CONTRETEMPS

The present lull in the Norfolk controversy is no more than a recognition by its principals. Auditor Francis Hurley and Superintendent Gill, of the fact that they have been arguing to an empty court. Massachusetts law specifies only that the superintendents of state prisons are removable "at the pleasure of the Commissioner of Correction," who is an appointee of the governor. The tenor of Mr. Hurley's investigation, which was authorized by the governor to extend not only to the Norfolk accounts but to the whole of the state penal structure, is such that Commissioner Dillon is obviously disqualified from passing judgment on its findings. This leaves the decision in Governor Ely's hands; but he has shown a tendency to give it back to Mr. Dillon, and has already opposed the appointment of a commission for the hearing.

It is not difficult to see that this confusion results from a failure to distinguish between an investigation of particular conditions at Norfolk, which would have fallen to the province of Commissioner Dillon, and a general penal investigation, whose outcome belongs to Mr. Dillon's superior. Governor Ely is at fault in not having made this distinction, in giving carte blanche to Mr. Hurley and then in refusing to face the implications which that carte blanche contained. whatever adjustment he may make must be a rough adjustment, for particular and general issues must be differently handled, and their fusion in the Auditor's investigation has resulted in making the proper separation impossible.

This situation is, of course, unjust to Superintendent Gill. He and not Commissioner Dillon, has been made the target for an attack on the entire Massachusetts prison system. Mr. Hurley has done yeoman work in making the knot more difficult by violating the governor's injunction against publicity, and by spreading through the newspapers a hopeless mass of sensational and unclassified criticism. The first inference to be drawn from Norfolk is that it would be desirable to place prison officials under civil service, in which a consistent disciplinary mechanism has been evolved. If Mr. Gill had been under civil service, the question of his competence would have been decided before he embarked upon a revolutionary prison policy, whose success demands continuity of direction and stability of personnel. And an increase in attractive non-political positions could not fail to enliven a civil service which is now cut off from the higher rungs by the dominance of patronage as an appointment policy.