Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-02-29
Thursday, February 20, 1912.
VIII Not Enforce the Law?


stantly proclaiming against the law,
and making not even pretense of en-
forcing the provisions against vice
and crime, has Disguised the best cit
izenship of Maine for a year. But it
seems to us that the climax has been
reached when the attorney general of
Maine publicly proclaims that he will
not enforce the law.
How does that strike you? You
don't believe he said it? Well tie
following is from the Waterville SEN
tinel, the personal mouthpieee of the
Democratic dictator. 1t is from May
or Pattangalrs address in acceptance
of denomination at the Democratic
caucus in Waterville. Saturday eve
ming:
"They say we have not kept the
city as it should be. They say
there have been prostitutes. There
always will be.
Another thing they want the Ii
QuOr law en1OFCcus thcfc arc boh
20 men who down in their hearts
want to see the law enforced.
When you talk enforcement they
shy So never will take
different stand than | did when
I said that the man in the factory
had an equal right to his glass of
beer as the club man. Last year
they announced that as member
of the Elks club | was connected
with nuisance. They could not
bear the idea"
Those are the words of the highest
salaried official of Names government
the chief prosecuting officer of
Maine, whose oath requires impartial
attention to all violation of the law.
From Attorney General Pattangalls
direct personal appeal to the mill work
ers of Waterville one must conclude
that he has not enforced the law
against such crimes as he mentions,
because he chooses to believe that the
people do not want them enforced;
that he will not enforce these laws,
because he is personally convinced
that the people want prostitutes and
rum-holes.
1t matters not what the law makers
believed the people wanted when they
passed the law; or what the voters
wanted when they made the statutory
law the peoples law by placing it in
the constitution, or what the majority
of the voters of Maine wanted last
year when they refused to take the
law out of the constitution-the attor-
ney- general of Maine puts his opinion
against tie law and the law makers,
and his opinion goes, see
When the attorney general of Maine
decides that there are not a score of
men in Watervilles almost 1900 pop
ulation who want enforcement of the
prohibitory law, of course he is just
as fully convinced that 1893 of every
1000 people in Maine are with him and
wish him to throw his oath and the
law to the dogs and run the criminal
affairs of the State according to his
own Interpretation.
Thus when Maine is able to secure
such an attorney general as Mr.. Pat
tangall the laws of the State are SUI
perGuous and pcrfunctory; legislatures
are useless and expensive; the peoples
hypocritcal vote be hanged.
When an attorney general knows
what the people want what is the use
they want because. if they pretend to
want something which the attorney
general thinks they do not want, they
are "hypoerites" and fanatics
The encouragement says there al
ways Will be prostitutes, but not al
ways will there be dens of vice pro-
teeted by elected officials, because the
present regime of disregard and abuse
of law is to be short-lived.
If incumbent officials are convinced
that their political careers in Maine
are to end this year, they will proba-
bly, persist in the present shameful
notification of law. They will con-
firm their own belief in the public
mind by deriving all the personal rev.
enue possible from the few months
left to them.
When Mayor Pattangall talks of the
mill mans beer and the club mans
cocktails and whiskey. he is appeal
ing directly to the vote for mayor of
those mill hands who enjoy the pres
ent easy conditions. If the class TO
whom such appeal is aimed always
have officials who encourage violation
of law and refusal TO enforce the law,
it is quite probable, as Attorney Gen
eral Pattangall says, that always there
will be bawdy-houses and liquor dives
in Waterville.
The conclusion may be wrong. but