| Show STOfDAY LAWS In his report Mayor Strong of New York dwells at length upon the police department and particularly so far as the enforcement of the excise laws is concerned For the past year the enforcement en-forcement of these laws has been the one theme for discussion by the press and people of New York I has stirred them far more than the revelations of the Lexow committee did Sunday laws are undoubtedly a heritage from Puritan times and are largely a deference defer-ence to that religious sentiment which was once all powerful In the New England colonies and that from there spread with emigration into other parts of the country The sentiments that demanded the enactment of these laws have become very much modified but the laws themselves have not been Anyone with a regard for the supremacy I su-premacy of law < and order cannot Lut I agree with Mayor Strong when he says that no matter how much people may differ upon the propriety of the laws upon the statute book however people may differ upon the nature C excise legislation nor how much their I views may differ upon the privileges to be granted on one or another day of the week the primal principle must be observed that the laws enacted en-acted must be enforced until they are repealed That is the only way for the executive of a city to talk when he talks otherwise he will act otherwise other-wise It Is his duty to enforce laws not to enact them Mayor Strong says that in no other way can a police force be properly organized disciplined and maintained There is a vast deal of wisdom In his observation that the enforcement of the laws therefore is a necessity both for good order under hot11o1 a properly drawn law or the establishment estab-lishment of a public sentiment that will repeal an unnecessarily oppressive nno nnoOur Our own city experiences more or less trouble In enforcing the Sunday laws against saloons I Is almost an Impossibility to keep them entirely closed try as the police may To catch those who are guilty of violating the laws requires a system of espionage espion-age which I always a bad thlpo Q The trouble largely i that the sentiment senti-ment of the community does not uphold up-hold the officers in enforcing Sunday laws as It should while when violators violat-ors of the law are allowed to put up a cash bond of twentyfive or fifty dollars and forfeit it and no further action is taken it is a sort of winking at the offense for revenue The forfeiture for-feiture of the bond does not exempt the violators of the law from the consequences con-sequences of their illegal act Arrest them and brine them to trial Let laws for Sunday closing be enforced or repealed |
