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 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/policedepartmentOOgree 
 
POLICE HEADQUARTERS. 
 (300 MULBRRRY STREET, BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN.) 
 
THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CITY OF NEW YORK 
 
 A STATEMENT OF FACTS 
 
 Address by 
 POLICE COMMISSIONER GREENE 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 THE CITY CLUB OF NEW YORK 
 October, 1903 
 
 ALFRED J YOUNG COlUECTfO* 
 
 JAY i nWitHG QOLICOT I Q M ■« 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 THE TAMMANY ADMINISTRATION, 1898-1901 7 
 
 The City "Wide Open" 8 
 
 Devery in Full Charge .10 
 
 Blackmail Centralized 11 
 
 . How Licensed Crime Increased 12 
 
 "Teach Brooklyn how to Graft" 14 
 
 Blackmailing Women of the Streets 15 
 
 The "Cadet" System 15 
 
 " The Gambling Commission " 19 
 
 The Tammany Administration Characterized . . .21 
 Gambling Houses and Poolrooms . . . .35 
 
 Disorderly Resorts 35 
 
 Illegal Resorts Continue "Wide Open" ... 36 
 
 Grafting Within the Department 43 
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF COMMISSIONER PARTRIDGE . . 51 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT IN 1903— THE ADMINISTRATION 
 
 OF COMMISSIONER GREENE 60 
 
 Remanding of the " Wardmen " 61 
 
 Inspectors Ordered to Inspect 62 
 
 Suspension of Men Under Charges 62 
 
 Dismissals and Retirements . . 63 
 
 Appointments and Promotions 64 
 
 Morale and Discipline 64 
 
 The Uniformed Force and the Public .... 65 
 
 The Present Patrol System 66 
 
 Transfers and Details 67 
 
 Award of Medals — Honorable Mention — Commendations . 68 
 
 The Bureau of Records and Complaints .... 68 
 
 The Board of Police Surgeons 70 
 
 The Detective Bureau 72 
 
 The "Boiler Squad" 73 
 
 Bureau of Repairs and Supplies 77 
 
 Patrol Signal System 78 
 
 APPENDIX I. Statement Showing the Men Dismissed from the 
 Force During the Year 1902, the Charge upon 
 which They were Dismissed, the Dates of Dismissal 
 
 and Certiorari, etc 79 
 
 APPENDIX II. Dismissals, Retirements and Appointments above 
 the Rank of Roundsman, January ist, 1903, to 
 June 30TH, 1903, and Table of Changes in the 
 Personnel of the Force in the Years 1892-1902, 
 
 and in the First Eight Months of 1903 ... 84 
 
 APPENDIX III. Diagram of the Present Patrol System ... 89 
 
 [353] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 No department of the city government is more interesting to the 
 citizen of New York than the police department. The knowledge that 
 the administration of that department was insufferably corrupt under 
 Tammany made possible the election of Mayor Low in 1901. The 
 honest but nerveless administration of Commissioner Partridge ren- 
 dered the community blind to the good work which was going on in 
 other departments, and, if continued, would have assured the return 
 of Tammany to power. The work of Commissioner Greene as head 
 of the department has redeemed the promises of police reform made by 
 Mayor Low and his supporters. This report is a compilation of facts, 
 easy of verification, which will enable the citizen to form his own opin- 
 ion as to this matter, and as to the character of the police administra- 
 tion under Tammany, under Commissioner Partridge, and under Com- 
 missioner Greene. 
 
 With the rare intervals during which Tammany has not been in 
 control of the city government, the police department has been the heart' 
 of municipal and political corruption in this city. That department 
 has, with these rare intervals, been employed by Tammany Hall as 
 the principal instrument for the collection of blackmail and for the 
 consummation of frauds at the polls. 
 
 In 1892, Tammany having been in control of the department for 
 some years, the investigation of the Lexow Committee revealed to the 
 community the horrible conditions prevailing in the department. It 
 was shown clearly that promotions and appointments to the force were 
 regularly matters of purchase and sale. But this was not all. The 
 testimony given before the committee showed that during each of 
 the years 1891, 1892, and 1893, many thousands of fraudulent ballots 
 had been cast with the active co-operation and connivance of the police. 
 Police captains were appointed from those members of the force who 
 especially connived at these frauds. Tammany influence permeated 
 the department to such a degree that the district leaders dictated ap- 
 pointments, and from captain down almost the entire force joined the 
 
 [355] 
 
6 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 Tammany district associations. Forced contributions were levied upon 
 the members for the benefit of Wigwam district organizations. 
 
 Capt. Creedon confessed to paying $15,000 to secure a promotion 
 to a captaincy, and Capt. Schmittberger, to having secured the appoint- 
 ment of another man as captain in consideration of the payment of 
 $12,000. The average cost of obtaining an appointment as policeman 
 was $300. The police functionaries recouped themselves in various 
 ways. Vice and crime were protected openly. One woman who kept 
 a number of houses of ill-repute testified that she had paid continu- 
 ously for protection an aggregate of $30,000 or more. The system 
 reached such perfection in detail that a ratable charge was placed upon 
 each house according to the number of inmates, the protection prices 
 ranging from $25 to $50 monthly. Women of the streets paid patrol- 
 men for permission to solicit, and divided proceeds. Visitors were 
 robbed systematically, and the plunder was divided with the police. 
 More than six hundred policy shops paid at the monthly rate of Si 5. 
 and pool rooms paid $300 a month. It was noted by the committee, 
 as a remarkable fact, that when public agitation grew very strong, 
 a private citizen, Richard Croker, secured the closing of these places, 
 practically in a single day. Every form of gambling had to pay Jiigh 
 prices for immunity. Green goods swindlers were required to make 
 monthly payments, and in addition, in case the victim " squealed," to give 
 one-half of the plunder to either ward or headquarters detectives. 
 Saloons paid $20 monthly, "according to the established custom." 
 The police also acted in collusion with thieves and dishonest pawn- 
 brokers. Almost every branch of trade and commerce was forced to 
 make monthly payments, and from every possible source tribute was 
 wrung. 
 
 The committee incorporated in its testimony the estimate of Fore- 
 man Taber of the grand jury of March, 1892, that the annual income 
 derived from blackmailing and different sources of extortion was 
 $7,000,000. In this estimate were probably not included the large sums 
 paid by corporations of every kind, and other legitimate business in- 
 terests which feared the power of Tammany Hall. 
 
 The immediate effect of these revelations upon the popular mind 
 was the overthrow of Tammany in the election of 1894. In that ye:u- 
 Mayor Strong, the anti-Tammany candidate, was elected by a plural - 
 
 [356] 
 
THE TAMMANY ADMINISTRATION 
 
 7 
 
 ity of over 45,000, although in 1892 a Tammany mayor had been elected 
 by a plurality of about 70,000. In 1897 Tammany was again returned 
 to power, and Mayor Van Wyck was elected the first mayor of Greater 
 New York. The great improvement which had been made in the police 
 department under Mayor Strong immediately disappeared, and the old 
 conditions were restored. Details of the four years of police demoral- 
 ization and corruption which ensued are given in the following pages. 
 
 It is not too much to say that if the administration of Mayor Low 
 had done nothing else for the city, the redemption of the police depart- 
 ment under Commissioner Greene would entitle that administration to 
 the grateful support of the entire community. It would not be reason- 
 able to expect any commissioner of police to eradicate from the de- 
 partment in a single year the corruption and the abuses which flourished 
 unchecked until they developed into an organized system, of which even 
 the honest men in the force became unwilling accomplices. Undoubted- 
 ly cases of blackmail and corruption still occur ; but " the system," as 
 such, has been broken up, and a vast improvement in the morale, the 
 discipline, and the efficiency of the force has taken place. 
 
 THE TAMMANY ADMINISTRATION, 1898-1901 
 
 ^jjfrovyi bur, .$or:3'iiuqmr srto 'ot-'$nibia±>fi ^ni^ijov InPMMiO stoe'twrt't 
 Until the adoption of an act, on February 22nd, 1901, which placed 
 
 the administration of the police department in the hands of a single 
 commissioner, the affairs of that department were administered by 
 a board of four commissioners. The law before February, 1901, re- 
 quired that not more than two of the commissioners should "belong 
 to the same political party, or be of the same political opinion in state 
 and national politics." An act passed in 1896, and afterward embodied 
 in the Greater New York charter, gave the mayor the power to remove 
 any head of department during the first six months of his administration. 
 The present charter empowers the mayor to remove heads of departments 
 at any time. 
 
 On January 1st, 1898, Mayor Van Wyck appointed Bernard J. 
 York and John B. Sexton, democrats, and Thomas L. Hamilton and 
 William E. Phillips, republicans, as commissioners of the department. 
 Mr. York was and is one of the leaders of the " McLaughlin machine " 
 
 [357] 
 
THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 in Brooklyn. He received orders from Mr. McLaughlin, it was said, 
 to carry out Tammany's plans. Mr. Sexton was and is a Tammany 
 district leader. Both Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Phillips were republican 
 district leaders, the one in Manhattan, the other in Brooklyn. 
 
 THE CITY " WIDE OPEN." 
 
 When on election night in 1897 it became known that the Tammany 
 ticket had been elected, the disreputable classes assured that the city was 
 again to be "wide open," vociferously celebrated the occasion in public 
 orgies at Fourteenth street and Broadway, in " the tenderloin," and in 
 other parts of the city. Drunken men and women paraded the streets, 
 openly rejoicing at the return of Tammany to power. The expecta- 
 tions of these classes were fully realized. With the return of Tammany 
 to power on January 1st, 1898, the city immediately became ff wide 
 open." Illegal resorts, which had been suppressed under the adminis- 
 tration of Mayor Strong, quickly resumed " open business." In many 
 parts of the city gambling houses, pool rooms, policy shops and dis- 
 orderly houses, were soon as notorious as they had been before Mayor 
 Strong's administration. Not only was their existence a matter of com- 
 mon knowledge, but it was well understood that upon payment of a 
 fixed scale of prices, varying according to the importance and revenue 
 of each place, immunity could be secured. During the first five months of 
 Mayor Van Wyck's administration the system of tacitly licensing these 
 places was somewhat decentralized. The keepers made arrangements 
 for " protection " with Tammany district leaders. These leaders retained 
 a part of the blackmail, a part went to the police captains, and other 
 parts were distributed among higher police officials and certain su- 
 preme leaders of Tammany Hall. Two, at least, of the Tammany dis- 
 trict leaders not only sold * protection," but owned illegal resorts. One 
 of these leaders, Martin Engel, "operated" a number of disorderly 
 houses on the East Side, the other, " Percy " Nagle, kept pool rooms 
 in Harlem. Besides the restoration of the same system of blackmailing 
 illegal resorts that was exposed so thoroughly by the " Lexow Com- 
 mittee," the old system of selling promotions in and appointments to 
 the police force, was made part of the general comprehensive sys- 
 tem of police blackmail and extortion.' 
 
 [358] 
 
THE TAMMANY ADMINISTRATION 
 
 9 
 
 It was not, however, until the appointment of William S. Devery 
 as chief of police that the system of blackmail was centralized in such 
 a manner that " protection " had to be bought, for the most part, direct 
 from " headquarters," without any intermediaries and without the nec- 
 essity of making a multiform division of the blackmail proceeds. 
 
 In August, 1897, John McCullagh had been appointed acting chief 
 of police. The York-Sexton board made him chief of police. Present- 
 ly there were rumors that Mr. McCullagh was not serviceable to Tam- 
 many, and that plans were under way to get rid of him. In reply to 
 these rumors, Mr. York, president of the board, said : " As long as I 
 " am president of the board, he " [McCullagh] " will stay, unless he wishes 
 " to retire. He is a competent man, and well able to carry on the 
 "duties of the police; and is, in the opinion of the board, the best man 
 " in the department for chief." 
 
 It was soon apparent that Mr. McCullagh was unsatisfactory 
 to Tammany. Patrolman McConnell, attached to Inspector Brooks' 
 staff, interfered with a pool room at Twenty-ninth Street and Eighth 
 Avenue. Testimony before the " Mazet Committee " indicated that this 
 pool room was owned by Frank Farrell, and that Farrell had warned 
 Patrolman McConnell not to interfere, because Senator " Tim " Sulli- 
 van was " backing " the place. Commissioner Sexton asked and then 
 ordered Mr. McCullagh to transfer McConnell, but Mr. McCullagh re- 
 fused, and made the transfer later only because McConnell's ill-health 
 made it necessary to put a physically sound man in his place. 
 
 Independent action of this kind, if persisted in, would have been 
 a serious blow to the system of guaranteed " protection." Hence it 
 was determined to retire Mr. McCullagh, and the question of his retire- 
 ment wis brought up in the board. Under the law the chief of police 
 could be retired on a pension only by a unanimous vote of the board 
 or by a three fourths' vote with the concurrence of the Mayor. The 
 legal age for retirement was 55 years; Mr. McCullagh had not reached 
 this age. The republican members refused to vote for Mr. McCullagh's 
 retirement. On May 21st, 1898, Mayor Van Wyck removed the repub- 
 lican commissioners, and at the same time appointed Jacob Hess, a 
 republican politician, and left one vacancy unfilled. Mr. Hess with the 
 certificate of his appointment reached police headquarters in advance 
 of the notices of removal of Commissioners Hamilton and Phillips, 
 
 [359] 
 
to 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 who had just left a meeting of the board. Although ostensibly a repub- 
 lican, Mr. Hess was a member of the Democratic Club. The moment 
 the notices of removal were received Commissioners York, Sexton, 
 and Hess held a meeting, retired Mr. McCullagh with the formal 
 approval of Mayor Van Wyck, and appointed Police Captain William 
 S. Devery, as Acting Chief of police. On June 30th, 1898, Mayor Van 
 Wyck appointed the fourth member of the board, Henry E. Abell, a 
 republican. 
 
