The Standard-bearers; True Stories of Heroes of Law and Order

This volume about the Pennsylvania State Police was published in 1918. A summary from the book's Foreword: In the foreword of an earlier book, 'Justice to All', I have told the story of the dastardly murder and heroic death of Samuel Howell, carpenter, ambused by robbers on a lonely country road in the State of New York. In the book itself I have tried to tell the strory, equally heroic, of the Pennsylvania State Police. The slaying of that fine young American laboring man, too true of heart to buy his life with his honor, unmasked once more an old and shameful fact that the Empire State connived at such tragedies accepted them without feeling, without action, and without remark. The trade of robber and murderer, so long as exercised upon the poor, was practically a snug and safe employment in rural New York. The rich, like lords of feudal castles, lived in their big houses surrounded by their own garrisons of servants and guards. But those of less estate, the farmers, the laborers, the women and girl-children in small isolated homes, or traversing lonely roads as perforce they must, in a word, all the scattered pop- ulation of the countryside, were stolidly ignored by the one power morally responsible for their safety and then peace. The very government that enacted the laws treated its own enactments as "scraps of paper". The criminal world, in con- sequence, remained at perfect liberty to do the same. The bitter outrage of this truth, seen at short range and poignantly realized, drove me for light and counsel to the only State in the Union on whose name no kindred blot appeared. At every source and from many and varied stand- points, I studied the Pennsylvania State Police, carefully checking both facts and figures as I moved along the field. Then, at last, because no working account of the subject already existed in print, and in order to lay the plain facts in available shape before the people of New York and of the Union, I wrote 'Justice to All', the story of the Pennsylvania State Police. The purpose of that book exacted condensation and the cutting-out of much incident tha might have served to bring its meaning home. Out of the mass of material thus set apart have been taken the narratives that form this present volume. It has been a difficult and unwelcome task to choose, from so large a sheaf, what to take and what to leave. The incidents here related are chosen, not because they stand out from the rest, but just, on the contrary, because they fairly illustrate the common daily round of the Pennsylvania Force. Space alone governs their number. For there is not one seasoned man in the entire Squadron who has not performed many an act of valor and of service equal in quality to those recounted here. In every narrative the real names of the Troopers are given. In every instance but one, the actual names of localities appear. In several instances I have changed the names of criminals at the request of the State Police themselves, whose creed it is to temper justice with mercy, and to give the worst man every chance to mend. Again, in the case of innocent citizens and of the victims of crime, fictitious names have sometimes been used, out of regard for personal feelings. For any and every other commonwealth entering the field, the Pennsylvania State Police must be the Standard-Bearers. We do but honor ourselves in acknowledging it. Let us watch that standard where they still carry it far in the van. It is no easy task no goal to be soon or lightly gained. But in so far as through stern years of discipline, devotion, and sacrifice they may win grace and strength to approach it, just so far will they make good. Another book by this author: - Justice to All, the Story of the Pennsylvania State Police