The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-11-15
LAW ENFORCEMENT.

] enforcement of the anti-cigaret law
directs public attention to the fact that
the law is being violated by local mer-
chants. 1t also may serve to call to
mind the fact that there is continuous
violation of many other statutes and to
arouse an inquiry as to why SO many
laws are ignored by the public and
the officers entrusted with their en-
forcement
The bureau of social hygiene has
made public in part the results of an
exhaustive study of police conditions
| in America to be presented in the
forthcoming book, American Police
Systenis," by Raymond B. Fosdick.
the League of Nations. In comment
ing upon unenforceable laws in the
United States, Mr.. Fosdick says:
Another disadvantage under which
American police departments are Ia
boring is to be found in the presence
on our statute books of laws which,
because they interfere with customs
widely practiced and widely regarded
as innocent. are fundamentally unen-
forceable. The willingness with which
we undertake to regulate by law the
personal habits of private citizens is a
source of perpetual establishment to
| Europeans"
We are surrounded by penal laws
whose only purpose is to enforce by
threat certain standards of morality.
We are hedged about by arbitrary reg
ulations, which at best represent only
a portion of the public conscience.
An attempt rigidly to enforce all laws
thruout this country would create a
public turmoil such as probably never
was imagined by the trainers of these
statutes.
Often the laws are such as to defy
enforcement even If they had behind
them a substantial body of public
opinion. Thus there are laws against
rouge, laws against earrings, laws reg
ulating the length of women's skirts,
laws fixing the size of hatpins. In
Massa chusetts one may. not play cards
for stakes even with friends in the pri-
vacy of ones home. In Texas card
playing on trains is illegal.
| Recently in Baltimore the police
suddenly descended in series OF raids
to arrest all violators of the Sunday
law. One hundred and thirteen peo-
/ pie were taken into custody in one day
and 22S surnmonses were served
Those arrested included druggists
drivers of ice-cream trucks, BARRIERS
and bakery-shop keepers.
Two men were arrested for balanc-
ing their books in their own homes
Selling a child a stick of candy censti-
tuted heineus offense, and the buy
ing of a piece of chewing gum or u
loaf of bread caused the arrest of the
store-keeper. One man was arrested
for painting the gate in his back yard.
Policemen did not hesitate to ap-
preach a man who happened to be
smoking a cigar and question him as
to how he came in it's possession. II
satisfactory answers were not forth
coming the man was arrested. Efforts
were made to persuade the police to
allow few men to continue working
in garage on the ground that hun
dred motor trucks stored there would
freeze If not attended to. The police,
however. refused, and two arrests were
made of men who attempted to pre-
serve their property.
This satire upon religious observ-
ance. said the Baltimore American,
bore no fruit of holiness, but on the
contrary fermented bitter feeling ana
vindictiveness. The public was
ct aIw
I cal violence. The arrests were a dis
grace to the city, and even the police
men who under orders made them,
and the magistrates who held the pre-
liminary hearings. shrank with dis
gust from the tasks that were laid
upon them.
Mr.. Fosdick is quoted as follows:
| Nowhere in the world is there So
great an anxiety TO place the moral
regulation of social affairs in the
hands of the police. and nowhere are
the police so incapable OF carrying out
such regulation. Our concern, more
over, is for externals, for results that
are formal and apparent rather than
essential. We are less anxious about
preventing a man from doing wrons
to- others than in preventing him from
doing what we consider harm to him
the individual to do as we think he
| ought to do for his own good. We
attack symptoms rather than causes.
and in doing so we create a species of
moralistie despotism when overrides
the private conscience and destroys
liberty where liberty is most precious.
From this condition arises enc of
the most embarra ssing phases of the
! whole question of law enforcement.
| Mayors, administrations and police
forces are more often and more sue
cessfully attacked from this point than
! from any other, and the consequences
are corrupted policemen and shut
fling executives who give the best ex-
cuse they can think of at the moment
for falling to do the impossible, but
are able to add nothing to the situa-
ton but sense of their own peFplex-
ity. OF all the cities visited by the
writer, there was scarcely one that did
not bear evidence of decentralization
arising from attempts to enforce laws
| which instead of representing the will
n he - 81 L., IL.