Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1914-06-25
PRESS OPINIONS
THAT OUTWORN FEE SYSTEM.
CHouston Post. )

It is not exaggerating to call it the infamous fee system, and we entertain the hope that some day the people in choosing county officials will reach the point where they will overwhelm any man running for office who re- motely favors it, although it is the job of the legislature to stamp out every vestige of it, so far as it relates to the compensation of any man in the pub lie service.
 It is a rotten system, an outWOrn system, dishonest system and one that is an incubator of graft ill it's most offensive form.
 It has lived not so much because legislators have favored it as because the county officers who profit by it have an effective organization that can usually !efeat every effort to reform it.
 We read in the dispatches of a friendless and moneyless Houston boy of IF years who encountered the fee system in Temple the other day. He was bad boy with rebellious stom- ach-rebellious because it demanded food and because its owner had no money to placate it. It is said he stole two bottles of milk, worth about 10 cents, from the porch of resi- dence, and the alert officers pinched him.
 Of course, he had no counsel, be- cause counsel was unnecessary. He pleaded guilty to the offense and the justice fined him $1 and costs, The dollar wasn't so bad, but those costs amounted to $27, and to the roads he went to work out the fine, and a com mitment fee of $2 raised the penalty to $30-a hefty price for two piints of milk. Fifty days on the roads for two pints of milk. If we had hungry boys enough, we might pave the Texas roads with alabaster if the milk would hold out.
 Of course, it happened. that humane citizens of Temple heard of the case and became indignant, as any Chris tian people would. and the upshot o1
 their activity was the boy was re- leased.
 But that is the fee system and il
 has crushed it's thousands who failed
 to enlist the sympathy of good people
 as this Houston boy did
 ] There are hosts of men who have
 shot down their victims and gone free
 because of influence of other manipu
 lation of the processes of justice, bu
 the petty thief who surrenders to the
 behests of hungry but generally gets ! his. If the offense IS trivial, the fet system will fix him. There is gener lc,ly plenty of influence for the mar behind the trigger, but the boy behind an appetite does not always enlis friendship of that character. There are so many outrages whcl the fee system-as part of peace
 officers compensation-is responsible for that we trifle with the ordinar. , requirements of civilization when WI submit to it's abuses and its scandals
 without protest. It inflicts upon tsV
 weakest members of society punish l ments that are excessive, that ar I frequently beyond the average punish
 ment assessed against tn man-killel
 and what is jus as bad it lowers tn standard of public service by instigat 9 ing peace officers to do things the ' would never think of doing if they re : ceived their compensation in any oth
 CT way.
 Il The fee system in many instance j brutalizes officers. it overpunishe [ petty offenders and it frequently de l spells friendless innocence itself. q The Temple affair ill which tn . theft of a quart of milk enabled. tn officers to pile up $50 in fees was ba
 enough, but it was not so bad as tn
 many cases wherein field hands witt . their hard earned pay in their pocket