The Strikebreakers Who Became Policemen

Mayor Hartley sent a rather remarkable communication to the city council the other evening. He asked that the council kill the ordinance introduced providing for the confirmation of police appointments of the fire and police commission by the council. He begged that no powers be taken from this commission to protect the city in time of emergency. The taking away of power from the fire and police commission would mean to throw the police department back into politics. Of course the domination of the police board by the Sumner people is not admitted. That's business. It was stated that Everett was the best governed city on the coast. And yet here is the situation. A strike is conducted against an industrial concern in the city for four months without a sign of disorder on the part of the union men stationed as pickets about the works. Notwithstanding that this manufacturing concern induces the fire and police commission to give its strike-breaking employees police authority, carrying with it the right to carry guns and clubs. One of the strike-breakers declares: 'Everett is the easiest city in the country in which to carry a gun.' So smooth are the connections between the heads of the plant affected and the fire and police commission that the wholesale granting of police commissions is covered up from the public. The pickets gave not the slightest pretext for trouble and things ambled along until the fool arrest of Picket Botting, when the private army of the Sumner Iron Works is discovered. And this is the mayor's idea of an ideally governed city. Well, the laboring men of this city have their own idea about that. They are asking with perfect propriety that appointment of special police shall be done in such a manner that they may know when these men are appointed, what for, and for whose protection. Anything unreasonable about any reason why a corporation should have special rights and privileges in the city of Everett? And is the city council or the police and fire commission the governing body of the city? It is time for a showdown. If we must have government by commission, let's have it right and have the real thing, not a subterfuge proposition that works in the dark.