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CHAPTER VI
Reforming New York's Police Work
T
HERE   had   been   fruitless   endeavors   for many years, to elect a reform mayor and bring new methods and ideas into the municipal administration of New York City.    Mr. Roosevelt had always believed, and said, that New York afforded a boundless field of  usefulness for any man who chose to put his energies into its social or political service.    At length, in the fall of 1894, all the anti-Tammany forces of the city had united upon a candidate and had elected as mayor Mr. William L. Strong, a merchant of public  spirit and repute.    Under the charter then existing, the principal function of the mayor was to select the heads of working departments.
The most difficult department on many accounts was that of the police. This department was charged with duties far more extensive than the control of some thousands of policemen in their work of maintaining law and order, and of aiding in the prevention and punishment of crime. The Police Department was charged with the enforcement of important laws of the State of New York that had to do with the manners and morals

president roosevelt, op the new york police commissioners, laying down the law : " I would rather see this administration turned out because it enforced the laws than see it succeed by violating them."
From the World (New York)

NO  SHOES SHIAIED
Pet o.d.r <j/ WARlrtC.
NO SUNDAY DRINKS
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HO SUNDAY  SOPA.
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BARBERS UNION

AN   AWFUL   POSSIBILITY   UNDER   OUR   BLUE
LAWS AS  ROOSEVELT ENFORCES  THEM
From the World.  (New York)

father knickerbocker: "Gracious!   What next?' From the Herald  (New York)

32

A Cartoon History of Roosevelt's Career

TAMMA//Y-
HAt-U
^~ <r.

COMMISSIONER  ROOSEVELT AT  HIS DESK
IN MULBERRY STREET  (POLICE
HEADQUARTERS), NEW YORK
From a drawing made from life at the time for the Review of Reviews
of the people. The Police Department, further, had control over the tenement house conditions, and at that time was even more important than the Health Department in its relations with the sanitary and social welfare of the people.
The charter called for a board of four police commissioners, one of whom should be the president of the board. Mayor Strong asked Mr. Roosevelt to return from Washington to become chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners of his native city. To have enforced the civil-service laws at Washington was, in the estimation of all politicians, to perform a work so unpopular as to destroy a man's chances of future preferment and

CIVILIZATIOX  AXD   BARBARISM " When  we  get in  again  we'll  keep  wide open,  and shut up the churches—see ! "—From Harper's Weekly.

Reforming New York's Police Work

33

public honor. Now he was asked to take upon himself the work of Police Commissioner in New York City, with the intention of enforcing unpopular laws of the State, and of breaking up the blackmailing and grafting practices which had for so long a time prevailed in the Police Department—in partnership with the criminal elements on the one hand, and the mercenary politicians and large corporation interests on the other hand. To attack these evils was to attempt a task of Augean stable-cleaning that was more unwelcome and far more contentious and difficult than to be embroiled with the national politicians in attempts to enforce the civil-service law. Mr. Roosevelt did not hesitate to accept this difficult office. The eyes of the country were upon him in his work, just as they had been when at Albany he was dealing with similar questions and problems. All the growing cities of America were wrestling with the difficulties of municipal reform. The police department in most cities seemed to be at the very

" THE LAW AND DUTY "—Harper's Weekly, July 17, 1895
(Roosevelt,   as  the  Police   Commissioner in  New  York,  enforcing
the Sunday closing law against strong opposition.)

center of civic misrule and corruption. Mr. Roosevelt's sympathies were with every policeman who tried to do his duty, and he recognized the fact that the corruption of the police force was due much more to the conditions outside than to those inside of the body of policemen. His discipline was severe, but he became popular with the rank and file of the city's uniformed guardians.
He had always been an optimist about our city populations. He explored the tenement houses, and in his brief two years as Police Commissioner he accomplished a great work in the destruction of unsanitary tenements and the improvement of housing conditions. He knew that most of the plain people were industrious and honest, and that the hordes of immigrants speaking many languages would rapidly become Americanized and make good citizens. He was striving in every way possible to improve their environment, in order that these people might contribute the more effectively toward the welfare and progress of the community.
A source of great evil and  much blackmail had been the old laws of the State re-

34

A Cartoon History of Roosevelt's Career

quiring the closing of business places, and particularly of licensed liquor saloons, on Sunday. The Sunday closing law was violated almost universally, but its existence gave opportunity for blackmail that at once corrupted the police force and intensified many other evils. Mr. Roosevelt took the ground that laws must be enforced or changed. He pressed his point so aggressively that Mayor Strong was alarmed and many good people opposed him. He worked under the further difficulty of a divided police board. But he made a great record that will live in the municipal life of New York.
His work, and that of Colonel Waring as Street Cleaning Commissioner, have resulted in a stupendous advancement in the comfort, health, and safety of the great population on Manhattan Island that lives more densely than any other city population in the world.
Fortunate progress in many directions has been made in the metropolis since Mayor Strong's administration. But in several of the departments,—notably those having to do with the daily life and comfort of the people,—the advance movement seems to have derived its great impulse from efforts made at that time with such ardor and intensity by department heads of whom Roosevelt and Waring were conspicuous types. All day at his desk Mr. Roosevelt was the decisive, untiring Commissioner of Police. It is the sort of office that no hesitant, indecisive man should ever try to fill. He was transferring good policemen to difficult precincts, disciplining bad ones, and sequestering indifferent ones to suburban beats. At night, Mr. Roosevelt was shaking up sleeping or loitering patrolmen; unexpectedly appearing in police stations; but more especially he was examining the conditions of the over-crowded tenement houses, in companionship with newspaper-men and reformers like Jacob A. Riis,—in consequence of which reforms of a sweeping nature have followed.

MR. ROOSEVELT'S IDEA OF HIS WORK AS A COMMISSIONER

I know also the most incredible difficulties with which you have become surrounded

We have greatly improved the standard ot discipline. We have preserved complete order.

We have warred against crime and vice more effectively than ever before.

We have striven to make the police force the terror of the burglar.

(Based on T. R.'s letter of resignation to Mayor Strong.) From the Herald  (New York)