NORFOLK

The acrid controversy between Auditor Hurley and Howard Gill, superintendent of Norfolk Prison, has for the past two weeks been front page news in Boston newspapers; their attitude, and that of the political public, has been that this is an exciting, and a somewhat amusing, political battle of the usual pre-primary variety. A recent editorial in the Boston Herald even warned against allowing this quarrel to endanger the Norfolk system, implying that it should be relegated to the realm of pure politics. A Boston Post news story on the day of an extraordinary blast by Mr. Hurley concluded, "And so the fight goes merrily on."

Publicity of this kind has had an unfortunate effect; it has obscured the fact that this is no ordinary political wrangle, fought for political ends. Mr. Gill is struggling to preserve the "Norfolk System," a method of reforming criminals which Cameron Forbes has characterized as "the one creditable page in the history of prison administration in Massachusetts." He has no political goal; he does not wish to build up political prestige or to influence voters. His only desire is to be left undisturbed to continue his constructive work. The objectives of Mr. Hurley, on the other hand, will bear careful consideration. He is ostensibly crusading against scandalous conditions in the Prison Colony, and has stated that he is unable to find "adequate words" to describe his findings. But underlying this aura of civic virtue are the facts that he undertook the investigation on his own initiative, that he has consistently violated Governor Ely's request not to give out any advance publicity, and that he is an announced candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor.

Since Mr. Hurley is an elected official, dependent on the voting public, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he is conducting the investigation in a manner calculated to arouse and alarm his constituency. Mr. Gill has been forced to take to the political field in self defense against his attacker's storm of criticism. The unnecessarily violent controversy has already made inroads upon the morale of Norfolk, and thrown a specialized and non-political institution into the quagmire of partisan dispute. That a technical prison investigation should be conducted by an auditor is inappropriate enough; but that the newspapers and public should consign it to the limbo of ward politics is grave injustice to a public servant whose honesty, ability, and usefulness to the state have never before been questioned.