Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-04-03
BEWARE OF THE BEFUDDLERS
OF CHARTER REVISION!
Police Ruled From Harrisburg and Mayor.
al,v Reduced to Mere Honorary Figure.
head in Violation Of Local Home Rule


head in Violation of Local Home Rule
CINISTER efforts are apparently max"
~ ing to wreck the charterrevision pro-
gram.
Reports have been put out that rip
per" bill is planned to remove the Mayor
and Councils and to empower the Gov
ernor to fill the Offices until an election
can be held The purpose of these ru-
mors is to create the impression that the
control of the election machinery Is to
be put into new hands before the mayor
atty election.
If the impression can be created that
the men backing the charter revision are
seeking to destroy home rule temporarily
as a means of getting what they are
accused of seeking there will be natural
and righteous Indignation among the
voters, Indignation so hot that the Iegls-
lators in Harrisburg will not dare pass
any important charter bills.
Still further, certain interests are ad-
vocating openly the distribution of the
present powers of the Mayor among
lot of other officials and the creation of
a METROPOLITAN police commission to take
the control of the local police force from
the local authorities and put it in the
hands of a commission named in Harris
burg.
The suggestion of these things is an
insult to the intelligence of the people
of this city.
The primary purpose Of charter revi-
sion is to give us a greater degree of
home rule, and to do away with the ne
cessty of going to the state capital when
we wish authority to change the details
of local administration.
To put our police force in charge Of
state commission is to destroy the very
essential of home rule. To urge it as a
way to take the police out of politics is
to indulge in the most transparent and
barefaced sophistry. The police are in
politics not because the Director of Pub
lie Safety is appointed by the Mayor.
And they would not necessarily be taken
out of politics if the head should be ap-
pointed by the Governor. The change
would involve nothing more than shift
ing control of the police from one politi
cal group to another
The police are in politics because the
politicians wish them to be in politics.
They were taken out of politics under
Mayor Blankenburg without any change
in the laws. They can be taken out of
politics instantly under the laws pro-
posed by the charter revision committee
| oEc io1c oil TOD H.,
the people.
The police provisions of the charter
draft of the citizens committee will not
prevent the use of the police for political
purposes if the officials desire to use
them in that way and if the people Of
the city are content to have them so
used. But the charter draf. does pro-
vide a way by which worthy citizens,
aggrieved by the abuse of power by the
Director of Public Safety, can bring him
to book. Any taxpayer can go into court
with evidence that the police are being
made tools of the politicians and secure
the removal from Office of the offending
policemen and of the superior officers
who have winked at the pernicious activi-
ties of their subordinates.
This plan places upon the people right
here the responsibility for the conduct
of their Police Department and the
remedy for its misconduct if misconduct
there be- 1t has real teeth in it.
To urge anything else in good faith or
with sinister motives is to advocate the
adoption of principles in city govern
ment long since abandoned. 1t is to de-
mand that we go back twenty-five OF
fifty years and undo all that has beer
done to free great cities from the con.
tinual interference of the state law.
making bodies.
1t is to confess that we are not capable
of governing ourselves.
1t is to expose the city to the DANCE,
of being governed by the faction which
is in the majority in the state at large
and may be in the minority here. 1t i.
to attack local democracy at its tap root
which is government by the local ma
J jority.
If it is desirable that there should b,
home rule, it is impossible to muster ,
single argument in favor of the metro
politan police system which can com
mend itself to the reason of an intelli
, gent human being.
The proposition to decentralize tn
1 power of the Mayor is as pernicious a
: the proposition to place the control o
: the police under a state commission
The Mayor has too little power rathe
, than too much.
t We are talking all the time about tn