 DEVERY IN FULL CHARGE 
 
 The appointment of Mr. Devery was ordered by Richard Croker^ 
 " boss " of Tammany Hall. In an interview published on May 4th, 
 1898, Mr. Croker said that Devery was the best man for chief of police. 
 Testimony before the " Lexow Committee " showed Devery to be one 
 of the most corrupt of police captains. Karl Werner testified that he 
 arranged with Devery's " wardman," Glennon, to pay $600 " initiation 
 fee " and $50 a month for the privilege of opening and running a dis- 
 orderly house at number 6 Delancey Street. *J We never had any 
 trouble," Werner added, " but we had a tip once in .a while to close." 
 (Investigation of the Police Department of the City of New York; 1894, 
 Vol. II., pages 1,486-1,489). Henry Hoffman swore that he paid to 
 Glennon $500 and in addition $40 a month for " protection " in opening 
 and carrying on a disorderly house at number 180 Allen Street. (Vol. 
 II., pages 1,537-1,538.) More testimony was given to the same effect. 
 The board of police commissioners under Mayor Gilroy dismissed 
 Devery from the force in 1894, but the courts re-instated him in 1895 
 on the ground that he had been tried in his absence. Devery was in- 
 dicted five times for corruption and failure to suppress disorderly 
 houses. District Attorney Fellows secured the dismissal of three of 
 these indictments. In the case of a fourth indictment Justice Smyth 
 granted a temporary injunction upon which no decision was ever 
 handed down, and favorable testimony by Superintendent of Police 
 Byrnes saved Devery from the consequences of the fifth indictment. 
 Devery had made himself indispensable to Tammany's purposes by 
 having proved that he "never squealed" in times of stress and that he 
 could be relied 'upon. He was a personal friend of Richard Croker. 
 
 [360] 
 
BLACKMAIL CENTRALIZED 
 
 Before the " Mazet Committee " in 1899 Mr. Croker testified as to 
 Devery : M I did all I could for him." 
 
 BLACKMAIL CENTRALIZED 
 
 From the moment Devery became acting chief the system of black- 
 mail was centralized and " protection " was an assured commodity. 
 There was now no one at headquarters to make trouble. As a con- 
 sequence the city became more thoroughly ** wide open " than ever. 
 The captains still had their " wardmen " and the inspectors their per- 
 sonal staffs, but permission to run illegal resorts now largely had to 
 be obtained from headquarters. The former methods of collection 
 were improved upon and the distribution of the proceeds narrowed 
 to fewer beneficiaries. In 1860-65, when each gambling house paid 
 $100 a week to the police for " protection," and all other illegal resorts 
 had to pay varying amounts, the money from these places was sent 
 directly to headquarters. There this division of the blackmail was 
 made. The " protection " money from thieves, burglars and " fences " 
 was left at *' the General's," a notorious saloon of the time. This 
 method proved to be too open and too susceptible of proof. Gradually 
 the " wardman " system was adopted. Each captain chose a patrolman 
 as his " wardman." The " wardman " was supposed to do plain-clothes 
 detective duty. As a matter of fact he collected the blackmail. De- 
 ducting a small understood percentage for himself, he turned the bulk 
 over to the captain, who deducted a larger share, and who in turn 
 passed the remainder on to the inspectors and others " higher up." 
 This was the method prevalent at the time of the " Lexow Committee's " 
 investigation and during the first five months of Mayor Van Wyck's 
 administration. 
 
 But with the installation of Devery as chief of police a new system 
 was introduced. Under the superseded system, if an inspector or a 
 higher police official was dissatisfied with the amount he was receiv- 
 ing, he could order raids on illegal resorts over the captains' heads. 
 Thus absolute police " protection " was at no time guaranteed. Under 
 Devery arrangements generally had to be made with " headquarters." 
 The entire city was systematically apportioned. In quarters of the 
 
 [361] 
 
THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 city where disorderly houses were most numerous, many of these resorts, 
 as the testimony in the trial of " Wardman " Bissert showed, were 
 " headquarters houses," — that is to say, their keepers had made direct 
 arrangements with " headquarters." No inspector, captain, or other 
 policeman dared to interfere with these places, unless he was willing 
 to invite the resentment of the headquarters' clique. In the "tender- 
 loin " district especially, collections, instead of being made by the cap- 
 tain's wardmen, as formerly, were now made by a personal agent of 
 Devery, Edward A. Glennon, whose orders, it was tacitly understood, 
 were to be obeyed by the captain himself. Glennon was a patrolman 
 detailed to " wardman " duty, and had been Devery's " wardman " when 
 Devery was captain of the notorious Eldridge Street precinct. Edgar 
 A. Whitney testified before the " Lexow Committee " : " Mr. Glennon 
 said : f The captain ' [Devery] - wants this game closed up until after 
 election time; that if the Tammany ticket is elected we will protect you 
 for anything from a poker game to a disorderly house." Under Devery, 
 Glennon was the virtual ruler of "the tenderloin." 
 
 In the general scheme of " protection," gambling houses, pool rooms, 
 policy shops and other illegal resorts were included. The excise law 
 furnished a rich means of blackmail. Unless a saloon keeper paid a 
 fixed monthly sum to the police he soon found himself " in trouble." 
 Robbery by disorderly women was tacitly licensed, as were the lowest 
 and most repulsive form of " dives." Merchants, peddlers and push- 
 cart men were systematically blackmailed by the police. " Cadets " — 
 young men who made a business of ruining girls of tender age and 
 selling them to keepers of disorderly houses — were left unmolested by 
 the police. The system of " graft " was extended in every possible 
 direction. 
 
 HOW LICENSED CRIME INCREASED 
 
 The rapid growth of licensed vice and crime was shown by the 
 testimony before the " Mazet Committee " in 1899. In summarizing 
 the results of that investigation Mr. Frank Moss, counsel to the com- 
 mittee, reported : fl The agents employed by the Committee had com- 
 " paratively small difficulty in obtaining entrance into many pool rooms 
 " and gambling houses, and on four different occasions between April 
 
 [362] 
 
INCREASE OF LICENSED CRIME 
 
 " and November, they testified to numerous visits to more than a hun- 
 " dred of these resorts where gambling on a large scale with multitudes 
 " of people was habitually carried on. This testimony was corroborated 
 " by the testimony of citizens and the production of records, and it 
 " fairly proved that during the entire period of the committee's sessions 
 " not less than 125 pool rooms, known to the employees of the Committee, 
 * were continuously doing business publicly and openly, the crowds fre- 
 " quenting the same running from 25 to 500 at a time, according to the 
 " size of the different rooms. It was evident from this testimony that 
 " there were many more pool rooms than were visited by the agents, 
 " and that every form of gambling was conducted freely and practically 
 " open. Other evidence was given which showed the wilful neglect 
 " of several police captains as to pool rooms. Pool rooms are located 
 " in nearly every precinct in Manhattan and in many precincts in Brook- 
 " lyn, are syndicated and are openly conducted. The adjournment of the 
 " public sittings prevented the production of further testimony which 
 " we had secured on this subject." It was generally known that Frank 
 Farrell was the head of the pool-room syndicate. As to this Mr. Moss 
 reported : " The relation of Mr. Farrell to pool rooms is notorious, and 
 " his friendship with the present chief of police is a conceded fact." 
 The policy shops were run by a syndicate headed by " Al" Adams. " Dolf " 
 Janzen was Adams' principal manager. Both Adams and Janzen have been 
 sent to prison under the present administration. The enormous profits of 
 the policy business, or swindle, as Justice Scott called it, came from 
 the very poorest classes. Michael J. Green, a former policy writer, 
 testified before the Mazet Committee " : " The poorer classes play it 
 " as a general thing. The poorer they are the better the business. Be- 
 " cause they always like to take a chance. One hundred to one shots 
 " is what they think is a great deal. They don't figure on the chances 
 " against them at all. It is written in tenement houses." Mr. Green 
 further testified that whenever a policy writer was arrested " Dolph " 
 Janzen supplied a lawyer. 
 
 Under Devery the gambling houses of the city were controlled by 
 a syndicate composed of several Tammany leaders and police officials. 
 On the East Side there were syndicates which operated disorderly 
 houses. Not only were gambling houses, pool rooms, policy shops, and 
 disorderly houses licensed for fixed payments of blackmail, but robbery 
 
 [363] 
 
14 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 was tacitly licensed. Mr. Moss reported : " The testimony of robbing 
 " from the person, and especially as practised by women on the streets, 
 " was startling. When witnesses at first described it their testimony 
 " was received with incredulity, but before we finished we corroborated 
 " it by copious extracts from the precinct books, even though they 
 " showed only the cases where arrests had been made. The testimony 
 " of witnesses showed conclusively that those female thieves were in 
 " collusion with the police." 
 
 * * * 
 
 ->ffl yo DSrtlgtV (ijirlt acaoot looq tnoin ynfiru n»w fmrii 
 
 ft The great increase of robberies from the person on the street and 
 "by women of bad character, who frequently attack pedestrians, was 
 " proven by hundreds of cases taken directly from the police blotters. 
 " While the chief's robbery book showed only 2,784 cases of robberies 
 "amounting to $457,797.87 between January 1st, 1898, and June 15th, 
 " 1899', a careful and laborious examination of the precinct robbery, 
 " felony, and complaint books showed 14,168 cases of robbery between 
 " January 1st, 1898, and June 15th, 1899, amounting approximately' to 
 "$1,233,517.21. The recoveries indicated on the precinct books 
 " amounted to $98,489.08." 
 
 "TEACH BROOKLYN HOW TO GRAFT" 
 
 No precise estimate of the number of disorderly houses in the 
 city under the Tammany administration was obtainable. The number, 
 however, was very great, and the annual tribute amounted to several 
 millions of dollars. Brooklyn had been comparatively free from the 
 system of blackmail. In pursuance of a . plan to include the entire city 
 in a comprehensive plan of blackmail, a certain corrupt inspector, who 
 has since been dismissed from the department, was sent to Brooklyn 
 " to teach the Brooklynites how to graft." Disorderly houses had to 
 pay from $500 to $1,000 for 1 initiation fees " and from $25 to $100 a 
 month, according to the number of inmates. Frequently disorderly 
 houses in various parts of the city were raided with no other purpose 
 than to force the keepers, upon getting permission to re-open, to pay 
 a new " initiation fee." 
 
 [364] 
 
THE "CADET" SYSTEM 
 
 i5 
 
 BLACKMAILING WOMEN OF THE STREETS 
 
 Illegal resorts, having a fixed habitation, could be reached easily 
 for purposes of blackmail. With the women of the streets it w r as dif- 
 ferent. In order to blackmail them, the police arrested them at fre- 
 quent intervals. Those arrested in " the Tenderloin .' were given to 
 understand that " Bob " Nelson, a professional Tenderloin bondsman, 
 who enjoyed a monopoly in that district, would bail them out. Nelson 
 charged five dollars for every hundred dollars of bail required. Be- 
 fore the " Mazet Committee " Devery admitted his friendship with 
 Nelson. 
 
 THE " CADET SYSTEM 
 
 The East Side of the Borough of Manhattan especially was crowded 
 with open vice, the most repulsive feature of which was the " cadet " 
 system. The " cadets " were young men who made a business of luring 
 girls to disorderly houses as inmates. That the " cadet " system was 
 carried on unmolested as a business with the full knowledge of the 
 police was incontestibly established by proofs in many directions. Such 
 arrests of * cadets \\ as were made were made, not by the police, but by 
 agents of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The 
 "cadet" system continued to the very end of the Tammany administra- 
 tion. It was thus described by District Attorney Philbin in 1901 : 
 
 " This is nothing short of a deliberate merchandising of the virtue 
 " of women, usually young girls, and placing them in such a position 
 " that escape from a life of degradation is impossible. 
 
 " The methods which have usually been adopted, and which are 
 " largely prevalent in parts of this city, are either to get the victim to 
 " enter into a marriage with one of the conspirators, usually a youth 
 " about *wenty years of age, who lures his wife into a disorderly house, 
 " and there compels her to enter upon the awful traffic ; or to lead the 
 " young woman in the first instance to a disorderly house under the 
 " pretext of furnishing her with employment as a servant. She is then 
 " introduced to the woman in charge of the house, who at first keeps 
 " up the pretext of employment, but her clothes are soon taken from 
 " her, and she is provided with a costume in which she fears to appear 
 " in the street. The victim is then locked in a room and compelled to 
 " submit. 
 
 [365] 
 
16 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " To the average citizen such things may seem impossible, and it 
 " will scarcely be believed that the victim cannot escape if she deter- 
 " mines to do so. It might be supposed that the aid of the police could 
 " be readily enlisted, but that avenue of escape is almost invariably 
 " inaccessible, because the persons who engage in this nefarious trade 
 " have, as a preliminary measure and as part of their business scheme. 
 " made arrangements with the police ; so that no matter how much of 
 ' a man the patrolman may be to whose notice such a case is brought, 
 " he dares not interfere with the perpetration of this awful wrong, be- 
 " cause of the fear of the severest discipline. 
 
 "As a rule, however, the victim, after having been confined in the 
 " house thus for some days and obliged to lead the life of the other 
 ? inmates, believes the statement of her captors that, once having been 
 " an inmate of such a house, she can never be reclaimed, and had better, 
 " therefore, resign herself with the best grace possible to the position 
 " in which she has been placed. 
 
 " It is believed by all who have looked into the peculiar phase of 
 " crime that the youths who thus enter into marriage with their victims 
 " contract several marriages, and thus commit the crime of bigamy with 
 "impunity; for when it is difficult to obtain evidence of the graver 
 " crime, it is not to be supposed that the less serious charge of bigamy 
 " could be sustained. 
 
 " To the residents of all parts of this city, of whatever social sta- 
 " tion, it may be said that they cannot rest in any fancied security from 
 " the perpetration of such wrongs against members of their own families. 
 " The youths engaged in this practice do not wear any badge or sign 
 " indicating their horrible vocation, but present the appearance of the 
 " ordinary New York young man, and seek their victims in the parks 
 " and in all other places frequented generally by the public. 
 
