The Police Chief Who Couldn't Keep Order

For two years, this police department of Seattle has been managed in a manner which cannot but feel nervous to every citizen who is jealous of the fair name of the city and desirous of its highest welfare. The office of Chief of Police has been occupied by a man not only mentally incompetent to perform properly the duties of so responsible a position, but by habit and associations far from meeting the ordinances of the city fairly and impartially. Everything that the police department has accomplished within the last year has been accomplished in spite of Chief Murphy rather than because of him. When clever work has been done, it is by his subordinates, and where the department has failed to fulfill expectations, it has been largely due to Chief Murphy's lack of ability or his lack of desire to protect the interests of the city. On next Monday, the people are afforded an opportunity to say whether they desire a change in the management of the police department or whether they desire the department to go on in the same slack manner which now characterizes it. Chief Murphy is for the existing order. He is a man against whom nothing can be said as to his fitness for the office to which he aspires has never been in question. However, the people are given an opportunity to decide whether the present management of the police department is worthy of approval or whether it is to be a change of the man who occupies it.