RURAL POLICE 309 



every school library in the land. In the author's foreword the 

 murder of gallant young Howell, and the complete breakdown 

 of justice in reference thereto under our ordinary rural police 

 system, makes one's blood boil with anger at the folly and timid- 

 ity of our people in tamely submitting to such hideous condi- 

 tions, and gives us the keenest gratitude to the founder of the 

 Pennsylvania State Police. This was a case of ordinary crime, 

 in which the sheriff and county constable were paralyzed by fear 

 of a band of gunmen. Other forms of crime are dealt with in 

 connection with industrial disturbances. The author shows how 

 until the State Police Force was established the State, in times 

 of strikes, permitted the capitalists to furnish their own Coal 

 and Iron Police, thus selling her police power to one of the con- 

 tending parties, that of the vested interests. 



The author also shows how after the establishment of the Penn- 

 sylvania State Police this intolerable condition was ended; local 

 demagogues and foolish or vicious professional labor leaders in 

 their turn attacked the Pennsylvania State Police with the foul- 

 est slander and mendacity, because it did impartial justice. The 

 prime lesson for all true friends of labor to learn is that law and 

 order must be impartially preserved by the State as a basis for 

 securing justice through the State's action. Justice must be 

 done ; but the first not only the first, but a vital first step to- 

 wards realizing it must be action by the State, through its own 

 agents, not by authority delegated to others, whereby lawless vio- 

 lence is summarily stopped. The labor leader who attacks the 

 Pennsylvania State Police because it enforces the law would, if 

 successful in the long run, merely succeed in reentrenching in 

 power the lawless capitalists who used the law-defying Coal and 

 Iron Police. 



No political influence or other influence avails to get a single 

 undesirable man on the Force, or to keep a man on the Force who 

 has proved himself unfit. I am informed and I fully believe, 

 that not a single appointment has ever been made for political 

 reasons. The efficiency with which the Force does its duty is ex- 

 traordinary. Any man who sees the troopers patrolling the 

 country can tell from the very look of the men what invaluable 

 allies they are to the cause of law and order. In the year 1915 

 the force made 3,027 arrests and secured 2,348 convictions 80 



