POLICE!

The Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety, after a long and fruitful investigation of the crime situation, embodied its results in a bill which aims to provide Massachusetts with an effective police force. The bill, supported in a gubernatorial message, met with almost universal approval when it was proposed but the silent opposition of the political hierarchy has summoned its strength against the measure and has succeeded in burying it on the overloaded agenda of the Judiciary Committee.

The main failing of the present system is that it is strictly local in character and is dominated by local political interests. The Police Coordination Bill, as its title suggests, would centralize the local forces under a single head who would be authorized to move them in emergencies to places where they are needed. The need for such a centralization has been amply demonstrated by the recent bank robberies which revealed the inability of the local authorities to cope with major crimes. Everyone agrees that centralization in needed but the petty politicians, ever fearful of losing their stranglehold on police forces, say that the proposal is too "radical," and would jeopardize the independence of the local authorities. This objection is too shallow to be taken seriously; the plain fact is that centralization is needed and the bill suggests the only practical manner of obtaining it. The bill would also institute a Massachusetts Police School which meets no opposition in principle but is classed as an extravagance by the politicians.

Federal Attorney-General Cummings has set up a plaintive plea for teeth with which to fight crime, and he has shown that the armed forces of crime are more numerous than those of the army and the navy. Massachusetts has offered the first practical proposal for giving teeth to the law and the defeat of this bill will represent one more in the long chain of victories the politicians have scored over the people.