The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-06-09
Another Half.Baked Report

Half-truths constitute much of the Wickersham
crime commissions latest report prosecutions In
that respect it is akin to the commissions misleading
report on prohibition Even Commissioner Lemann,
chairman of the committee prosecutions, refused to
sign the body of this report.
It is true, as the report states, that at times an
obstacle to effective control and efficient prosecution
has found in the power of the senate with re-
spect to appointments. The claim of the senate not
merely to exercise collective power of rejecting I'M
fit nominations, but to dictate appointments as the
patronage of the senators of the state in which the
district lies oSten has had bad effect upon personnel
and conduct of the Office"
Certainly senators who misuse their Office for
patronage purposes deserve all the condemnation that
the commission or anyone else can give them.
But the unworthiness of some senators does not re-
leve Presidents of their share of the blame for the
evils of patronage appointments for Presidents alone
have the legal responsibility for the nominations
AS matter of fact the recent record of the senate
in trying to block unfit presidential appointments is
good The senate blocked the master political
stroke" involved in the Hoover nomination OF Judge
Parker of yellow dog contract fame, to the supreme
court
When the President yielded to politics in putting
Watson and Hopkins on the federal bench in Pennsyl
vania and Kansas, liberal senators protested.
The commission inaccuratey reports that federal
prosecutions are now controlled centrally by the de-
psrtment of justice. Control Of local federal prosecu-
tons by Washington at times has been attempted
and has been criticised severely.
The commission thinks such control is a good
thing and would subject local law enforcement to
direction from Washington. Doesn't the commission
know that distant bureaucracy is far more suscepti
bic to politics and far dangerous?
The danger was demonstrated by Daugherty's
of the federal prosecution machinery to persecute
Senator Wheeler who had uncovered scandals Of the
Harding administration
Central control which the department Of justice
exercises over appeals in federal cases not good adj
vertisement for the Wickersham theory.
Only few days ago, Senator Couzens called at
tention to the loss of million dollars in taxes the
estate of Mrs Hill the railroad builders widow, as
result of the departments refusal to appeal that
Apparently the commission dislikes popular and
local control of law enforcement 1t says the direct
primary has had bad effect on the Office of the pub
lie prosecutor The report cites evidence for this
careless generalization and there known facts
which discredit the statement
The commission favors centralized control of prose-
cutions in the hands OF state officials rather than
local officials and in this connection depores clashes
between state and local authorities in labor strikes
This loose language makes good propaganda for
union-baitng employers but it travels far from the
impartial purposes for which the commission was Gre
ated.
1t might be mentioned that the commissions ex-
pert on prosecution, Alfred Bettman of Cincinnati
iubmtted separate report, which avoided the reefa
On which the commission report itself foundered.