 " I have no hesitation in saying that if the police were free from 
 " the interference of political influence, and were allowed to do their 
 " duty, it would be very difficult for such a crime to be committed, if, 
 " in fact, it were not rendered almost impossible. This will become 
 :< apparent when we realize that it takes an incredibly short period of time 
 " for a policeman, whether he be of high or low rank, to become acquainted 
 " with the people within his precinct; and although some of the victims 
 " are foreigners, yet a confidence in the police which does not now exist 
 
 [366] 
 
THE "CADET" SYSTEM 
 
 »7 
 
 " would then be established, and persons against whom such a crime 
 " was sought to be perpetrated would not hesitate to have recourse to 
 " the police for aid." 
 
 In November 1898, in sentencing a "cadet," Judge Newburger said: 
 " My attention has been called to the fact that the defendant is one of 
 " a number who have made it their business to live off the proceeds of 
 " the shame of unfortunate women who congregate on the east side." 
 * * * " This seems to have grown within the last few years to large 
 " proportions." 
 
 Judge McMahon. in sentencing Frank Gross alias Frank Spialt, a 
 "cadet," on May 17th, 1901, also recognized the proportions to which 
 the " cadet system " had grown when he said, " This traffic in children 
 " has got to stop, if it is possible to prevent it." 
 
 On May 16th, 1901, the annual report of the University Settlement 
 Society was published. It contained the following statement : 
 
 " Our own opinion, which accords with that of other witnesses, is 
 " that the temptation of young children to vice on the streets, in the 
 u hallways, staircases and backyards of the tenement houses has been 
 " unexampled in our municipal history." 
 
 On June 27th, 1901, Justice William Travers Jerome, of the Court 
 of Special Sessions, was quoted in the New York Times as saying: 
 
 " People are simply ignorant of conditions on the east side. If 
 " those conditions existed in some other communities, there would be a 
 " Vigilance Committee speedily organized, and somebody would get 
 " lynched. The continual greed and extortion of the Police Captains, 
 " who charge five hundred dollars for a disorderly resort to open in 
 " their precinct, and then collect fifty to a hundred per month, has, 
 " however, made even vice unprofitable. Details I know are revolting 
 " and not nice to read, but yet the people ought to know about them. 
 " Just yesterday I sentenced to six months in the penitentiary the 
 " keepers of one of the most depraved houses of the east side. I firmly 
 " believe that they were merely the agents of the man who owns not 
 " one but many of such places. He is well known as a politician in a 
 " certain notorious district. 
 
 " That house is but one of hundreds within a radius of one mile of 
 " this building, where criminals are sometimes brought to justice. I 
 " will stake my reputation that there are scores within less than that 
 
 [367] 
 
iS 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " distance from here in which there are an average often of twelve 
 " children from thirteen to eighteen years old." 
 
 City Magistrate Robert C. Cornell said in 1901 : " The [cadet] 
 " cases * * * " are, to my own knowledge, typical cases of the 
 " depravity of the thickly populated parts of the city. In my experience 
 " of six years on the city magistrates' bench, I have seen repeated in- 
 *' stances of this character in such numbers that they clearly indicate 
 " the existence of a general condition. Unhappily, instead of the steady 
 " improvement which should take place in a civilized community, there 
 " has been a very marked increase in crime of all kinds in parts of the 
 " city within the last few years. The cases brought before me show 
 " that the ranks of prostitutes are recruited largely from among the 
 " virtuous people; and again and again I have seen parents in my court 
 " tear out their hair upon discovering that their daughters had been 
 " led astray. I have had occasion to punish a flashy lot of young men 
 " whose sole apparent means of support was the proceeds of the shame 
 " of women. There can be no doubt that the horrible condition of 
 " affairs could not exist in the presence of an efficient and vigilant 
 " police. The best proof that can be offered to substantiate this state- 
 " ment is that when Police Captain Titus was sent to the Red Light 
 " District, after the notoriously bad condition of things which existed 
 " when Herlihy was in command, it only required a few weeks of active 
 " work on the part of an honest and unhampered policeman to ' clean up • 
 " the district. This was at once proof that the police were incapable, 
 " and that the remedy rested with them." Captain Titus was soon trans- 
 ferred to another part of the city. 
 
 In October, 1901, the City Club published for the Women's Cam- 
 paign Committee a pamphlet giving the horrible details of some of these 
 " cadet " cases. They were nearly all cases in which the offenders had 
 been tried and sentenced. The City Club said in the introduction to 
 this pamphlet: 
 
 " These are plain facts about things that could not happen under 
 " a decent and honest city government. What do they mean ? What 
 "makes these things possible? How can they be stopped? If the 
 " fathers and mothers of this city want them stopped, they will find 
 " a way. 
 
 " The question presented is not the " suppression of vice." The 
 
 [368] 
 
"THE GAMBLING COMMISSION" 
 
 r 9 
 
 " question is not whether the vicious can be made virtuous by law. It is 
 7 whether we shall continue a system under which the corrupt, money- 
 " making combination of law-breakers with the servants of the people, 
 " destroys the virtue of our sons and daughters. The fight is against 
 V those who use their control of the city government to make procurers 
 " of our young men and harlots of our young women. The facts which 
 " justify this statement are presented in the following pages. They 
 show : 
 
 " i. That the business of ruining young girls, and forcing them 
 " into a life of shame, for the money that is in it, has grown to con- 
 siderable proportions in this city within the last three or four years. 
 
 " 2. That its existence is known to the police. 
 
 " 3. That the police make little or no effort to stop it. 
 
 " 4. That the police, or those for whom they act, probably derive 
 " profit from the traffic in question. 
 
 " 5. That a reasonably active and efficient Police Department could 
 " stop this traffic. 
 
 " No attempt is made to present a case in the legal sense. Enough 
 " is submitted to show that the observed facts can not be reconciled with 
 " any other theory than that presented above. Cases and instances, the 
 " conclusions of experienced observers, and the affidavits of residents of 
 " those parts of the city which are mOst affected could be produced in 
 " great numbers. 
 
 * If the above cases were only such isolated instances as might be 
 " found in any large community, no excuse could be made for thus 
 " presenting them. But all competent and honest observers agree that 
 " such cases are typical, and that the business of ruining young girls in 
 " the City of New York has increased greatly within a few years, 
 " assuming almost the character of an organized calling. 
 
 "the gambling commission" 
 
 On March 9th, 1900, the Times published an article, the details of 
 which it iterated, showing that more than $3,095,000 was paid every 
 year by the keepers of gambling places of various kinds for protection 
 afforded them by the police and other powers of the city government. 
 " The New York Times has facts in its possession which make this an 
 
 [369] 
 
20 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " absolute certainty. This enormous amount of money is handled by 
 " what is known among gamblers as the ' Gambling Commission,' which 
 " is composed of a commissioner who is at the head of one of the city 
 " departments, two state senators, and the dictator of the pool-room 
 " syndicate of this city, who was before the Mazet Committee, and who 
 " is allied to Tammany Hall. 
 
 " This so-called commission meets weekly in the apartments of one 
 " of its members, not far from Forty-seventh Street and Broadway. The 
 "money is not apportioned at these conferences, but licenses to run 
 " gambling houses are virtually issued there. 
 
 " Not a gambling house is running in this city to-day that is not 
 " known to this board, and not a place is running that does not pay its 
 "tax to this board. Its system is as complete as any branch of the city 
 " government. There are no leaks, and no unauthorized place can run 
 " for twenty-four hours without either ' putting up ' or ' shutting up.' " 
 
 The Times estimated the annual amounts extorted from gambling 
 places as follows: 
 
 Pool rooms, 400, at $300 per month, $120,000 per year. . . $1,440,000 
 
 Crap games, 500, at $150 per month, $75,000 per year . 900,000 
 
 Gambling houses, 2C0 at $150 per month, $30,000 per year 360,000 
 Gambling houses, large, 20, at $1,000 per month, $20,000 
 
 per year 240,000 
 
 Envelope games, 50, at $50 per month, $2,500 per year. . . 30,000 
 
 Policy 125,000 
 
 $3,095,000 
 
 When these facts were placed before Mr. York, president of the 
 board of police commissioners, he said: "If such a thing exists it is 
 " infamous, but to prove it is next to impossible." Mr. York added that 
 the department would investigate thoroughly any complaints made to 
 it. Devery, however, was the real ruler of the department. It is need- 
 less to say that the police authorities made no investigation. 
 
 But the Grand Jury then in session took up the matter. After 
 three weeks' investigation the Grand Jury handed up more than forty 
 indictments for gambling and three indictments against Police Captain 
 Thomas for neglect of duty in failing to suppress the Tivoli and other 
 
 f37o] 
 
TAMMANY CHARACTERIZED 
 
 2 I 
 
 notorious resorts in his district. Devery denounced these indictments 
 as " nonsense," and he refused to suspend Thomas pending trial on 
 charges. The charges were dismissed by the police board in the fol- 
 lowing summer. The Grand Jury also handed up a presentment deal- 
 ing with disorderly houses. " We do charge and present that in their 
 " relations to these places, the officials of the police, from the rounds- 
 " man up to the commissioners, are guilty of criminal ignorance and 
 " criminal negligence. The root of the evil is not so much in the 
 " gambling or pool-selling or policy-playing, or in the disorderly resorts, 
 " as it is in the system of police administration, which either blindly or 
 " corruptly permits open and flagrant violations of the law to go un- 
 " punished and unchecked. The inference is unavoidable that the neglect 
 " and blindness (under the present police system) are due, not to a lack 
 f of intelligence or of knowledge, but to some direct interest in the 
 " maintainance of these places." 
 
 The " wide open " condition of the city, with its huge official sys- 
 tem of blackmail and licensed crime, was known to every observer. 
 But Richard Croker said, " We have the best city government in the 
 " world. All the departments are run honestly and economically, the 
 " streets are clean, and everything is done to make the best city in the 
 " world." 
 
 THE TAMMANY ADMINISTRATION CHARACTERIZED 
 
 Many citizens and organizations thought otherwise. In 1900 the 
 Rev. Walter Paddock, rector of the Pro-Cathedral in Stanton Street, 
 complained to Captain Herlihy of the Eldridge Street station and In- 
 spector Cross of the evil conditions on the East side, and was grossly 
 insulted. Herlihy said, " You're a liar," and Inspector Cross expressed 
 the same opinion less bluntly. Charges were preferred against Herlihy. 
 The board of police commissioners tried him in December, 19CO, and 
 declared him not guilty of the charges of neglect of duty. 
 
 On September 27th, 1900, Bishop Potter, in his address to the 
 Diocesan Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, said: — 
 
 " The corrupt system, whose infamous details have since then been 
 "steadily uncovered to our increasing horror and humiliation, was 
 " brazenly ignored by those who were fattening on its spoils, and the 
 
 [37i] 
 
2 2 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 "world was presented with the astounding spectacle of a great muni- 
 " cipality whose civic mechanism was largely employed in trading in 
 "the bodies and souls of the innocent and defenseless. What has been 
 " published in this connection is but the merest hint of what exists — 
 " and exists, most appalling of all, as the evidence has come to me under 
 " the seal of confidence in overwhelming volume and force to demon- 
 " strate — under a system of terrorism which compels its victims to 
 " recognize that to denounce it means the utter ruin, so far as all their 
 " worldly interests are concerned, of those who dare to do so. This 
 " infamous organization for making merchandise of the corruption of 
 " girls and boys, and defenseless men and women, has adroitly sought 
 " to obscure a situation concerning which all honest people are entirely 
 "clear, by saying that vice cannot be wholly suppressed. Nobody has 
 " made upon the authorities of New York any such grotesque demand. 
 " All that our citizens have asked is that the government of the city shall 
 " not be employed to protect a trade in vice, which is carried on for 
 " the benefit of a political organization. The case is entirely clear. No 
 " Mephistophelian cunning can obscure it, and I thank God that there 
 " is abundant evidence that the end of such a condition of things is 
 " not far off." 
 
 On October 3d, 1900, the Chamber of Commerce adopted the fol- 
 lowing preamble and resolution: 
 
 " Whereas, There is a widespread and well-founded belief in this 
 " city that certain officials in the Police Department are addicted to 
 " corrupt practices, and are soliciting and receiving moneys for the 
 " wicked protection of vice and crime, thus encouraging the lawless 
 " element of this city to the detriment of decent and honest government, 
 "and to the endangering of life and property; and 
 
 " Whereas, The Charter of Greater New York has conferred upon 
 " the Mayor the high duty and responsibility of removing the head of 
 "any department that is incompetent or guilty of violations of law; 
 " therefore, be it 
 
 " Resolved, That the President of this Chamber be and hereby is 
 " directed to urge the Mayor to exercise the supreme power vested in 
 "him to the end that the reproach now universally resting upon the 
 " government and good name of this city may be speedily removed." 
 
 Mayor Van Wyck paid no attention to these proceedings. 
 
 [372] 
 
BISHOP POTTER'S PROTEST 
 
 23 
 
 The Diocesan Convention instructed Bishop Potter to make com- 
 plaint to the authorities, both of the conditions which the police allowed 
 on the East Side and of the treatment which they gave to the complain- 
 ing clergyman. On November 15th, 1900, Bishop Potter sent this letter 
 to Mayor Van Wyck: 
 
 " Sir — At No. 130 Stanton Street, in this city, there is a work for 
 " the people resident in that neighborhood of a missionary, educational 
 " and social character for which for some years I have been directly 
 " and personally responsible. Its influence for good order and good 
 " morals, to describe it in no other way, has been considerable, and has 
 " been recognized, I think I may venture to say, by those who know it 
 " as of real and enduring value. It is not only a centre for the minis- 
 " trations of religion, but also for training in various arts and handi- 
 M crafts, for a free library, gymnasium, cooking, sewing and other schools, 
 " etc., etc., and as such, for those whose lives are often hard and narrow 
 " and whose pleasures and privileges are few, it has been recognized as 
 ¥ an important factor in promoting the virtue and good order of the 
 " communities to which it ministers. 
 
