Theodore Roosevelt: an Autobiography — Ch 06-The New York Police, pt 1

THE NEW YORK POLICE

In the spring of 1895 I was appointed by Mayor Strong Police Commissioner, and I served as President of the Police Commission of New York for the two following years.

Mayor Strong had been elected Mayor the preceding fall, when the general anti-Democratic wave of that year coincided with one of the city's occasional insurrections of virtue and consequent turning out of Tammany from municipal control.

He had been elected on a non-partisan ticket--usually (although not always) the right kind of ticket in municipal affairs, provided it represents not a bargain among factions but genuine non-partisanship with the genuine purpose to get the right men in control of the city government on a platform which deals with the needs of the average men and women, the men and women who work hard and who too often live hard.

I was appointed with the distinct understanding that I was to administer the Police Department with entire disregard of partisan politics, and only from the standpoint of a good citizen interested in promoting the welfare of all good citizens.

My task, therefore, was really simple.

Mayor Strong had already offered me the Street-Cleaning Department.

For this work I did not feel that I had any especial fitness.

I resolutely refused to accept the position, and the Mayor ultimately got a far better man for his purpose in Colonel George F. Waring.

The work of the Police Department, however, was in my line, and I was glad to undertake it.

The man who was closest to me throughout my two years in the Police Department was Jacob Riis.

By this time, as I have said, I was getting our social, industrial, and political needs into pretty fair perspective.

I was still ignorant of the extent to which big men of great wealth played a mischievous part in our industrial and social life, but I was well awake to the need of making ours in good faith both an economic and an industrial as well as a political democracy.

I

already knew Jake Riis, because his book "How the Other Half Lives" had been to me both an enlightenment and an inspiration for which I felt I could never be too grateful.

Soon after it was written I had called at his office to tell him how deeply impressed I was by the book, and that I wished to help him in any practical way to try to make things a little better.

I have always had a horror of words that are not translated into deeds, of speech that does not result in action--in other words, I believe in realizable ideals and in realizing them, in preaching what can be practiced and then in practicing it.

Jacob Riis had drawn an indictment of the things that were wrong, pitifully and dreadfully wrong, with the tenement homes and the tenement lives of our wage-workers.

In his book he had pointed out how the city government, and especially those connected with the departments of police and health, could aid in remedying some of the wrongs.

As President of the Police Board I was also a member of the Health Board.

In both positions I felt that with Jacob Riis's guidance I would be able to put a goodly number of his principles into actual effect.

He and I looked at life and its problems from substantially the same standpoint.

Our ideals and principles and purposes, and our beliefs as to the methods necessary to realize them, were alike.

After the election in 1894 I had written him a letter which ran in part as follows: It is very important to the city to have a business man's Mayor, but it is more important to have a workingman's Mayor; and I want Mr. Strong to be that also.

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It is an excellent thing to have rapid transit, but it is a good deal more important, if you look at matters with a proper perspective, to have ample playgrounds in the poorer quarters of the city, and to take the children off the streets so as to prevent them growing up toughs.

In the same way it is an admirable thing to have clean streets; indeed, it is an essential thing to have them; but it would be a better thing to have our schools large enough to give ample accommodation to all who should be pupils and to provide them with proper playgrounds.

And I added, while expressing my regret that I had not been able to accept the street-cleaning commissionership, that "I would have been delighted to smash up the corrupt contractors and put the street-cleaning force absolutely out of the domain of politics."

This was nineteen years ago, but it makes a pretty good platform in municipal politics even to-day--smash corruption, take the municipal service out of the domain of politics, insist upon having a Mayor who shall be a workingman's Mayor even more than a business man's Mayor, and devote all attention possible to the welfare of the children.

Therefore, as I viewed it, there were two sides to the work: first, the actual handling of the Police Department; second, using my position to help in making the city a better place in which to live and work for those to whom the conditions of life and labor were hardest.

The two problems were closely connected; for one thing never to be forgotten in striving to better the conditions of the New York police force is the connection between the standard of morals and behavior in that force and the general standard of morals and behavior in the city at large.

The form of government of the Police Department at that time was such as to make it a matter of extreme difficulty to get good results.

It represented that device of old-school American political thought, the desire to establish checks and balances so elaborate that no man shall have power enough to do anything very bad.

In practice this always means that no man has power enough to do anything good, and that what is bad is done anyhow.

