The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1913-01-16

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commitment. Your honorable body
will find this fruitful field of inquiry.
Local officials in some sections of our
state commit persons to the wrong
institutions, and no matter how OBJ.
vious the mistake nor how serious its
consequences to the management, the
board of administration has no au-
thority to make the simple transfer
that would remove an otherwise in
surmountable difficulty. 1t is unfair
to the institution to send to q girls
home, for instance, young women of
hardened depravity. Their influence
over others, whose misfortune has
been that of environment and who
can under proper conditions be bene.
fitted, cannot but be harmful At Ian.
caster, where the state is supposed to
render service in improvement of NOR
ais, boys are committed who are fee
ble-minded. A few such charges can
upset plans and policies of manage
ment that otherwise would work out
along orderly and beneficial lines.
The board of administration should
be clothed with the power to review
all commitments, and thus establish
a. base of homogeneity at least. A
few counties by careless assignments
from the courts, can disorganize the
whole machinery of the institutions
and produce a seemingly impossible
problem for the whole state. The
board should also have the right to sit
as lunacy body over state charges
and make transfers from one institu-
tion to another.
Licensing of Liquor Traffic.
liquor traffic"
The endorsement of this plan was
followed by suffrage ratification of
the constitutional amendment on the
subject, by majority vote sufficiently
large to form safe index to the state
of public opinion. It therefore becomes
the duty of the Legislature now to
carry into practical operation the new
scheme of regulating the liquor traf-
fic. For years this question in Ohio
has been the football of politics. Not
only has the so-called wet and dry
question been the means of disquiet-
ing community life, but it has formed
divisions In the legislature and occa-
stoned confusion in such measure as
to seriously interfere with the proper
settlement of strictly economic ques-
tions. The action of the constitutional
convention was a positive reflection
of the public desire to approach and
dispose of this subject on the base of
common sense, having high regard for
the public welfare. The question has
been so interviewer with the politics
of communities that expediency gen.
Grated for years evasion on the part
of many public officials. The whole
thing seemed to hang in the balance
and 1t is my judgment that the con-
dCICu WISELY
and well, not only in adopting a license
proposal but in so prescribing the
limitations as TO keep
within the hands of the people the
power at all times to deal effectively
with this problem. The constitutional
provides that the liquor
traffic shall be licensed where the
saloon now exists. Conditions are in
no wise changed where the people
have by suffrage expression removed
the saloon. No person not a citizen
of the United States nor of good
moral character can procure license.
The most extensive investigation has
been made with respect to the ex-
perience of Massachusetts. Pennsyl-
vania, Illinois and Canada, and this
leads me to recommend this basic
feature of the law, namely, that
license commission, consisting of not
less than three persons, shall be ap-
pointed by the governor and that this
body shall with the consent of the
governor, select the commissions in
the so-called wet counties.
Removal of UnfaithfuI Officials.
No one disputes the propriety of the
amendments so called, be-
ing recognized as direct command to
the legislature to pass certain laws
in relation to respective subjects. A.
number of the amendments are self
operative.
No. IA provides that laws shall be
passed providing for the prompt re-
noval from Office upon complaint and
hearing, Of all officers, judges and |
Of the general assembly, for
and misconduct involving moral tur-
pitude or for other causes provided by
aw; and this method of removal shall |
oe in addition to impeachment or
,ther method OF removal authorized |
,y the constitution" E9
There is no one thing that has con-
ributed more to social unrest than |
he abuse of power by public officials.
rhe spirit Of our institutions certainly |