 "In view of these facts it would seem that it has a valid claim upon 
 " the sympathy, co-operation and at least courteous consideration of 
 " those who officially represent our city government and the guardian- 
 " ship of decency and good morals. I urge here no other claim for it, 
 " and I beg to say that I am not now addressing you because there has 
 " been in that which I now desire to bring to your notice a vulgar and 
 " brutal absence of these in connection with one who happens to have 
 " been my own representative. The personal element, so far as he is or 
 " I am concerned, is of the very smallest consequence. 
 
 " But the thing that is of consequence, sir, is that when a minister 
 " of religion and a resident in a particular neighborhood, whose calling 
 " and character, experience and truthfulness are alike widely and abun- 
 " dantly recognized, goes to the headquarters of the police in his district 
 " to appeal to them for the protection of the young, the innocent and 
 " the defenceless against the leprous harpies who are hired as runners 
 " and touters for the lowest and most infamous dens of vice he is met, 
 " not only with contempt and derision, but with the coarsest insult and 
 " obloquy. 
 
 [373] 
 
^4 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " You will say that these are strong words. I hold myself ready 
 " at any time to submit the facts that substantiate them. The statement 
 " now in my possession of two clergymen of the highest character con- 
 " tains the testimony of two men, given without exaggeration, with the 
 " most painstaking reserve, and with absolute truthfulness. In sub- 
 " stance it is briefly this : That when one of them complained to a police 
 " captain of a condition of things in his immediate neighborhood, whose 
 " disgusting infamy is a matter of common notoriety, a condition of 
 " things easily verified by any intelligent citizen who passes through the 
 " streets in which it exists, he was told that he lied; and that when, dis- 
 " heartened by such an experience, he carried, his complaint to a higher 
 " authority in the police force he was met with insolent derision. 
 
 " I affirm that such a virtual safeguarding of vice in the city of 
 " New York is a burning shame to any decent and civilized community 
 " and an intolerable outrage upon those whom it especially and pre- 
 " eminently concerns. I am not, I beg to say, unmindful of the fact that 
 " the existence of vice in a great city is, practically, an inevitable con- 
 " dition of the life of such a community. I am not demanding that vice 
 " shall be * stamped out ' by the police or any other civil authority. That 
 " is a task which would demand for its achievement a race of angels and 
 " not of men. 
 
 " But I approach you, sir, to protest with all my power against a 
 " condition of things in which vice is not only tolerated, but shielded and 
 " encouraged by those whose sworn duty it is to repress and discourage 
 " it, and, in the name of unsullied youth and innocence of young girls 
 " and their mothers, who, though living under conditions often of priva- 
 " tion and the hard struggle for a livelihood, have in them every instinct 
 " of virtue and purity that are the ornaments of any so-called gentle- 
 " women in the land. 
 
 "I know those of whom I speak; their homes and their lives, their 
 " toil and their aspirations. Their sensibility to insult or outrage is as 
 " keen as theirs who are in your household or mine, and before God and 
 " in the face of the citizens of New York I protest, as my people have 
 " charged me to do, against the habitual insult, the persistent menace, 
 " the unutterably defiling contact to which, day by day, because of the 
 " base complicity of the police of New York with the lowest forms of 
 " vice and crime, they are subjected. 
 
 [374] 
 
BISHOP POTTER'S PROTEST 
 
 ?5 
 
 " And in the name of these little ones, these weak and defenseless 
 * ones, Christian and Hebrew alike, of many races and tongues, but of 
 " homes in which God is feared and His law revered, and virtue and 
 " decency honored and exemplified, I call upon you, sir, to save these 
 " people who are in a very real way committed to your charge from a 
 " living hell, defiling, deadly, damning, to which the criminal supineness 
 " of the constituted authorities, set for the defense of decency and good 
 " order, threatens to doom them. 
 
 " I have no methods to suggest, no individuals to single out for 
 " especial rebuke and chastisement. These are for you to determine and 
 " deal with. 
 
 " The situation which confronts us in this metropolis of America 
 " is one of common and open notoriety, and of such a nature as may well 
 " make us a byword and hissing among the nations of the world. 
 
 " For nowhere else on earth, I verily believe, certainly not in any 
 " civilized or Christian community, does there exist such a situation as 
 " defiles and dishonors New York to-day. 
 
 " Vice exists in many cities, but there is at least some persistent 
 " repression of its external manifestations, and the agents of the law 
 " are not, as here, widely believed to be fattening upon the fruits of its 
 " most loathsome and unnamable forms. 
 
 " I come to you, sir, with this protest in accordance with the in- 
 " structions lately laid upon me by the Convention of the Episcopal 
 " Church of the Diocese of New York. The events which provoked its 
 " action occurred some months ago. There has been no haste on my 
 " part or on theirs in behalf of whom I speak in reaching conclusions 
 " as to the situation to which I refer. Months have passed since the 
 " incidents occurred to which I have alluded in this communication. But 
 " in all these months the condition of things in whole neighborhoods has 
 " not improved, but rather grown worse. 
 
 " Vice not only flaunts in the most open and ribald forms, but hard- 
 " working fathers and mothers find it harder than ever to-day to defend 
 " their households from a rapacious licentiousness which stops at no 
 " outrage and spares no tenderest victim. Such a state of things cries 
 " to God for vengeance and calls no less loudly to you and me for redress. 
 
 " This, sir, is my case. I leave it confidently in your hands. Con- 
 " fidently, I say, because I cannot believe that you will fail to recognize 
 
 [375] 
 
26 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " it a great duty, a duty which you will set yourself to discharge, no 
 " matter how great the cost. 
 
 " I do not forget what has come to be too often expected in our 
 " day from those who hold office when those who are their partisan 
 41 associates are involved in wrongdoing. But I cannot believe that in 
 " such a case as this you will hesitate to do your duty, no matter where 
 " the doing of it may compel you to strike. 
 
 " Great place such as yours demands great courage and great sacri- 
 " fice. 
 
 " Great crises such as that which has now come in the history of 
 " our city, and I think I may be forgiven if I add in your own career, 
 " demand great acts. 
 
 * I cannot believe that you will disdain an opportunity so unique 
 " as that which now confronts you for action worthy of your office, your 
 " citizenship, your manhood. 
 
 " I am, sir, respectfully yours, 
 
 u HENRY C. POTTER. 
 "Bishop of New Yo.';."' 
 
 Testifying before the Industrial Commission in Washington on 
 November 15th, 1900, Dr. David Blaustein, superintendent of the Edu- 
 cational Alliance, the work of which is among the people on the east 
 side of the Borough of Manhattan, said that in recent years immorality 
 had secured a hold in the tenement houses of New York never before 
 known; that children were used as agents for dissolute women, and that 
 it was impossible to suppress the practices because of corruption in the 
 police force. 
 
 On November 17th, 1900, the Evening Post said: " The portrayal of 
 " conditions in the tenement houses by Bishop Potter was in terms so 
 " plain as to appeal to persons whose ears have long been hardened to 
 " the recital ; but beyond a few protestations of zeal on the part of some 
 " officers involved, and profanity or indifference at the mention of the 
 " Bishop's name from others, no open sincere action was taken, and 
 " crime and vice apparently will continue as before, and the criminals 
 
 [376] 
 
COMMITTEE OF FIVE 
 
 -7 
 
 " will be made to pay heavier tribute for the obloquy heaped on their 
 " official sponsors." 
 
 When Devery was asked what he had to say he queried : " Touchin' 
 on what ? " 
 
 " About Bishop Potter's letter to the Mayor." 
 
 " I won't say anythin' about that. I ain't got nuthin' to say. When 
 " I have I'll send for you." 
 
 Richard Croker, however, recognized that it was time to " pander 
 somewhat of the moral sentiment of the community." He hurriedly 
 called a meeting of the executive committee of Tammany Hall for the 
 evening of November 15th. At that meeting he informed the commit- 
 tee that there was vice in the city, and said that Tammany must ferret 
 out any of its members who were profiting by the alliance with vice. 
 By pre-concerted arrangement, Lewis Nixon moved for the appointment 
 of a Committee of Five. The Committee of Five was appointed under 
 the following resolution adopted on that day by the Executive Committee 
 of Tammany Hall : 
 
 " RESOLVED, That the chairman, be empowered to appoint a Com- 
 " mittee of Five to act with any citizens or committee of citizens, for the 
 ' purpose of investigating the moral conditions of the city, and for re- 
 " ceiving suggestions and remedies for the correction of abuses ; the 
 " committee to have the full power of the organization to act." 
 
 At the meeting at which this resolution was adopted Mr. Croker 
 introduced Mr. Isidor Straus, president of the Educational Alliance. 
 Mr. Straus explained that the work of the Educational Alliance was 
 directed to improving the conditions of the Jewish population of the 
 east side of Manhattan Borough. " We try to reach every man, woman 
 "and child; and try to make them better, with the especial object of 
 a making them acquainted with the principles of American citizenship." 
 
 * * * "We have in recent years experienced a difficulty which 
 " threatens to infuse poison into the very fountain head of righteous- 
 " ness. I refer to the immorality in the tenement houses and the rni- 
 " morality in the streets of our city; the manner in which boys and girls 
 "are threatened with the temptations held out to them on every side." 
 
 * * * " When I told Richard Croker of this condition he was greatly 
 " surprised, and I was surprised at his ready desire to come to our aid." 
 
 * * * " The charge has been made that the greater part of the 
 
 [377] 
 
28 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " revenue of Tammany Hall was from the people in evil conditions of 
 " life, and that no good could be accomplished in this city until the 
 " power of Tammany Hall was destroyed." * * * " Mr. Croker said 
 " to me that no Tammany Hall office-holder, or any other man acting 
 " under the authority of Tammany Hall, gave any protection or in any 
 " way fostered, nurtured, or harbored this kind or any other kind of 
 "crime or immorality; and that he would give his aid and go as far as 
 " any citizen in punishing the guilty persons, and in neutralizing the 
 terrible charge." 
 
 After Mr. Straus had spoken, the resolution quoted abov ftCS 
 passed; and Daniel F. McMahon, chairman of the executive comiii ttee, 
 appointed the following committee under the resolution: 
 
 Lewis Nixon, John W. Keller, commissioner of charities; George 
 C. Clausen, president of the park department ; Michael C. Murphy, presi- 
 dent of the board of health, and John J. Scannell, fire commissioner. 
 
 After the appointment of the committee, Mr. Croker, addressing the 
 executive committee, said: 
 
 " I have nothing to add to what has been said to you by Mr. Strauss, 
 " because he is familiar with the matters about which he has made state- 
 " ments to you. I hope that this entire committee will give its full 
 " strength toward helping him and his work. I am not talking for polit- 
 " ical effect. I am talking of what you ought to do as good citizens, and 
 " I am satisfied that this committee will do its full duty; that it will work 
 " until it succeeds, and shows to those who prefer charges against us 
 " that this organization is not responsible for crime, but, on the contrary, 
 " is its greatest foe." 
 
 Immediately after this meeting Mayor Van Wyck addressed the 
 board of police commissioners as follows: "I wish it distinctly under- 
 " stood that to this end I shall use to the utmost limits all the power 
 " vested in me, and that I shall hold to a personal responsibility those 
 " who fail to exert themselves in like manner." 
 
 The conditions, however, did not change. The Chamber of Com- 
 merce decided to take action. On November 23d, 1900, it appointed a 
 Committee of Fifteen to take measures to suppress the vicious conditions, 
 and to bring the guilty to justice. The committee was composed as 
 follows : 
 
 [378] 
 
COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN 
 
 *9 
 
 Jas. A. Carter, 
 
 Jacob H. Schiff, 
 John Harson Rhoades, 
 
 John S. Kennedy, 
 Felix Adler, 
 
 Alfred T. White, 
 Joel B. Erhardt, 
 
 Chas. Sprague Smith, 
 G. F. Peabody, 
 Wm. H. Baldwin, Jr., 
 Alex. E. Orr, 
 Adrian Iselin, Jr., 
 Rev. W. L. Paddock, 
 R. Dell Forest, 
 
 F. D. Tappan. 
 
 On December 19th, 1900, the Committee of Fifteen declared its pur- 
 pose to be, in part, ** To institute a searching inquiry, uninfluenced by 
 " partisan considerations, into the causes of the present alarming in- 
 " crease of gambling and the social evil in this city, and to collect such 
 " evidence as shall establish the connection between existing conditions 
 " and those who, in the last analysis, are responsible for these condi- 
 " tions." 
 
 A severe blow to Tammany was the removal by Gov. Roosevelt on 
 December 22d, 1900, of District Attorney Gardiner, and the appointment 
 in his place of Mr. Eugene A. Philbin. Tammany thus lost the pro- 
 tecting influence of the machinery of criminal administration. 
 
 On December 1st, 1900, the Evening Post published an interview 
 with Martin Engel, the Tammany leader in the eighth assembly district, 
 the "red-light district," in which Engel said, " Vice? Why, there ain't 
 " no vice here. Youse fellows write me up and call me names when you 
 " have no right to. But I don't care." 
 
 On December 2d the Central Labor Union passed this resolution: 
 
 " RESOLVED, that the Central Labor Union is fully in sympathy 
 " with the movement being carried out in the present vice crusade, and 
 " we hope that it will result in driving glaring vice out of the City." 
 
 In charging the grand jury of New York County on December 3d, 
 Judge Warren W. Foster said: 
 
 " It is rumored and suggested and stated in the public press of our 
 " city and county, that there exist many vicious resorts and other dis- 
 " orderly places, and that their existence is owing, perhaps, in large 
 "measure to official corruption. If this be so, these are crimes that 
 " it is your bounden and sworn duty to inquire into and present to the 
 
 [379] 
 
3° 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " court, and the court will in every way endeavor to aid you in such 
 " inquiry." 
 