In most positions the "division of powers" theory works unmitigated mischief.

The only way to get good service is to give somebody power to render it, facing the fact that power which will enable a man to do a job well will also necessarily enable him to do it ill if he is the wrong kind of man.

What is normally needed is the concentration in the hands of one man, or of a very small body of men, of ample power to enable him or them to do the work that is necessary; and then the devising of means to hold these men fully responsible for the exercise of that power by the people.

This of course means that, if the people are willing to see power misused, it will be misused.

But it also means that if, as we hold, the people are fit for self-government--if, in other words, our talk and our institutions are not shams--we will get good government.

I do not contend that my theory will automatically bring good government.

I do contend that it will enable us to get as good government as we deserve, and that the other way will not.

The then government of the Police Department was so devised as to render it most difficult to accomplish anything good, while the field for intrigue and conspiracy was limitless.

There were four Commissioners, two supposed to belong to one party and two to the other, although, as a matter of fact, they never divided on party lines.

There was a Chief, appointed by the Commissioners, but whom they could not remove without a regular trial subject to review by the courts of law.

This Chief and any one Commissioner had power to hold up most of the acts of the other three Commissioners.

It was made easy for the four Commissioners to come to a deadlock among themselves; and if this danger was avoided, it was easy for one Commissioner, by intriguing with the Chief, to bring the other three to a standstill.

The Commissioners were appointed by the Mayor, but he could not remove them without the assent of the Governor, who was usually politically opposed to him.

In the same way the Commissioners could appoint the patrolmen, but they could not remove them, save after a trial which went up for review to the courts.

As was inevitable under our system of law procedure, this meant that the action of the court was apt to be determined by legal technicalities.

It was possible to dismiss a man from the service for quite insufficient reasons, and to provide against the reversal of the sentence, if the technicalities of procedure were observed.

But the worst criminals were apt to be adroit men, against whom it was impossible to get legal evidence which a court could properly consider in a criminal trial (and the mood of the court might be to treat the case as if it were a criminal trial), although it was easy to get evidence which would render it not merely justifiable but necessary for a man to remove them from his private employ--and surely the public should be as well treated as a private employer.

Accordingly, most of the worst men put out were reinstated by the courts; and when the Mayor attempted to remove one of my colleagues who made it his business to try to nullify the work done by the rest of us, the Governor sided with the recalcitrant Commissioner and refused to permit his removal.

Nevertheless, an astounding quantity of work was done in reforming the force.

We had a good deal of power, anyhow; we exercised it to the full;

and we accomplished some things by assuming the appearance of a power which we did not really possess.

The first fight I made was to keep politics absolutely out of the force;

and not only politics, but every kind of improper favoritism.

Doubtless in making thousands of appointments and hundreds of promotions there were men who contrived to use influence of which I was ignorant.

But these cases must have been few and far between.

As far as was humanly possible, the appointments and promotions were made without regard to any question except the fitness of the man and the needs of the service.

As Civil Service Commissioner I had been instructing heads of departments and bureaus how to get men appointed without regard to politics, and assuring them that by following our methods they would obtain first-class results.

As Police Commissioner I was able practically to apply my own teachings.

The appointments to the police force were made as I have described in the last chapter.

We paid not the slightest attention to a man's politics or creed, or where he was born, so long as he was an American citizen; and on an average we obtained far and away the best men that had ever come into the Police Department.

It was of course very difficult at first to convince both the politicians and the people that we really meant what we said, and that every one really would have a fair trial.

There had been in previous years the most widespread and gross corruption in connection with every activity in the Police Department, and there had been a regular tariff for appointments and promotions.

Many powerful politicians and many corrupt outsiders believed that in some way or other it would still be possible to secure appointments by corrupt and improper methods, and many good citizens felt the same conviction.

I endeavored to remove the impression from the minds of both sets of people by giving the widest publicity to what we were doing and how we were doing it, by making the whole process open and aboveboard, and by making it evident that we would probe to the bottom every charge of corruption.

For instance, I received visits at one time from a Catholic priest, and at another time from a Methodist clergyman, who had parishioners who wished to enter the police force, but who did not believe they could get in save by the payment of money or through political pressure.

The priest was running a temperance lyceum in connection with his church, and he wished to know if there would be a chance for some of the young men who belonged to that lyceum.

