The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1911-12-16
THE RESPONSIBILITY
CONFERRED BY LAW
st. Augustine Record.
b - 80 =

Our contemporaries of PenSa cola IN
form US that the governor of Florida
has taken it upon himself to direct
the county commissioners of EScam-
bia and to insist that they perform
certain acts which he considers obliga-
tory upon them under the law. Our
contemporaries of Jacksonville show
that he is equally active in the affairs
of Duval and informs the board of
county commissioners that they must
look either to the strict letter of the
law for any authority they may desire
to exercise Or to very clear deductions
from such language. The letter may
imply that he considers appropriations
formerly made by such bodies Illegal
even when clearly demanded by pub
lie opinion and a wise sense of popular
needs-we infer that such misappro-
priations have occurred in the effort
to promote and foster such efforts at
advertisement as county fairs or de-
scriptive pamphlets.
Let the law be obeyed-let obedience
be enforced. In entering upon his
exalted Office the governor swore that
he would enforce the law and we have
no fear that he will do so according
to his convictions of duty and within
the range of his ability. But we have
insisted and we do insist that the re
sponsibility of the governor does not
end within the narrow confines of his
own office-as the executive head of
the state he is responsible for the con-
duct of those officials the law makes
subject to his acts of removal or sus-
penion. When these refuse to dis
charge the duties devolving upon them
It is for the governor to enforce ODE
dience exactly as he may send soldiers
to enforce obedience on a mob which
may threaten the safety of a prisoner
in one county or another-he is some
thing more than the chief of the
states soldiery and he is responsible
for even the elective officials whose
misconduct might furnish the only ex-
cuse ever offered in Florida for mob
action.
Any Official in command of soldiers
can protect a prisoner or dispense a
mob: it is for the governor to remove
the causes of irritation which excite
the mob. Distrust of justice in the
courts will always arouse men of our
blood to take justice into their own
hands and the truth is illustrated in
the north as in the south, in the east
as in the weSt-in Australia and India
as in California or Pennsylvania. To
shoot down the members of a mob is
but the crudest effort of the law-to
send the members of mob to the
penitentiary after bloody work has
been accomplished implies the exist
ence of conditions which constitute d
scandal in the state or gross ignorance
in its citizens. 1t is for the statesmen
to remove these causes-it is for the
able administrator to secure such
popular confidence in the ability of
the courts quickly and efficiently to
administer justice that none will ac
cept the necessity of other protection
than that afforded by the law. Gov
ernor Swanson of Virginia took office
with the declaration that justice should
be done in the courts but mobs must
be restrained for the full measure of
his term there was not lynching in
his state and the efficiency of the
courts under him has been acknowl
edged throughout the Union. Govern
or Mann has continued the policy and
the trial of Beattie furnished an apt
illustration OF the results that might
be accomplished under such concep-
tons of duty. Contrast the conduct
of these with that of Governor Blease
of South Carolina who looks to the
mob for the punishment of the lawless
or the protection of the community