Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1915-05-12
Claims P%OliceWOman Is a
Permanent City Feature
Mrs, Alice stebbins Wells Discusses Work Of Novel Officer Before
Conference Of Charities and Corrections.

, Salem, Mass, B%ellingham, Wash, and
Ithaca, N. Y, were to be included III
the list, and she named Poughkeepsi",
n. Y, and Des Moines, Ia, as places
where a policewoMan was paid from
private funds, with approval of the
chief. In addition there were num-
ero,ls cities which employed police
matrons.,
Norway Has Them, Too.
She had found upon investigation
that the United States led in this DC
parture, for Notwithstanding reports
Of the employment Of policewomen in
foreign countries she had been un-
able to learn that they were officially
employed abroad except in Norway
and in England in a voluntary way
The need of women on the police
force had arisen, she said, from the
fact that industrial and social energy
no longer centered in the home, "but
has given us an age in which men,
women and children, eat, sleep, work
and play together as never before IN
the worlds history
Mrs. Wells was the first police
woman in, CLOS Angeles, the post be
ing created upon her initiative. u
had charge of this work." she said,
land l know two things: That girls
and women in trouble have a right
to the sympathetic help Of women
officers; and that men officers have
a right to exemption from what may
be a constant temptation to the weak,
and from enforced and unnecessary
association with those who, if resent
full, may cast q cloud upon the repi1'
tation of the most exemplary. The
best officers are the most reluctant TO
undertake alone the handling OF girls,
and will sometimes resign in prefer
ence.'
sociologic Factor.
Mrs. Wells told how the police
woman's work took her into the home
to talk to mother and daughter as no
man could hope to do, and of mum
erous other police activities in which
women engaged. .
Il would not give the impression,'
she said, that the policewoman's
work is a silver lining or an orna'
mental fringe to the very dark clouds
Of law enforcement for which a po
liceman stands in the average mind
She is an integral part of the dc
partment and stands for law enforce
ment, but her largest and best work
is to prevent, for the securing OF
obedience to law is. the very best
form Of law enforcement.
Does the policewoman make ar
rests? is a question asked. Indeed
she does-but as few as possible, and
those in keeping with the spirit @
the work. She does not try to dc
the traditional work of the police
man on the street, but when a CIR
is to be brought in and held for an;
reason, it is right for the %policewom
an to go and bring her in. If she
has to summo to court the propric
tor Of a place Of amusement, she does
so. These constitute arrests, vet are
no more spectacular or unwomanl1
than the work daily performed by 9th
or business and professional women
Concluding with an advocacy Of the
extension of State Police, Mrs. Well:
say still further work for %policeWom
en-. She believed they world some
day he mutually exchanged bet~eel
the larger cities of any on. ctatc
travelling from one to the other, incog
nito fashion, and be able to revea
in the strange cities hitherto unsus
\ pected conditions.