Word: norfolkers
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...present lull in the Norfolk controversy is no more than a recognition by its principals. Auditor Francis Hurley and Superintendent Gill, of the fact that they have been arguing to an empty court. Massachusetts law specifies only that the superintendents of state prisons are removable "at the pleasure of the Commissioner of Correction," who is an appointee of the governor. The tenor of Mr. Hurley's investigation, which was authorized by the governor to extend not only to the Norfolk accounts but to the whole of the state penal structure, is such that Commissioner Dillon is obviously disqualified from passing...
...difficult to see that this confusion results from a failure to distinguish between an investigation of particular conditions at Norfolk, which would have fallen to the province of Commissioner Dillon, and a general penal investigation, whose outcome belongs to Mr. Dillon's superior. Governor Ely is at fault in not having made this distinction, in giving carte blanche to Mr. Hurley and then in refusing to face the implications which that carte blanche contained. whatever adjustment he may make must be a rough adjustment, for particular and general issues must be differently handled, and their fusion in the Auditor...
...know much about penology," declared State Auditor Francis X. Hurley '24, yesterday in a CRIMSON interview. "I don't claim to know anything about it. I'm a lawyer." Questioned concerning his opinion of Mr. Gill's administration at Norfolk, he declined to comment, saying that he would present all the facts in the case in his report, but that he did not intend to interpret these facts. He stated that it was against his wishes that his investigation of the Norfolk Prison Colony burst into print recently, and that its extensive publicity was due to the avidity of news...
Publicity of this kind has had an unfortunate effect; it has obscured the fact that this is no ordinary political wrangle, fought for political ends. Mr. Gill is struggling to preserve the "Norfolk System," a method of reforming criminals which Cameron Forbes has characterized as "the one creditable page in the history of prison administration in Massachusetts." He has no political goal; he does not wish to build up political prestige or to influence voters. His only desire is to be left undisturbed to continue his constructive work. The objectives of Mr. Hurley, on the other hand, will bear careful...
...that he is conducting the investigation in a manner calculated to arouse and alarm his constituency. Mr. Gill has been forced to take to the political field in self defense against his attacker's storm of criticism. The unnecessarily violent controversy has already made inroads upon the morale of Norfolk, and thrown a specialized and non-political institution into the quagmire of partisan dispute. That a technical prison investigation should be conducted by an auditor is inappropriate enough; but that the newspapers and public should consign it to the limbo of ward politics is grave injustice to a public servant...