METROPOLITAN POLICE BILL.
Mr. HEFFREN moved to take up the message from the Governor on the bill [H. R. 133] the metropolitan police bill. The motion was agreed to.
The message was read as follows:
Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:
I return to you, with my objections thereto, House bill No. 133, commonly known as the metropolitan police bill.
The bill declares that, in cities of this State containing 29,000 or more inhabitants, according to the United States Census of 1880, there shall be established a Board of Metropolitan Police, to consist of three Commissioners, to be appointed by the Governor, and the Secretary, Auditor and Treasurer of State. One of the Commissioners shall be of "opposite politics" to the other two. It provides that these Commissioners shall have power to appoint a Superintendent of Police, Captains, Sergeants, Detectives and such other officers and patrolmen as they may deem advisable, to be appointed equally between the two political parties. The number of patrolmen is limited to one for each thousand inhabitants. No limit whatever is placed upon the number of Captains, Sergeants and Detectives. Though they might be made so numerous to gratify party or personal favorites, as to impose a most unjust burden upon the City Treasury, the voters of the city can do nothing to regulate this number.
There are but two cities in the State the population of which is shown by the census of 1880 exceeds 29,000 inhabitants. They are Indianapolis and Evansville, the City Governments of which have been, except during great intervals, in the control of officers holding different political opinions from a majority of the members of the General Assembly.
Fort Wayne, by the census of 1880, contained a population of nearly 29,000 inhabitants. The City Government of Fort Wayne is steadily under the control of officers who agree with the majority of the members of the two Houses of the Legislature in political opinions. Fort Wayne is not included within the provisions of the bill. Nor are any of those provisions of the bill which its advocates claim are necessary for good municipal government and fair elections made applicable to that city either by the bill itself or by any other bill which has been before the present Legislature. It is evident, therefore, that the design is for merely party reasons, to deprive the citizens of Indianapolis and of Evansville of the power, through officers chosen by themselves, to appoint their police.
That these are the controlling reasons is placed beyond doubt by the mode provided for selecting the Commissioners of Police. Instead of appointing two or four officers equally divided in political opinion to make the selection, three State officers differing in political opinion from the Governor are appointed along with him to make the choice. These are officers, too who unlike the Governor, are eligible, under the Constitution, to re-election at the end of their present terms and who, naturally desirous of being re-elected, may well be supposed, without meaning to judge them with any disrespect, to be peculiarly susceptible of party bias.
The Commissioners to be selected are not required to be equally divided in political opinion,
page: 297[View Page 297], but are to consist of three persons, one of whom shall be of "opposite politics" from the other two. It is well known, of course, from the composition of the Board chosen to appoint them, of what politics the majority of the Commissioners will be, and the member required to be of "opposite politics" need not, under the terms of the bill, be a member even of one of the two leading political parties. He may belong to any party opposed in opinion to the majority of the Commissioners, no matter how inconsiderable maybe its numbers.
The Commissioners are required, in appointing the officers and men who shall compose the police, to appoint "equally between the political parties."
This fair-sounding phrase will deceive nobody acquainted with the courses of parties. If men are to be chosen as policemen Impartially, the men who choose them must be impartial. When no careful provision is made that it shall not be impartial, it is easy to foresee what will be the real party composition of the police. Those who agree In political opinion with a majority of the Commissioners will be bold, aggressive partisans; those who do not will, for the most part, be likely to be persona of weak political convictions, and will be afraid to utter their sentiments lest by doing so they may lose their places.
The citizens of Evansville and Indianapolis are by this bill to be deprived of the political rights which belong to the citizens of Fort Wayne because a majority of their inhabitants chance to differ in political opinion from a majority of the members of the General Assembly. This majority, claiming to be members of a party favoring popular rights, propose to set the first example in this State of depriving the people of a right to regulate their own law affairs. They have found out, as they suppose, a better way of educating the people for the duty of self-government than by confiding to them the management v of their own local concerns. They are better pleased it would seem, with the aristocratic forms which give to others than the people the right to determine what is best for the people I refuse to subscribe to such views. The best Governments have faults, but the best Government, in the long run, in that which confides to the people the greatest power in regulating their local affairs.