 On December 5th, The City Club adopted resolutions which declared 
 that " the disgraceful conditions existing in our city would be impos- 
 " sible under an administration honestly desirous of enforcing the laws." 
 
 On December 6th, the Reform Club adopted resolutions declaring 
 that, " The political faction in power in this city has failed to perform 
 " most of the administrative promises made by it when it assumed office 
 " in January, 1898. It has by conniving at the violation of the law and 
 " by receiving tribute from the violators brought the city to a condition 
 " in which it was pointed out as an evidence of the incompetency of 
 " Democracy to govern municipalities." 
 
 On December 8th the Evening Post published interviews with ex- 
 Mayor Abram S. Hewitt, ex-Mayor Smith Ely, ex-Mayor Edward 
 Cooper, and ex-Mayor Thomas F. Gilroy, upon the condition of police 
 administration. They all agreed that the condition was worse than 
 during their respective terms of office. 
 
 On December 8th, 1900, the board of police sent to Mayor Van 
 Wyck a report of the inquiry made by the board into the charges of 
 brutality on the part of the police in the August riots. The report was 
 to the effect that the board had not been able to get evidence upon which 
 action against any members of the police force would be warranted. 
 
 [NOTE. — On August 12th a policeman was killed by a negro in 
 the street at 41st Street and Eighth Avenue. The feeling among the 
 police was bitter against the negroes. Upon August 15th rumors of 
 possible violence are said to have been circulated in the part of the city 
 which, in fact, became the scene of riot that night. The agreement of 
 many witnesses, including newspaper reporters, members of The City 
 Club, and other white people, seems to establish these facts: (1) That 
 during the greater part of the night the territory bounded by 34th Street, 
 Broadway, 42d Street and Eighth Avenue was in a state of tumult be- 
 cause of the innumerable attacks made by mobs upon colored people; 
 (2) that the police made practically no effort to arrest or disperse the 
 mobs, except in one or two cases in which Broadway hotels were in- 
 vaded in the hunt for colored men; (3) that the police made but little 
 effort to protect the negroes; (4) that the police clubbed many inof- 
 fensive negroes in the streets, and some in the police station house.] 
 
 [380] 
 
MAYOR VAN WYCK'S INACTION 
 
 3? 
 
 On January 4th, 1901, the Evening Sun printed an article of over a 
 page, setting forth in convincing detail the evil conditions existing on 
 the lower east side of Manhattan Borough. 
 
 On January 8th, 1901, Mr. Lewis Nixon, as chairman of the Com- 
 mittee of Five, spoke of the " combine " which had for years levied 
 blackmail on gambling houses and other illegal resorts ; and said that he 
 would not deny that the " combine " included " men high in the councils 
 of Tammany Hall." 
 
 On February 16th it was announced in the newspapers that District 
 Attorney Philbin would not submit to the February grand jury the evi- 
 dence obtained by the Tammany Committee of Five. 
 
 On February 17th in a speech publicly delivered Mr. Nixon said, 
 Despite adverse criticism (due, maybe, to partisan or political reasons) 
 " I believe that New York is to-day the best governed city in the world." 
 
 The city charter of 1897 said: " It shall be the duty of the Mayor " 
 * * * "to keep himself informed of the doings of the several de- 
 " partments ;" * * * " to be vigilant and active in causing the ordi- 
 M nances of the city and laws of the state to be executed and enforced, 
 " and for that purpose he may call together for consultation and co- 
 " operation any or all of the heads of departments." 
 
 It was not on record that Mayor Yan YVyck ever called together 
 any heads of departments for consultation or co-operation. 
 
 On January 15th, 190 1, when the city was full of scandals about the 
 corrupt alliance between crime and the police, when both the Committee 
 of Fifteen and the Committee of Five were hard at work, Mayor Van 
 Wyjck sent to the municipal assembly his annual message, in which he 
 uted the financial burdens of the city to "the orgy of financial 
 agance which was indulged in prior to consolidation." The mes- 
 sage id not contain any reference to the subject of police blackmail nor 
 to the other matters with which the Committee of Five and the Com- 
 mittee of Fifteen were concerned. 
 
 On February 13th Mayor Van Wyck said publicly, " We have the 
 best chief of police that New York has ever had in all its history." 
 
 On February 18th, upon evidence furnished by the Tammany Com- 
 mittee of Five, a raid directed by District Attorney Philbin, and Justice 
 Jerome of the Court of Special Sessions, was made upon a notorious 
 pool-room on the second and third floors of number 20 Dey street. The 
 
 [33i] 
 
32 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 fact that the raid was to be made was successfully concealed from the 
 police. Reginald Levien, reputed to be the proprietor, and two others 
 were arrested; and about seventy men found in the place were served 
 with subpoenas. Among these was Maurice F. Holahan, president of the 
 board of public improvements. He was much agitated, and begged that 
 his identity should be concealed. He explained his presence in the place 
 by saying that he was in search of a " wayward relative." 
 
 By an act passed by the legislature and signed on February 22, 1901, 
 by Governor Odell, the bi-partisan board of police commissioners and the 
 position of chief of police were abolished and the administration of the 
 department was vested in a single commissioner. Mayor Van Wyck 
 appointed Michael C. Murphy, and Murphy immediately appointed Devery 
 as his first deputy commissioner. Murphy delegated to Devery all the 
 powers of commissioner that the law allowed him to transfer. 
 
 On February 26th, 1901, the Committee of Fifteen caused several 
 gambling houses between Twenty-second street and Forty-second street 
 to be raided. In the Evening Post the next day Commissioner Murphy 
 was quoted as saying: 
 
 " I have ordered all the captains to prepare the April report con- 
 " taming all the places in their precincts in which the law is being vio- 
 " lated or suspected of being violated, and I will get those lists Friday 
 " morning. All these places will have to close up. No matter who says 
 " otherwise. They must obey the law." 
 
 On February 28th Commissioner Murphy declared to the newspaper 
 reporters that he had taken special measures to discover gambling houses 
 in operation. He was quoted as saying : " I am going to purify the city 
 " so that it will be clean and wholesome. I believe that we can put New 
 " York on a basis where we can be proud of it. The police are working 
 in harmony with the District Attorney, who has furnished a list of al- 
 leged unlawful places." 
 
 These, Mr. Murphy added, were " under investigation." 
 
 On March nth Commissioner Murphy was quoted in the New York 
 Times as saying that he intended to raid pool-rooms and gambling houses, 
 and that within two weeks not one such place would be left in the city. 
 " T will show the people of this city that I am entitled to their confi- 
 " dence." 
 
 [382) 
 
ILLEGAL RESORTS RAIDED 
 
 33 
 
 On April 12th Commissioner Murph) r summoned all the police cap- 
 tains to a conference at headquarters. After the conference he told the 
 reporters that he had instructed the captains to see that all the pool- 
 rooms and gambling places were kept closed, and had threatened to 
 " break "any captain who did not carry out these instructions. 
 
 On March 17th a mass meeting of women at Carnegie Hall passed 
 resolutions denouncing the connection between law-breakers and the 
 police. 
 
 On March 23d the Committee of Fifteen addressed to Governor 
 Odell a letter declaring that the law proposed by the tenement house 
 commission was necessary as an aid to the suppression of prostitution 
 in the tenement houses. 
 
 On March 23d the Committee of Fifteen raided several " dives " 
 frequented by men and women, some in the " tenderloin," and some on 
 the lower east side. A number of prisoners were taken. 
 
 On March 25th, upon the evidence secured by the Committee of 
 Fifteen, the grand jury of New York County found three indictments 
 for keeping gambling houses, and three for bookmaking. 
 
 On the 15th of April, 1901, the New York Tribune quoted Commis- 
 sioner Murphy as saying: 
 
 " When Chairman Baldwin signed his report, saying that in 125 
 " tenement houses which were examined by the Fifteen's agents, and in 
 " which disorderly persons were living, there were found in each house 
 " on an average of twenty-four children under the age of eighteen years, 
 " he must have been grossly misinformed and imposed upon by the agents 
 " of his committee. There are not 125 tenement houses in all New York 
 " where disorderly women are living alongside respectable families, and 
 M I will bet Mr. Baldwin anything up to $200 that there is not one such 
 " tenement house between the Battery and 14th street." 
 
 On April 17th the Committee of Fifteen raided several pool-rooms 
 and found them in operation. 
 
 On April 17th the New York Times reported that, as a result of the 
 opening of the local racing season, many pool-rooms were doing business 
 quietly. The Times quoted Police Commissioner Murphy as saying that 
 no pool- rooms were open. 
 
 On April 18th, 1901, Police Commissioner Murphy was quoted 
 in the newspapers as saying that pool-rooms were not open, and that he 
 
 [383] 
 
34 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 did not believe that the Committee of Fifteen had raided any open pool- 
 room. 
 
 In a newspaper interview on April 18th, Commissioner Murphy said: 
 " As for this Committee of Fifteen business, it's a matter of politics. 
 " If there weren't an election of Mayor on in the near future you wouldn't 
 " have any Committee of Fifteen, and you wouldn't have any of this 
 " raiding of places that there's no evidence to show are pool-rooms. The 
 " fact that there's a collection of men anywhere proves nothing.'' 
 " What sort of proof do you require ? " 
 
 " They haven't arrested anyone in the act of buying or selling a 
 "pool, whatever that may be, have they? That's the only kind of evi- 
 " dence upon which I'd put a man under arrest." 
 
 " What about the statement made by a member of the Committee 
 " of Fifteen that a place at Eighth avenue and Fourteenth street was 
 " ' tipped ' by policeman Hughes or Captain Moynihan ? " 
 
 " I don't believe that any such thing was done. If they found noth- 
 " ing at the place that was because there was nothing there to find. I 
 " am convinced that the Captain and his detectives have done their duty." 
 
 "Was anything said about the incident to either of them?" 
 
 " No, nothing was said or done. The written report from the Cap- 
 " tain did not, of course, take cognizance of the alleged incident. I did 
 " not recognize it. It's not a police incident, and hence I didn't take 
 " cognizance of it. I don't believe any such thing occurred anyway." 
 
 " Have the captains reported the places that were raided last night 
 " as pool-rooms in the past? " 
 
 " The captains haven't reported them as such. I don't think they 
 " were ever suspected." 
 
 On April 18th the Committee of Fifteen raided ten " dives," and 
 arrested several of the proprietors. Among the places raided was a 
 music hall run by Alderman Frederick F. Fleck at 104 Bowery. Fleck's 
 father, John W. Fleck, was serving as a member of the April grand jury. 
 The Evening Post reported the following questions by a reporter and 
 answers by Commissioner Murphy: 
 
 " Have the fifty-five raids made by the Committee of Fifteen and 
 " other reform bodies convinced you that gambling and vice exist to 
 " any extent and that any of the police captains have neglected their 
 "duty?" 
 
 L384I 
 
COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN'S WORK 
 
 35 
 
 " No, sir; not at all." 
 
 " How do you expect these raids to result politically ? " 
 
 " Every one of them is making votes for Tammany. 
 
 On April 12th Police Commissioner Murphy was quoted in the New 
 York Times as saying that the best way to punish members of the police 
 force was to transfer them. " They hate to lose their graft," he said. 
 
 On April 29th the Evening Post published the following list of places 
 which had been raided through the efforts of the Committee of Fifteen, 
 and other agencies outside of the police department, with the names of 
 the police captains in whose precincts the places were: 
 
 GAMBLING HOUSES AND POOL ROOMS 
 
 Capt. Thomas — No. 116 West 42d street, No. 118 West 35th street, 
 No. 24 West 31st street, No. 104 West 38th street, No. 108 West 31st 
 street, No. 109 West 31st street, No. 128 West 36th street, No. 172 West 
 32d street and No. 15 West 32d street. 
 
 Capt. Donahue — No. 148 West 43d street and No. 104 West 43d 
 street. 
 
 Capt. Chapman — No. 80 Sixth avenue and No. 63 West 36th street. 
 Capt. Albert-son — No. 43 Mercer street. 
 Capt. Kear — No. 132a West 79th street. 
 
 Capt. Thompson — No. 42 Bond street, 14th street and Eighth avenue, 
 No. 86 Sixth avenue and No. 24 East 8th street. 
 Capt. Vredenburgh — No. 10 Madison street. 
 Capt. Flood — No. 117 West 23d street. 
 
 Capt. Foody — No. 313 Canal street and No. 81 Mercer street. 
 Capt. Diamond — No. 216 East 14th street. 
 Capt. Creamer — No. 50 Bond street. 
 
 DISORDERLY RESORTS 
 
 Capt. Chapman — The Pekin, West 35th street; the Berlin, West 
 29th street; the Savoy, West 29th street; Royal Garden, 28th street and 
 6th avenue. 
 
 Capt. Diamond — Second avenue and 5th street, No. 284 East Houston 
 street, No. 291 Bowery, No. 303 Bowery and No. no 3d avenue. 
 Capt. Albertson — No. 98 Avenue C. 
 Capt. Donahue — 59th street and Eighth avenue. 
 
 [385] 
 
3* 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 Capt. Cooney — No. 390 Eighth avenue and No. 562 Seventh avenue. 
 Capt. Stevenson — No. 106 Bowery. 
 Capt. Walsh — No. 253 Bowery. 
 
 Capt. Flood — Haymarket. Sixth avenue and 30th street; Bohemia, 
 No. 45 West 29th street; Alhambra, No. 37 West 28th street; Cairo, 
 No. 34 West 29th street; Empire, No. 38 West 29th street. 
 
 ILLEGAL RESORTS CONTINUE "WIDE OPEN " 
 
 Late in the evening of April 30th the Committee of Fifteen raided 
 four gambling places, taking a number of prisoners and many gambling 
 instruments. 
 
 " The " Allen, the gambler, was reported to have said on May 14th, 
 " The police are not like the police of old days. In the old days the 
 " police didn't want to take the shirt off your back. All the captains 
 " expected was a present on their birthday, or at Christmas or on 
 " New Year's. It wasn't like it is now, when people are held up for 
 " ninety dollars out of every hundred dollars they take in." 
 
