The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-05-23
GAYNOR'S STAND
 ON WAGNER BILL
Not More Law, but Application of Present Law Needed
 in New York

In Vetoing the Wagner Bill designed
 to create a Public Welfare Comn1is- sion, Mayor Gaynor has acted with characteristic good sense and his ha'b-
 ltual courage, says the New York
 Evening Sun. The measure itself be- longs to a class of legislation all too
 familiar of late Given any public ag- 1tat1on, clamor, discussion of any sub- Ject under the sun, the assembling Of the Legislature is invariably the sig nal for the introduction of innun1era- ble ill-considered, if welI-intentioned proposals, designed to cure what is frequently incurable by law or other wise.
 Usually two wholly distinct forces are rallied to the support of such pro-
 posaIs. There is an element which is ready at all times and at a moments notice to erearrange the whole struc- ture of government or administration, to abolish any incidental or inevitable abuse. There Is also the professional
 politician who regards a moral issue,' as one of his unfailing assets and seeks to '4turn a trick by we'll feigned enthusiasm for specific virtue. In the present instance, with a mu- nicipal election at hand, Tammany Hall, as represented at Albany, well
 conned eagerly a measure which would conceivab1y enable it to escape all re- sponsibflity for present police abuses. To outdistance reformers in their race for reform was the obvious purpose,
 and this is written into the history of the Wagner Bill. Nothing is more transparent than the reasons which induced the passage of the bill at the 1 Capitol.
 Of the bill itself 1t is necessary to
 say but little. He is a rash man who
 seeks to add to or provoke an addf- ton to any written document of the
 mayor of this town. The bill deliber- ately discarded the experience and the
 policy of this city in police matters. As if New York had not already suf- fered enough from two-headed three l headed, bipartisan and no-headed po- lice boards, 1t proposed to abandon all the considerable progress of recent years and return to the old system of 1 divided responsibility.
 The mayor of this town is some times irritating and even exasperat ting I in his incidental actions and utter ances, but despite the occasional. de- fects of temper he brings to all public | questions a sound common sense and l a complete readiness to assume re- sponsibilfty and follow the lines his 1 own intelligence lays out for Thin1. which in the end silence all but the l most malicious of his critics and win l applause from most unexpected quar- ters.
 l Tn this instance, faced with 9, pro- 1 posal, supported by some popular I claTnor and great show of sentinen talfty, a proposal which sought to l eliminate graft in tho Police Depart
 ment by multiplying the opportunities 1 for grating and to establish efficiency l by dividing authority and insuring
 chaos, the mayor has acted wisely and public opinion has promptly and em- i phaticaIly sustained him.
 1 First and last, since the gambler lRosenthal was murdered there has been great deal of nonsense spoken I and written about the Police Depart ment- The mayor has just disposed of one by-product of this hysterfa wisely. MT. Whitman has on his side
 recently demonstrated how wholly ad- equate old laws enforced in an old fashioned way are to deal with police offences and offenders. What the po- lice conditions demand is not more law, but more of the law applied rig orousIy