The best way to cure the evils of bad local administration, where such evils exist, is to make the people affected by them fell that they will suffer from them until they exert themselves locally to remedy them. But especially I object to the bill for several reasons. It is the beginning, if it shall pass into a law, of party contests at each recurring Legislature to take cities out of the control of the majority of the inhabitants when a majority in the Legislature differ from them on party questions. Like the scheme to renew the old abuse of giving to the Legislature the appointment of the Trustees of our Benevolent and Reformatory Institutions, its inevitable effect will be to increase party wrangling and frenzy up the two Houses, to make the real interests of the people subordinate to party triumphs, and prolong the sessions of the Legislature beyond the limit prescribed by the Constitution for regular sessions of that body
The present session of the Legislature is an illustration of the effect of this merely partisan legislation. The Constitution of the State gives to the Governor three days exclusive of Sunday for the consideration of every bill after the day it shall have been presented to him. It is a very brief time under ordinary circumstances, but especially is it so when, as during the present session, party strife has postponed the passage of nearly all legislation until the closing hours of session. Bills enough are on my table properly to occupy at least a fortnight in order to be considered with even reasonable care; yet, because I have not been willing to waive my Constitutional right to deliver it for the brief term of three days, upon the provisions of the bill now returned, the two Houses refused to pass the general appropriation bill. They have said in substance that they will not allow the State Government to be carried on if they can prevent it, unless a co-ordinate branch of the Government will yield to their will and surrender a plain and mot necessary Constitutional right.
It is believed that, if this bill should become a law, the city of Indianapolis will not be able, under the levy and assessment it is now allowed by law to make, to meet its necessary expenses. The city is now operating under an assessment as high as the law allows. The expense of the present police force is stated to me by the Mayor to be $50,210 a year. The annual expense of the police force provided for by the present bill will be, at a moderate estimate, as I am assured by persons competent to judge, more than $80,000.
The fourteenth section of the bill now returned is in my opinion repugnant to the Constitution. It requires that the fees fixed and allowed to City Marshals "shall be taxed and allowed in all cases where the arrests are made or protests served by any of the police force of said cities in favor of said city, and shall be collected in the same manner as other costs are collected, and shall be paid into the City Treasury of said city by the officer or party or person collecting the same every three months" Section 12 of Article 1 of the Constitution ordains that justice shall be administered "freely and without purchase." In a case which arose under a statute giving a salary to Clerks and Sheriffs and requiring them to pay all their fees and costs into the County Treasury, Judge Worden said that "while it may be that litigants can be required to pay docket fees or otherwise contribute to the support of the Judiciary in such manner as might be provided by law, it is clear to my mind that they can not be required through the medium of Clerks and Sheriffs nominally as for their fees, to put money into the County Treasury which may be used for general purposes, and as the condition upon which justice can be administered to the litigating parties by the Courts of the State." The opinion of Judge Worden was adopted as a true statement of the law in Fulk vs. Board of Commissioners of Monroe County (46 Ind., 150.) Under that decision it appears that the requirement that the fees allowed to Marshals shall be paid into the City Treasury is unconstitutional.
For the several reasons above stated, I am constrained to return this bill without my approval.
ALBERT G. PORTER.
The question being on the passage of the bill notwithstanding the Governor's veto, the vote resulted yeas, 54; nays, 42; as follows:
Yeas-Messrs. Akin. Barr, Bowers, Brooks, Bryant, Cabbage, Carr, Chandler, Chittenden, Davis, Elev, Ferriter, Fisher, Gerber, Genung, Ham, Heffren, Howland, Jewett, Kennedy, McHenry, McMullen, Mauck of Harrison, Miller, Mock of Wells, Montgomery, Moody, Nave, Patten, Peters, Price, Pruitt, Pulse, Robertson, Schloss, Shaffer, Shaw, Smith of Blackford, Smith of Perry, Spain, Stevenson, Stucker, Sutton, Thomas, Tuley, Weaver, Whitsit, Williams of Knox, Williams of Posey, Wilson of Marion, Woodling and Mr. Speaker-54.
Nays-Messrs. Adams, Antrim, Beeson, Best Brazelton, Campbell, Copeland, Deem, Fleece, Frazee, Frazer, Furnas, Cants, Gibson, Hanson, Helms, Henderson, Holler, Huston, Kester, Kirkpatrick, Knowles, McClelland of Lawrence, McClelland of Porter, Marsh, Mellett, Mering, Mosier, Pettibone, Robinson, Shively, Shockney Smith of Lagrange, Smith of Tippecanoe, Sterret, Straughan, Thompson, Westfall, Wiley, Wilson of Kosciusko and Wrightr-42.
So the Metropolitan Police bill passed House.