 On May 15th Police Commissioner Murphy being asked what he 
 had to say as to Allen's statement, said : " I've taken the position here 
 " all along that there wasn't any gambling in New York. The news- 
 " papers say different. That's the way it is. I can only say what I've 
 " said right along." 
 
 On June 20th, before Judge Warren Foster in the Court of General 
 Sessions, three gamblers, taken in a raid of the Committee of Fifteen 
 on the gambling house at 111 East 14th Street, pleaded guilty to a 
 charge of aiding in the running of the house, and were sentenced to ten 
 days' imprisonment. 
 
 On July 24th the New York Times contained a long article describ- 
 ing in detail the open operation of several poolrooms in Long Island 
 City. The article was in part as follows : — 
 
 " The poolrooms in Long Island City were open yesterday afternoon 
 " and doing a lively business. Runners met every ferryboat from Man- 
 " hattan. Cappers had distributed small cards to people along the street, 
 " informing them of the location of the gambling places. 
 
 " During the hours in which bets can be made on the races the trolley 
 " cars were packed to the guards with bettors. The cars were run up 
 " in front of the gambling places and then the crowd thronged in the 
 
 [386] 
 
TAMMANY AND POOLROOMS 
 
 37 
 
 " barn-like structures which had been put up recently to accommodate 
 " the thousands who are expected to make Long Island City their after- 
 " noon headquarters unless the police and the Queens County officials 
 " close the places up." 
 
 A New York Times reporter went there, and within five minutes 
 after his arrival he was accosted by a Tammany city official who held 
 a job in the City Hall in Manhattan. 
 
 " You are not going to write us up, are you ? " questioned this of- 
 ficial. " If the newspapers let us alone for three weeks we'll be coin- 
 " ing money all right. That's the only thing that will stop this game." 
 
 " Who's running the business over here now?" he was asked. 
 
 " Why, the Tammany Hall people," was the reply. " There's a 
 " big district leader in Tammany Hall who has got the game over here, 
 " and if we're only let alone for a little while things will boom." 
 
 "Don't you expect police interference?" 
 
 " No. Everything's all right." 
 
 " But there was a poolroom raided here a few days ago." 
 
 " Oh, that was Dick Cook's place. He started down below the dead 
 " line. You know the arrangement was that there should be no pool- 
 " rooms below the line of the court house and toward the New York 
 " ferries. Cook opened a poolroom down in the old car stables, and 
 " the police raided the place, because he did not see the right people in 
 " Tammany Hall." 
 
 The Times of the same day quoted Police Commissioner Murphy 
 as declaring that the statements of the reporters as to the conditions in 
 Long Island City were false. " I have every evidence from Inspector 
 " Clayton, who has charge of the Queens County district, that such a 
 " condition of affairs does not exist." 
 
 " But such conditions, Commissioner, were found to exist by re- 
 a porters for the Times." 
 
 " I don't care. They may have worked their way into some places 
 " and got a false impression. There is no open pool selling in Long 
 " Island City, as you state." 
 
 In June Police Commissioner Murphy amended the rules of the po- 
 lice department so as to provide " That the buttons to be worn on the 
 " uniforms of the force shall be a shell of the best gilding material 
 " known as Prince's metal oreide, extra heavy, double-plated by the 
 
 [387] 
 
3§ 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " fire gilding or the amalgamating process with 24-karat fine gold." 
 The button covered by this regulation is patented, and it was estimated 
 by the New York World that the expense involved for each member 
 of the police force would be from nine to fifteen dollars, perhaps fifty 
 thousand dollars being paid in the aggregate. The charter provided : 
 " No patented article shall be advertised for, contracted for or purchased, 
 " except under such circumstances that there can be a fair and reason- 
 " able opportunity for competition, the conditions to secure which shall 
 " be prescribed by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment." Inves- 
 tigation disclosed the fact that the button was the invention of the wife 
 of a friend of Commissioner Murphy. 
 
 On June 13th, 1901, George Bissert, " wardman " attached to the 
 Fifth Street police station, was arrested charged with extorting money 
 from Mrs. Lina Schmidt, keeper of a disorderly house in Stuyvesant 
 Street, under the promise of police protection. 
 
 In opposing before Justice Blanchard of the Supreme Court in 
 July a motion for the removal of the Bissert case from the court of 
 general sessions to the criminal branch of the Supreme Court, District 
 Attorney Philbin said, " This matter must be tried quickly, or no matter 
 " how strong my evidence, I will be unable to gain a verdict against 
 " the accused. Most of my witnesses are in the House of Detention. 
 " The police have free access to that place. There is no way in which 
 " I can keep those witnesses from the police. Unless there is a quick 
 " trial, I fear the witnesses will be tampered with." 
 
 Bissert and Captain Diamond of that precinct were both found 
 guilty, Bissert of felony and Diamond of neglect of duty. Bissert was 
 sentenced to five and a half years in state prison and to pay a fine of 
 one thousand dollars, and Diamond was fined one thousand dollars, 
 which sentence carried with it dismissal from the force. 
 
 On August 9th Edgar A. Whitney and Ernest Bergdortf were ar- 
 rested upon complaint of agents of the Society for the Prevention of 
 Crime, upon a charge of conspiracy and aiding and abetting gambling. 
 
 A report made by Dillon, one of the agents of the Society, contained 
 a full statement of his dealings with Whitney. Whitney, representing 
 himself as the agent of a combination of gamblers, had proposed to 
 Dillon, that for two hundred and fifty dollars a month, Dillon should 
 keep him informed of the plans of the Society for the Prevention of 
 
 [3S8] 
 
WHITNEY'S CONFESSION 
 
 39 
 
 Crime, for raids, etc. Dillon had pretended to acquiesce, and had then 
 proceeded under the instructions of the officers of the Society. He had 
 received from Whitney a list of forty-five gambling places to which he 
 was expected to send tips of any proposed raids. He had been instructed 
 by Whitney that tips could be sent by telephone through police head- 
 quarters or through the police station house of the precinct in which 
 the raid was to be made. It would only be necessary to use Whitney's 
 name. If any headquarters operator refused to make any telephone 
 connection which Dillon required, Dillon was to call the " Chief." 
 " Whitney said he had had Chief Devery give orders to the operators 
 " a few days before to make any connections desired by Mr. Whitney." 
 Upon several occasions Dillon had given warning by telephone to police 
 headquarters or to precinct station houses, and in all those cases the 
 places were promptly closed. 
 
 On August 8th the final test of Whitney's system was applied by 
 the Society for the Prevention of Crime. An alarm to thirty or forty 
 poolrooms was sent by telephone through police headquarters. Within 
 fifteen or twenty minutes agents of the Society who were on watch saw 
 a general exodus of all the persons in those poolrooms, carrying with 
 them the paraphernalia of the business. 
 
 Whitney and Bergdorff were held by Justice Jerome in $5,000 bail 
 each. Whitney made a full written confession before Judge Jerome 
 which was not made public until the 21st. 
 
 Police Commissioner Murphy told the reporters that he had " no 
 official information " as to the exposures made by the Society for the 
 Prevention of Crime, but that he would investigate the matter, and 
 " go to the very bottom." Deputy Commissioner Devery was not in 
 the city. 
 
 On August 2 1 st the confession of Edgar A. Whitney was printed 
 in the newspapers. It narrated in detail how in May, 1901, Whitney 
 had arranged with Patrolman Edward A. Glennon, " wardman," to un- 
 dertake to procure from an agent of the Society for the Prevention of 
 Crime, information as to proposed raids on gambling places and disor- 
 derly houses. The lists of places to be protected, which Whitney sub- 
 sequently gave to Dillon, as well as the money which Whitney had paid 
 to Dillon by way of a bribe, were given to Whitney by Glennon. Upon 
 receiving information from Dillon that the Society was about to raid 
 
 [389] 
 
40 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 the house at No. 147 West 33d Street, Whitney had telephoned the 
 information directly to Sergeant Shields at the nineteenth precinct 
 
 station house: and Shields had replied "All right/' 
 
 " The day I wrote to Glennon before I went to the station house, 
 " I called up police headquarters in Mulberry street and asked the 
 " operator there to give me telephonic connection with the nineteenth 
 " precinct police station house. The operator asked me my name, and 
 " I told him it was Whitney. He said he could not connect me as it was 
 " against the rules of the department. I told him to connect me with 
 " the office of William S. Devery, the deputy commissioner of police, 
 " at 300 Mulberry Street, which he did, the said Devery coming to the 
 " telephone and answering. I have known William S. Devery for a long 
 " time, and have conversed with him, and have heard him talk to others, 
 ''and am familiar with his voice; and the voice that spoke to me over 
 " the 'phone I identified as that of the said Devery. 
 
 " I told Devery I was Whitney, and the operator had refused to con- 
 " nect me with the 30th Street station house, and that 1 would like to 
 " be connected as I had an important communication to Eddy Glennon. 
 " I then heard Devery call - Hello, downstairs,' and then Devery said 
 " ' Connect that party whenever he wants you to.' "***** 
 
 " In one of my conversations with Glennon subsequently to my talk 
 " with William S. Devery over the 'phone, I told Glennon about my 
 " having called up police headquarters, and that they would not connect 
 " me with the West 30th Street station, and that I had called up Deputy 
 " Commissioner Devery and had Devery connect me, and Glennon said 
 " ' Yes, Devery told me about it.' " 
 
 On August 22d the grand jury of New York County found indict- 
 ments against Patrolman Edward F. Glennon, Ward Detective John 
 Dwyer and Sergeant John H. Shields. On the same day Commissioner 
 Murphy revoked the order made by him on the 21st, suspending from 
 duty these three officers. 
 
 On August 28th Police Captain James Gannon, of the East 22d 
 street station, was discovered in the rear room of a disorderly house 
 known as the Webster Hotel, at 140 East 15th Street, when the house 
 was raided by Assistant District Attorney Sanford and two policemen 
 upon warrants issued by Justice Jerome. In May, 1901, thirty-two re- 
 spectable residents of the neighborhood had addressed to Captain Gan- 
 
 [39°] 
 
POOR ADMINISTRATION IN QUEENS 
 
 non a strong petition, asking him to abate the nuisance of disorderly 
 women on the block, and calling particular attention to the Webster Hotel. 
 No action was ever taken by him in the matter. When discovered by 
 Mr. Sanford in the house, Captain Gannon said that he had followed his 
 men who were with Mr. Sanford to " see what was up " ; that the house 
 was a perfectly respectable one, against which he had never had a com- 
 plaint; and that the proprietress was a sick woman. He addressed one 
 of the women as " Minnie." 
 
 On September 2d, in an article four columns in length, the New 
 York Times set forth in detail the wretched administration of the city 
 departments in the Borough of Queens. The article said, in part: — 
 
 " The administration of municipal affairs in the towns and villages 
 " which consolidation brought into the City of New York January 1st, 
 " 1898, has resulted in many complaints and remonstrances being sent 
 M to the New York Times by just ordinary citizens and business men 
 " and residents and property owners of social and financial importance. 
 "An investigation which these letters warranted was made. It was 
 " limited to what were the villages of Flushing and Jamaica and Queens, 
 " in Queens Borough. It found conditions that fully justified the com- 
 " munications which prompted it. A result of more than three years 
 " and a half of Tammany service, maladministration, red tape, cen- 
 " tralization, irresponsibility, and ruling by deputy has been to make a 
 " large majority of those who, by reason of business ties or residence. 
 " come under Manhattan rule through the consolidation act to aid in 
 " furnishing means to conduct the government of the city, regret that 
 " they were not left to their honest and satisfactory village administra- 
 " tions. 
 
 " The investigation failed to discover any gain by consolidation 
 " to the annexed centres of population, and in no instance was it admit- 
 " ted that any factor in public comfort or protection was in as satisfac- 
 " tory a condition as before consolidation. On the contrary, many of 
 " the elements of comfort or safety were in conditions ranging from 
 " unsatisfactory to distinctly retrograde. Criticisms or denunciation 
 " was applied to all the branches of municipal administration — fire 
 " department, police, schools, parks, water service, sanitary affairs, street 
 " conditions, street sweeping and sprinkling, the removal of house refuse 
 " and artificial lighting. The questions most discussed were the security 
 
 [39i] 
 
42 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " of life and property, and the police and the condition and cleanliness 
 " of the public thoroughfares." 
 
 " The general opinion was that through the operation of the three- 
 " platoon system and the foisting of men inactive through age or be- 
 " cause of their having been on detail duty on the suburbs, and the short- 
 " hand condition of the Seventy-sixth and Seventy-eighth Precincts, 
 " proper police protection was not afforded. A result of this was an epi- 
 " demic of housebreaking and other depredations and a widespread feeling 
 " of insecurity and apprehensions. Owing to this women dislike the men 
 " to leave their homes after dusk, and there is a constant and increasing 
 " demand for private watchmen. The streets are complained of as 
 " dilapidated and in need of repair, except in the case of Fulton Street, 
 " Jamaica, which was asphalted before consolidation; the sidewalks, 
 " curbing, culverts, crosswalks, and gutters are in a lamentable and often 
 " dangerous condition ; street sprinkling is not done at Jamaica and is 
 " paid for by citizens at Flushing, and while ashes and garbage are re- 
 " moved promptly, this service is rendered in a slipshod manner, so that 
 " the carts jolt part of their loads on the streets. There is no serious 
 " street cleaning in either Flushing, Jamaica, or Queens." 
 
 In a circular letter addressed to several thousand merchants early 
 in October, the Merchants' x\ssociation said: — 
 
 " That the rank and file of the department are honest and want to 
 " do their duty is almost certain. Personal interviews have been had 
 " with a large number of officers, who admit that they do not do their 
 " duty, because intimidated by dread of punishment by the higher authori- 
 " ties, their commanders and others, who make money by permitting 
 " crime. That crime is protected by the officials of the department is 
 " morally certain." 
 