The Methodist clergyman came from a little patch of old native America which by a recent extension had been taken within the limits of the huge, polyglot, pleasure-loving city.

His was a small church, most of the members being shipwrights, mechanics, and sailormen from the local coasters.

In each case I assured my visitor that we wanted on the force men of the exact type which he said he could furnish.

I also told him that I was as anxious as he was to find out if there was any improper work being done in connection with the examinations, and that I would like him to get four or five of his men to take the examinations without letting me know their names.

Then, whether the men failed or succeeded, he and I would take their papers and follow them through every stage so that we could tell at once whether they had been either improperly favored or improperly discriminated against.

This was accordingly done, and in each case my visitor turned up a few weeks later, his face wreathed in smiles, to say that his candidates had passed and that everything was evidently all straight.

During my two years as President of the Commission I think I appointed a dozen or fifteen members of that little Methodist congregation, and certainly twice that number of men from the temperance lyceum of the Catholic church in question.

They were all men of the very type I most wished to see on the force--men of strong physique and resolute temper, sober, self-respecting, self-reliant, with a strong wish to improve themselves.

Occasionally I would myself pick out a man and tell him to take the examination.

Thus one evening I went down to speak in the Bowery at the Young Men's Institute, a branch of the Young Men's Christian Association, at the request of Mr. Cleveland H. Dodge.

While there he told me he wished to show me a young Jew who had recently, by an exhibition of marked pluck and bodily prowess, saved some women and children from a burning building.

The young Jew, whose name was Otto Raphael, was brought up to see me; a powerful fellow, with a good-humored, intelligent face.

I asked him about his education, and told him to try the examination.

He did, passed, was appointed, and made an admirable officer; and he and all his family, wherever they may dwell, have been close friends of mine ever since.

Otto Raphael was a genuine East Sider.

He and I were both "straight New York," to use the vernacular of our native city.

To show our community of feeling and our grasp of the facts of life, I may mention that we were almost the only men in the Police Department who picked Fitzsimmons as a winner against Corbett.

Otto's parents had come over from Russia, and not only in social standing but in pay a policeman's position meant everything to him.

It enabled Otto to educate his little brothers and sisters who had been born in this country, and to bring over from Russia two or three kinsfolk who had perforce been left behind.

Rather curiously, it was by no means as easy to keep politics and corruption out of the promotions as out of the entrance examinations.

This was because I could take complete charge of the entrance examinations myself; and, moreover, they were largely automatic.

In promotions, on the other hand, the prime element was the record and capacity of the officer, and for this we had largely to rely upon the judgment of the man's immediate superiors.

This doubtless meant that in certain cases that judgment was given for improper reasons.

However, there were cases where I could act on personal knowledge.

One thing that we did was to endeavor to recognize gallantry.

We did not have to work a revolution in the force as to courage in the way that we had to work a revolution in honesty.

They had always been brave in dealing with riotous and violent criminals.

But they had gradually become very corrupt.

Our great work, therefore, was the stamping out of dishonesty, and this work we did thoroughly, so far as the ridiculous bi-partisan law under which the Department was administered would permit.

But we were anxious that, while stamping out what was evil in the force, we should keep and improve what was good.

While warring on dishonesty, we made every effort to increase efficiency.

It has unfortunately been shown by sad experience that at times a police organization which is free from the taint of corruption may yet show itself weak in some great crisis or unable to deal with the more dangerous kinds of criminals.

This we were determined to prevent.

Our efforts were crowned with entire success.

The improvement in the efficiency of the force went hand in hand with the improvement in its honesty.

The men in uniform and the men in plain clothes--the detectives--did better work than ever before.

The aggregate of crimes where punishment followed the commission of the crime increased, while the aggregate of crimes where the criminal escaped punishment decreased.

Every discredited politician, every sensational newspaper, and every timid fool who could be scared by clamor was against us.

All three classes strove by every means in their power to show that in making the force honest we had impaired its efficiency; and by their utterances they tended to bring about the very condition of things against which they professed to protest.

But we went steadily along the path we had marked out.

The fight was hard, and there was plenty of worry and anxiety, but we won.

I was appointed in May, 1895. In February, 1897, three months before I resigned to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the Judge who charged the Grand Jury of New York County was able to congratulate them on the phenomenal decrease in crime, especially of the violent sort.

