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467318927
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Newspaper Clippings
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467318927
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Newspaper Clippings
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Bess W. Truman Papers
Family Correspondence Files
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1939-01-01
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Business and the Police
Governor Stark can scratch hard and
still find no evidence of politics in the
stand of a committee of businessmen
yesterday against his police bill. The
motion to approve a resolution favoring
home rule was made by a vice president
of one of the city's largest public
Hallo Ribber Barton sholip
utilities. He and other members of the
You have to be tough-hided if you are a presi-
dential candidate in Congress.
colleague about his White House ambitions.
Usually Barton takes the joshing good-naturedly,
but the other day he blew up.
He was striding through the speaker's lobby
outside the House chamber when Cochran, at the
other end, spotted him and yelled in a loud voice,
"Oh, Mr. President, Mr. President, just a mo-
behind Starks eyes
committee represent business interests
vitally concerned in the protection of
property and other aspects of efficient
Though Rep. Bruce Barton, dapper New York
police administration. To meet their
Republican, and Rep. Jack Cochran, veteran
arguments Governor Stark is required to
Missouri Democrat, are good friends, Cochran
muster a non-political argument of his
never passes up a chance to rib his younger
own. It is doubtful if he can do it.
The committee says the Kansas City
department has been administered more
efficiently under home rule; that police
control is a matter of local concern; that
the trend throughout the country is
away from state control of city police.
ment!"
It concludes: "We do not regard return
Barton automatically turned around just as
to state control as progress in police
everyone in the place looked up and saw him
administration."
stop.
"How are you, President Barton?" bellowed
The committee might have added that
Cochran again as the crowd tittered. Barton
Massachusetts is the only other state
flushed angrily, turned on his heel and snapped,
which denies police home rule to its
"Oh, shut up!"
apr yournal
metropolitan centers.
In his radio address Sunday the gov-
ernor said he proposes no innovation. He
cited the early origin of state control of
municipal police. Actually, the antiquity
of the system is a weighty argument
against it. It is practically extinct in
other states. By the same token the
governor could argue for a return of the
whipping post as a crime deterrent. It,
too, is ancient.
Local self-government is a cardinal
principle of the American constitutional
system Under the governor's reason-
a
ing, it would be preferable to have state
governors appointed by Washington
than to elect them by a vote of the peo-
ple. The governor's argument of last
Sunday could be used in making a case
that he should resign in favor of an ex-
ecutive appointed by the President.
It is doubtful if the governor would as-
sent to that. He would reply that the
right of local self-government is in-
herent and basic. Those who use the
same argument in regard to the Kansas
City police are dismissed by him as
stooges.
He says in effect that he, Lloyd C.
Stark, is better equipped to govern
Kansas City than those who live and pay
taxes here. Whatever the merits of
that contention, it can hardly be called
a study in personal humility on the part
of the governor.