 On October ist, in replying to charges against Devery made by 
 the Merchants' Association, Police Commissioner Murphy said: — 
 
 " There has been no question raised in cither charges or specifica- 
 " tions as to the efficiency of the First Deputy Commissioner. He is 
 " an officer of the police force of ninny years' standing, and of wide 
 "experience, and he understands — in my opinion — the characters of 
 " the various members of the force and the means to be adopted for 
 " discipline. The efficiency and integrity of the police of this city can 
 " only be maintained by the enforcement of such discipline," 
 
 T392] 
 
"GRAFTING" WITHIN THE FORCE 
 
 43 
 
 On October 3d the Chamber of Commerce adopted the following 
 preamble and resolution : — 
 
 " Whereas, There is a widespread and well-founded belief in this 
 ** city that certain officials in the Police Department are addicted to cor- 
 14 rupt practices, and are soliciting and receiving moneys for the wicked 
 " protection of vice and crime, thus encouraging the lawless element of 
 " this city to the detriment of decent and honest government, and to 
 "the endangering of life and property; and 
 
 " Whereas, The Charter of Greater New York has conferred upon 
 " the mayor the high duty and responsibility of removing the head of 
 "any department that is incompetent or guilty of violations of law; 
 " therefore, be it 
 
 " Resolved, That the president of this chamber be and hereby is 
 " directed to urge the mayor to exercise the supreme power vested in 
 " him to the end that the reproach now universally resting upon the gov- 
 " ernment and good name of this city may be speedily removed." 
 
 On October 6th the Committee of Fifteen issued a report on vice 
 in tenement houses, under date of October 1st. The Committee an- 
 nounced that there were on file in its office sworn statements against 
 290 separate apartments in 237 tenement houses in Manhattan in which 
 prostitutes violated the Tenement House Law. It said further that the 
 evidence in these statements was of a character such as had previously 
 secured conviction in similar cases tried in the criminal courts of this 
 county. 
 
 " GRAFTING " WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT 
 
 Under Tammany the general system of blackmail was two-fold in 
 scope. The force as a force blackmailed every available kind of vice 
 and crime, and extorted tribute from all who were in positions to be 
 harrassed by police power. In turn, the ruling powers at headquarters 
 " grafted " upon the force itself. 
 
 No member of the force could secure promotion, and no applicant 
 for appointment to the force could secure the appointment, unless he 
 paid the specified sum expected from him. 
 
 A captain seeking promotion to the position of inspector was ex- 
 pected to pay from $15,000 to $20,000 to "get the goods." Only two 
 inspectors, however, were appointed during the Tammany regime, and 
 
 [393] 
 
44 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 they secured their appointment by the power of certain powerful Tam- 
 many politicians. 
 
 Sergeants seeking promotion to the position of captain had to pay 
 from $12,000 to $15,000. On December 27th, 1900, the York-Sexton 
 board, after holding off the appointments for a long time, appointed 
 sixteen sergeants to the grade of captain from a civil service eligible list. 
 In February, 1901, three more captains were appointed. At the request 
 of the Civil Service Reform Association, the state civil service commis- 
 sion in May, 1901, made an investigation of these appointments. After 
 an exhaustive examination the commission unanimously came to the 
 conclusion that the result of the action of the police board, in marking 
 the record of the candidates, was to set aside competition, and that the 
 police board " arbitrarily, and at least substantially, fixed the status of 
 " candidates upon the eligible list." They further found that the promo- 
 tions made by the police board were based upon political considerations. 
 It was common talk at the time that these promotions had been pur- 
 chased. One of the appointees made payment in promissory notes. 
 
 Roundsmen seeking promotion to the grade of captain were expected 
 to pay $2,500; and patrolmen seeking promotion, $1,000 to $1,500. 
 Applicants for the position of patrolmen had to pay $300. 
 
 It was notorious that civil service examination papers were sold 
 in the department. 
 
 Everyone who knew the workings of the police department, or who 
 investigated police matters, agreed that much of the crookedness centred 
 about the police surgeons. It was a common joke about police head- 
 quarters that when a surgeon examined for physical fitness, or when 
 he gave notice that he would testify against, a member of the force he 
 expected to be " seen." The power of the surgeons to affect, by their 
 reports upon the physical condition of the men, matters of promotion, 
 appointment, removal, and retirement was very great. The result of 
 charges of intoxication depended commonly upon a surgeon's testimony, 
 and it was generally recognized that these cases were a common source 
 of " rake-off " for the surgeons. 
 
 The members of the force, from patrolmen up, were expected to 
 recoup themselves by " grafting " in various forms for the sums which 
 they had to pay for appointment or promotion. Nearly all inspectors, 
 captains, and sergeants who owned their promotions to Tammany and 
 
 [394] 
 
THE FORCE DEMORALIZED 
 
 45 
 
 as to whose private means specific information has been made public, 
 have proved to be rich. After the death of Captain Donohue in October, 
 1902, a tin box containing $34,000 was found in his desk at the station 
 house. One of his wardmen tried to get possession of this box. 
 
 The force was demoralized. If a patrolman who had influential 
 friends was brought up on charges, he escaped easily. The following 
 cases illustrate this : — 
 
 On May 2d, 1901, Deputy Chief of Police Devery, sitting to hear 
 charges against policemen, dismissed a complaint against Patrolman 
 McManus. Upon the 24th of January McManus had pleaded guilty to 
 a charge of failure to support his children, in the Court of Special Ses- 
 sions, and had been sentenced to imprisonment for three months. Be- 
 fore Devery testimony was given to the effect that after he had been 
 sentenced McManus had said that he thought that he had not pleaded 
 guilty. Devery then said with great violence, " Why, it's an outrage. 
 " Here's a man sent to prison without trial, and recorded as pleading 
 " guilty when he didn't. That's Jerome. That ain't right. I dismiss 
 " the complaint. Jerome can't run New York. There's a lot of tin 
 " soldiers going around the streets of New York with guns on their 
 " shoulders, breaking into people's houses, shooting their guns off in 
 " the streets, and raising riots in the city, disgracing the whole com- 
 " munity." 
 
 At the same sitting Devery heard testimony upon the charges of 
 a patrolman that a roundsman had hounded and abused him. The charge 
 was supported by the testimony of three witnesses. The roundsman made 
 a charge of being off post against the patrolman, unsupported by wit- 
 nesses. Devery fined the patrolman thirty days' pay, saying, " You ain't 
 " worth thirty cents. You're light as tissue paper. If you're the kind 
 " of man we get from the civil service, we don't want any more of them. 
 " The next time you come before me I'll break you." 
 
 In collection with another case at the same sitting, Devery said 
 to the reporters, " You men were all there looking for a sensation. It's 
 " too bad you didn't have a brass band with you to make more noise 
 " and more sensation with, and to cause more inconvenience to the 
 " public. It's too bad you didn't have that tin soldier with a gun on his 
 " shoulder and a tin can tied to his tail that I spoke about a while ago. 
 " Then you would had plenty of excitement." 
 
 [395] 
 
4 6 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 On May 3d Justice Jerome gave out a statement of the case of 
 Patrolman McManus, made up from the records of the Society for the 
 Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the records of the Court of Special 
 Sessions. The statement showed the following facts : — 
 
 In February, 1892, McManus, though married, was found to be 
 living with a fifteen-year-old girl. The girl was rescued by the Society, 
 and McManus was tried before Police Commissioner Sheehan for con- 
 duct unbecoming an officer. Decision reserved. On March 5th, 1892, 
 McManus was held for trial in General Sessions on a charge of rape. 
 After a number of adjournments and arraignments in the Court of 
 General Sessions, Judge Martine dismissed the indictment on a tech- 
 nicality. 
 
 Later, the matter of his family was investigated, and it was found 
 that a wife and four children were destitute. A warrant was issued for 
 the arrest of McManus, but he disappeared. It was stated that he had 
 been dismissed from the force for neglect of duty and intoxication. 
 The children were cared for by semi-public institutions. 
 
 A year later, in 1898, McManus was charged by his wife with 
 failing to support her. He promised to pay his wife $6 a week, and 
 was released, but did not do so, and on January 21st, 1901, was arraigned 
 in the Fourth District City Magistrate's Court. He admitted on that 
 occasion that he was living with a Mrs. Daly, of No. 267 Tenth Avenue. 
 
 On January 24th, before Justices Jerome, Jacobs and McKean, in 
 the Court of Special Sessions, McManus was sentenced to three months 
 in the penitentiary. 
 
 In reply to a reporter's question whether there was any reason for 
 keeping Patrolman McManus on the police force, notwithstanding his 
 record, Deputy Commissioner Devery said, " There are reasons unknown 
 " to you and to me." 
 
 On August 15th Deputy Police Commissioner Devery sat to try 
 complaints against policemen. Addressing a patrolman who had been 
 seen by the roundsman to stand talking to a woman for fifteen minutes, 
 he said : — 
 
 " When you're caught with the goods on you and you can't get away 
 " with it, you want to stand up with nerve and take your medicine. You 
 " don't know nothin' then. No matter under what circumstances, a man 
 
 [396] 
 
PATROLMAN O'NEIL'S CASE 
 
 47 
 
 " doesn't want to know nothin' when he's caught with the goods on him. 
 " You tell your lady to tip you off next time. Always get tipped off. 
 " You don't want to go blind to these things hereafter." 
 
 Among the complaints brought before Deputy Police Commissioner 
 Devery on September 12th was that of Captain Price against James 
 O'Brien, a precinct detective. Captain Price testified that he had found 
 O'Brien drinking in a saloon, and had ordered him to go to the station 
 house; and that thereupon O'Brien had refused to obey, swearing at 
 Price. O'Brien did not present any witnesses. Devery said: — 
 
 " Everybody seems to want to smash this man O'Brien. The only 
 " trouble with him is that he is too good. There ain't a crook or a burglar 
 " on the other side of the river that he don't get. He's made a suc- 
 " cess of every captain that's been sent there. Of course, I don't mean 
 " you, Capt. Price, you've made your own success. But don't think it's 
 " because Devery put O'Brien where he is that I say this about him. 
 " He's a good man, and he's making records for a lot of people that want 
 " to smash him. I'll put him up against your two wardmen, Price, for 
 " skill as an officer. Everybody wants to get at him because he knows 
 " Devery. This case is dismissed." 
 
 It was generally understood that transfers could be secured for pay- 
 ment, and that complaints by sergeants and roundsmen were against 
 men who had no influential friends. It was also understood that upon 
 " seeing " a certain go-between a remittance of fines imposed could be 
 secured. 
 
 Among the complaints heard by Deputy Police Commissioner Dev- 
 ery on August 29th was that of Elias Hollender, a dealer in hardware 
 and crockery, 3086 Third Avenue, against Patrolman Edward O'Neil. 
 Hollender complained that the officer was rough and violent in arresting 
 Hollender for selling goods on Sunday, contrary to law. Devery's exami- 
 nation of O'Xeil proceeded as follows : — 
 
 Devery — They ought to have taken you and thrown you out of 
 the window. What right have you to go in there and interfere with 
 this man trying to make his living? 
 
 O'Neil — Why, I arrested him because he was guilty of a violation 
 of law in my presence. 
 
 Devery — Yv'hat ? I think he has as good a right to sell as any of 
 them grocers up there. He was selling dishes so that this lady could 
 
 [397] 
 
4* 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 eat or make her little cup of tea. You went in there and interfered and 
 pulled those people out, using a revolver. 
 
 O'Neil — I was obeying orders from the station house. 
 
 Devery — We're having enough of that kind of thing already — 
 people going in and interfering with other people in making a little 
 living in their own way. Perhaps in a day or two we will have Mrs. 
 Nation and a lot of other tin soldiers traveling around here. She and 
 those other tin soldiers will be coming down on us to enforce these blue 
 laws, and making it so that a man can't make a living. You ought to be in 
 the fifth or sixth ring of that party. You ought to have a little hatchet, 
 too. It's the rottenest kind of thing, this having a lot of tin soldiers 
 going around and interfering with business. It's a bloody outrage. 
 
 O'Neil — I suppose if I'd stand for a shakedown you'd stand for it. 
 
 "Devery — I'll fine you thirty days. 
 
 O'Neil — I won't stand for it. I'll take it up higher. You won't 
 do anything of the sort — fine me thirty days. I've been transferred 
 six times in four months because I won't stand for shaking down. I've 
 paid $45 
 
 Devery — Come back here. What's that you say ? 
 
 O'Neil — I said that I had been transferred six times in the last 
 four months and I wouldn't stand for a shakedown. 
 
 Devery — I'll make a complaint of insubordination against you. 
 
 On September 4th, Patrolman O'Neil said to the newspaper re- 
 porters : — 
 
 " I have given Mr. Garvan [an assistant district attorney] the name 
 " of the man who tried to shake me down. This transfer business has 
 " been going on in the department ever since Conlin's time to my own 
 " knowledge. It dwindled down some under McCullagh, and then, when 
 " Devery came in, it became worse than it ever was. I know many police- 
 " men who have paid $25 rather than leave precincts near their homes. 
 " In many cases it was cheaper than moving. I told the Justice of many 
 " cases I know of." 
 
 On September 6th, Patrolman O'Neil was placed on trial before 
 Deputy Police Commissioner York, on charges of conduct unbecoming 
 an officer. The charges were based upon the controversy between O'Neil 
 and Devery on August 29th. O'Neil testified that it was "a common 
 station-house rumor that if you pay twenty-five dollars you will be 
 
 [398] 
 
DEVERY AS TRIAL JUDGE 
 
 49 
 
 " taken care of for a year " ; that after he had been transferred a num- 
 ber of times he had been approached by a patrolman who professed to 
 have a pull, and who said that for twenty-five dollars he would have 
 O'Xeil transferred to a precinct nearer his home, "' with guarantee." 
 John Marrinan, a patrolman, testified that after he had been fined twenty 
 days' pay he had been directed by another policeman to Barney Hirsch, 
 a saloon-keeper, at Grand and Allen Streets. Hirsch had said that he 
 did business with Glennon, that he M represented the lower part of the 
 city," and that for fifty dollars he would have Marrinan's fine remitted. 
 Replying to a question of Deputy Commissioner York, Marrinan said : 
 — I mean simply that when a man does something straight he is 
 hounded." Patrolman Ryan testified as follows: — 
 
 Question — Were you transferred to Kinrrsbridge ? 
 
