themselves specify