So long as the State makes the
laws, the State, whether acting by a popular vote or through
its executive, should have the power to enforce them and select
the instrumentalities for that purpose. Now if the particular
law which the State enacts be unpopular in a particular county,
and the people be determined to defeat it, no Sheriff or District
Attorney can be elected who will enforce it. That has been
shown in the case of the legislation to prohibit or regulate
the sale of intoxicating liquors in Suffolk County. Those
laws have been always unpopular and since the change in the
mode of appointment of District Attorneys and Sheriffs have
not been enforced until they were modified to meet the popular
objections. This difficulty applies also to the enforcing
of laws for the employment of children in factories. The
Legislature undertook to meet this difficulty by creating
officials, called State Constables, to be appointed by the
Governor and to enforce the liquor laws and the laws regulating
child labor. But that did not wholly cure the evil. The
officials appointed solely to enforce a law against which
there are strong objections in any quarter are always themselves
unpopular.
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