This decrease was steady during the two years.

The police, after the reform policy was thoroughly tried, proved more successful than ever before in protecting life and property and in putting down crime and criminal vice.

The part played by the recognition and reward of actual personal prowess among the members of the police force in producing this state of affairs was appreciable, though there were many other factors that combined to bring about the betterment.

The immense improvement in discipline by punishing all offenders without mercy, no matter how great their political or personal influence; the resolute warfare against every kind of criminal who had hitherto been able corruptly to purchase protection;

the prompt recognition of ability even where it was entirely unconnected with personal prowess--all these were elements which had enormous weight in producing the change.

Mere courage and daring, and the rewarding of courage and daring, cannot supply the lack of discipline, of ability, of honesty.

But they are of vital consequence, nevertheless.

No police force is worth anything if its members are not intelligent and honest;

but neither is it worth anything unless its members are brave, hardy, and well disciplined.

We showed recognition of daring and of personal prowess in two ways: first, by awarding a medal or a certificate in remembrance of the deed;

and, second, by giving it weight in making any promotion, especially to the lower grades.

In the higher grades--in all promotions above that of sergeant, for instance--resolute and daring courage cannot normally be considered as a factor of determining weight in making promotions;

rather is it a quality the lack of which unfits a man for promotion.

For in the higher places we must assume the existence of such a quality in any fit candidate, and must make the promotion with a view to the man's energy, executive capacity, and power of command.

In the lower grades, however, marked gallantry should always be taken into account in deciding among different candidates for any given place.

During our two years' service we found it necessary over a hundred times to single out men for special mention because of some feat of heroism.

The heroism usually took one of four forms: saving somebody from drowning, saving somebody from a burning building, stopping a runaway team, or arresting some violent lawbreaker under exceptional circumstances.

To illustrate our method of action, I will take two of the first promotions made after I became Commissioner.

One case was that of an old fellow, a veteran of the Civil War, who was at the time a roundsman.

I happened to notice one day that he had saved a woman from drowning, and had him summoned so that I might look into the matter.

The old fellow brought up his record before me, and showed not a little nervousness and agitation; for it appeared that he had grown gray in the service, had performed feat after feat of heroism, but had no political backing of any account.

No heed had ever been paid him.

He was one of the quiet men who attend solely to duty, and although a Grand Army man, he had never sought to use influence of any kind.

Now, at last, he thought there was a chance for him.

He had been twenty-two years on the force, and during that time had saved some twenty-five persons from death by drowning, varying the performance two or three times by saving persons from burning buildings.

Twice Congress had passed laws especially to empower the then Secretary of the Treasury, John Sherman, to give him a medal for distinguished gallantry in saving life.

The Life-Saving Society had also given him its medal, and so had the Police Department.

There was not a complaint in all his record against him for any infraction of duty, and he was sober and trustworthy.

He was entitled to his promotion; and he got it, there and then.

It may be worth mentioning that he kept on saving life after he was given his sergeantcy.

On October 21, 1896, he again rescued a man from drowning.

It was at night, nobody else was in the neighborhood, and the dock from which he jumped was in absolute darkness, and he was ten minutes in the water, which was very cold.

He was fifty-five years old when he saved this man.

It was the twenty-ninth person whose life he had saved during his twenty-three years' service in the Department.

The other man was a patrolman whom we promoted to roundsman for activity in catching a burglar under rather peculiar circumstances.

I happened to note his getting a burglar one week.

Apparently he had fallen into the habit, for he got another next week.

In the latter case the burglar escaped from the house soon after midnight, and ran away toward Park Avenue, with the policeman in hot chase.

The New York Central Railroad runs under Park Avenue, and there is a succession of openings in the top of the tunnel.

Finding that the policeman was gaining on him, the burglar took a desperate chance and leaped down one of these openings, at the risk of breaking his neck.

Now the burglar was running for his liberty, and it was the part of wisdom for him to imperil life or limb;

but the policeman was merely doing his duty, and nobody could have blamed him for not taking the jump.

However, he jumped; and in this particular case the hand of the Lord was heavy upon the unrighteous.

The burglar had the breath knocked out of him, and the "cop" didn't. When his victim could walk, the officer trotted him around to the station-house; and a week after I had the officer up and promoted him, for he was sober, trustworthy, and strictly attentive to duty.