 Answer — Yes, on my own request. 
 
 O. — When were you transferred again? 
 
 A. — Four weeks later I was transferred to Delancey Street, and 
 a week later to High Bridge, and three months later to East One Hun- 
 dred and Fourth Street, and four days later to King's Bridge. 
 
 Q. — Were you ever approached by any one ? 
 
 A. — T was told by a man if I paid $25 I would be sent uptown 
 again. That was the second day T was in the One Hundred and Fourth 
 Street station. I promised to pay. and was sent uptown and have not 
 seen the man since. 
 
 O. — When were you to pay? 
 
 A. — After the 1st of September; that is, after pay day. 
 
 On September i2tli. Patrolman John Marrinan was brought before 
 Deputy Police Commissioner Devery upon a charge of having a soiled 
 uniform. The examination by Devery was in part as follows: — 
 
 Devery — Well, what yer got to say to that? 
 
 Marrinan — I had a woman prisoner the night before who was very 
 dirty and she soiled my clothing. 
 
 Devery — Did she dress you in the mornin' ? 
 
 Marrinan — No, but she was a very unclean woman and 
 
 Devery — Unclean, you call her unclean! No matter how dirty 
 she was she was cleaner than you — you — you 
 
 .Marrinan — I don't think so, sir. 
 
 * * *, * * * 
 
 [ml 
 
THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 Marrinan — Now, now 
 
 Devery — Now ! now ! Just spit it out. You're a bum. Clear out 
 of here, and keep away from me. I'll fine you fifteen days' pay. Now 
 go, you, you dirty bum you, and see if you can get that fine remitted. 
 Go on, you bum, you loafer, you 
 
 The rest of what Devery said here was so foul that none of the news- 
 papers would print it. Marrinan swore that he had been told that 
 " Wardman " Glennon could get his fine remitted for $50. 
 
 On September 23d, Police Commissioner Murphy announced that, 
 upon the findings of Deputy Commissioner York, he had dismissed 
 Patrolman Edward O'Neil from the police force because no other course 
 was open to him under the findings of Deputy Commissioner York. The 
 findings were in part as follows : — 
 
 * " It is conceded in this case that O'Neil made a statement; he does 
 "not deny it upon his trial; on the contrary, sought to prove it; he has 
 t. failed to do so — the only excuse offered being that the words were 
 " uttered while he was laboring under great excitement, and, therefore, 
 " he should be absolved from any serious punishment by reason of 
 " their use. 
 
 " There is no question as to his guilt of the charge as stated — 
 "conduct unbecoming an officer — but, as the case is one that has at- 
 Y tracted a very large degree of attention, it is proper, therefore, so 
 " far as the imposing of a sentence is concerned, that it should be 
 " left to the head of the department, and to that end, therefore, the 
 " case is respectfully referred to the Commissioner for the imposi- 
 tion of such penalty as' in his judgment the character of the offense 
 " calls for." 
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF COMMISSIONER PARTRIDGE 
 
 On January 1st, 1902, Mayor Low appointed Colonel John N. Part- 
 ridge as commissioner of police. Colonel Partridge had been commis- 
 sioner of the Brooklyn police during Mr. Low's term as mayor of Brook- 
 lyn in 1881-83. His administration of the Brooklyn police was so satis- 
 factory to Mr. Low that, upon assuming office as mayor of New York 
 City, nineteen years later, Mayor Low selected him as head of the great 
 department of police of the greater city. 
 
 [400! 
 
COMMISSIONER PARTRIDGE 
 
 SI 
 
 But there was a radical difference between the Brooklyn police force 
 in 1881-83 and the police force of New York City in 1902. The Brooklyn 
 force in those years was comparatively small, and presented no such 
 problems as confronted the head of the New Vork City force in 1902. 
 As head of the Brooklyn police, Colonel Partridge did not have to deal 
 with a thoroughly demoralized and corruptly officered force. It was 
 a force in which political favoritism had been notoriously exploited, and 
 doubtless individual instances of police corruption had occurred. But 
 as a whole the Brooklyn force had not been made the instrument of a 
 rooted system of blackmail. That system, long since in operation in 
 what was then New York City, had not been transplanted to Brooklyn. 
 The management of the Brooklyn force required no great administrative 
 qualities; and it was not difficult for a comnr'ssioner of moderate abil- 
 ities to conduct the department well. 
 
 With the New York City force in 1902 the situation was difficult 
 and complicated. The force of nearly eight thousand men was distrib- 
 uted in eighty precincts of the most varied character. The administration 
 of so large a body called for a far higher degree of executive ability 
 than the management of a force of fifteen hundred men. It was, how- 
 ever, not the magnitude of the police force or the extent of territory 
 which demanded a vigorous, intelligent, honest commissioner, but the 
 state of the force. The comprehensive system of blackmail which had 
 prevailed under former Tammany administrations had been both en- 
 larged in scope and made more cohesive under Mayor Van Wyck's ad- 
 ministration. When Col. Partridge assumed the office of commissioner 
 on January 1st, 1902, the force was demoralized. For four years there 
 had been a direct, and almost open, alliance between the police and the 
 criminal classes. The force was officered largely by men who had 
 benefited by this alliance, and who were prepared to continue it. The 
 honest men on the force had been overawed into indirect participation 
 in " the system," or at least into submission. To do so would have in- 
 vited quick reprisals. The most corrupt men in the force were its of- 
 ficers; the honest men were subordinates. The force, which cost the tax- 
 payers nearly twelve million dollars a year, and whose business was to 
 suppress crime, was paid yearly an amount, perhaps equally large, every 
 year by the criminal classes to license crime. The greater part of this 
 sum went to the higher officers and Tammany politicians, but " the 
 
 [401] 
 
5- 7 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 system " of organized blackmail was so perfected in detail, and in execu- 
 tion so relentless, that every member of the force was dragged into 
 active or passive connivance and the morale of the entire force destroyed. 
 When appointments were sold at a specified rate, when promotions were 
 auctioned off to the highest bidder, when both patrolmen and superior 
 officers were expected to recoup themselves by blackmail, where the 
 police force was a virtual protector of vice and crime, obviously there 
 could be neither real discipline nor efficiency. When Colonel Partridge 
 took office it was evident to every observer that the corrupt powers in 
 the police department would exert all their ingenuity to accomplish 
 two things; — first, to keep up the system of blackmail by which they 
 profited so largely; and, second, to prevent detection and consequent 
 punishment. 
 
 To cope effectively with such a force required an energetic, fearless 
 commissioner, with a knowledge of the men with whom he had to deal 
 and the will to execute his purposes. Commissioner Partridge soon 
 proved his inadequacy. He could have availed himself of trustworthy 
 sources of information both within and without the department in find- 
 ing out the reputation and character of the officers, .and in ascertaining 
 the conditions prevailing in the department. 
 
 But Commissioner Partridge took no adequate measures either to 
 break up the alliance between the police and crime or to get a proper 
 understanding of the underlying conditions in the department. On the 
 contrary, he showed his continued ignorance of the problem with which 
 he had to deal, by making his principal uniformed adviser Inspector 
 Cross, who has since been dismissed from the force, and whose reputa- 
 tion among policemen and others familiar with the affairs of the force 
 was of the worst. The presence of notoriously corrupt officers at 
 headquarters and the evident influence which they exerted over Com- 
 missioner Partridge discouraged the honest men on the force. Black- 
 mail and bribery went oh as before, except that as the risk was greater 
 under an unfriendly administration, the " protection " rates were higher. 
 Between Twenty-Third and Forty-Fifth Streets, in the central part of 
 the city, a number of large gambling houses continued in full opera- 
 tion. Tt was common talk among those who knew that one of these 
 houses in West Fortieth Street was under the direct protection of one 
 of the high uniformed officers at headquarters. When this officer wns 
 
 1 402] 
 
BLACKMAIL STILL PAID 
 
 53 
 
 asked by Commissioner Partridge to make out a list of gambling houses 
 he did not inelude this well-known house. It was notorious that in 
 three-quarters of the precincts where policy was sold, money was paid 
 over every month to the police captains for protection. The " China- 
 town " gambling syndicate, controlled by rich Chinese merchants, still 
 operated under police protection at number 16 PeU Street. " China- 
 town " had long since become known in the force as one of the " rich- 
 est " parts of the city; and it was authoritatively estimated that not less 
 than $40,000 was collected annually by the police for protection." Un- 
 der Commissioner Partridge disorderly women in " Chinatown " were 
 assessed twenty-five cents a week in addition to the amount that they 
 had been paying before for police " protection," because, in the phrase 
 of the police, " the chances we take are bigger." Saloons and illegal 
 resorts of various kinds still paid blackmail. Some of these dives, where 
 unnatural and revolting crimes were practised, ran openly in Third 
 Avenue between Fourteenth and Twenty-Third Streets and in other 
 parts of the city, yet Commissioner Partridge knew nothing of their 
 existence. At no time did he take steps to acquaint himself with the 
 conditions. He allowed himself to be easily imposed upon. Frequently, 
 for spectacular purposes, inspectors and captains made raids; but Com- 
 missioner Partridge did not seem to be aware of the fact that it was a 
 common practice of inspectors and captains to notify the newspaper 
 reporters of intended raids the success of which depended upon absolute 
 secrecy. The court records showed that these raids seldom resulted in 
 conviction. Commissioner Partridge's weakness and inefficiency satis- 
 fied the leaders of " the system." One of the most notorious officers 
 in the department was heard by two credible witnesses to say, "What? 
 Partridge? He's all right. Only leave him alone." 
 
 'The men in the force regulated their conduct witii the conviction 
 that, if they did anything- hostile to the criminal element which they be- 
 lieved to be still in control of the force, they, would be made to suffer. 
 They believed that this criminal element would go to any lengths to 
 " get square " with any patrolman who " did not mind his own business." 
 1 )eceut men in the force asserted that it was no exaggeration to say 
 that a policeman who defied this element in such a way as to become 
 dangerous to it would place his life in danger. 
 
 Commissioner Partridge did not seem to know, what every observer 
 
 [403] 
 
54 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 knew, that a great proportion of the inspectors and captains bore the 
 worst reputations. Many of them were friends of Devery, and had be- 
 come rich. At such times as he sought evidence of the existence of 
 illegal resorts Commissioner Partridge turned the investigation over to 
 the very police officials who were conniving at the existence of these 
 places. The only remedy that occurred to Commissioner Partridge was 
 the occasional transfers of inspectors and captains. Of this old, futile 
 practise District Attorney Jerome said : — 
 
 " I can't possibly see any good in shifting one grafter into the place 
 " of another. Nothing is gained by it. I have asked from the beginning 
 "of the present administration that the captains be kept in their places. 
 " If the captain is a good, honest man there is no use in sending him 
 "into a neighborhood where he is not acquainted with the people; and 
 " if he is a grafter, he will graft in one place, just as he did in the other. 
 " The old administration used a shake-up ' for the benefit of the service.' 
 " Everybody knows what that meant. Tf a captain is a crook, it is much 
 '* easier to get him if you leave him in his old haunts." 
 
 Among the captains transferred by Commissioner Partridge was 
 Daniel C. Moynahan. The evidence upon which he was indicted for 
 extortion and convicted, showed that upon the very day of his transfer, 
 he began to make arrangements with the keepers of disorderly houses 
 in his new precinct for the payment of tribute. 
 
 Such charges as were preferred against police officers under Com- 
 missioner Partridge were made, not by the commissioner, but by Dis- 
 trict Attorney Jerome and other outside agencies. Commissioner Part- 
 ridge had the power to suspend men under charges, but with two ex- 
 ceptions he allowed them to retain their positions with full pay. 
 
 Of the ninety members of the force dismissed from the force in 
 1902 all, with a few exceptions, were patrolmen. The full list of the 
 dismissals made by Commissioner Partridge with the reasons for the dis- 
 missals are given in Appendix L, page 79. No inspectors were dis- 
 missed by Commissioner Partridge. Those of higher officers who 
 were dismissed and who bore bad reputations, were Captains Daniel 
 C. Moynihan and John Reanlon and Acting Captain James Churchill. 
 
 Of the basis of "the system" Commissioner Partridge proved him- 
 self entirely ignorant. Even the most superficial observer of police af- 
 fairs knew that the K wardmen " were the backbone of " the system." 
 
 [404 1 
 
"GRAFTERS" IN CHARGE OF THE FORCE 55 
 
 Commissioner Partridge reduced the excessive number of men assigned 
 to duty in plain clothes. But he made no apparent change in the matter 
 of precinct detectives, commonly called " wardmen," two of whom were 
 designated by each captain for service in his precinct. These " ward- 
 men " were the agents of the captains in blackmailing and collecting 
 tribute, and were taken from precinct to precinct by captains who were 
 transferred, as regularly as they had been under Tammany. 
 
 While " grafters " were allowed virtually to direct the affairs of the 
 department, the severest penalties were inflicted upon patrolmen who 
 violated the rules of the department. 
 
 This policy of " pounding " the patrolmen for trivial offenses, while 
 nothing was done to rid the department of the big offenders who were 
 responsible for the system of blackmail, spread demoralization through- 
 out the force. Other factors contributed to this result. 
 
 Every honest man in the force saw that Commissioner Partridge 
 knew nothing of the real composition of the force and the character of 
 the superior officers. Commissioner Partridge and his deputies adopted 
 the idea of ruling the police force according to military ideas. The word 
 of the superior officer was accepted absolutely as against the subordinate. 
 In a force where the superior officers had, for the most part, secured 
 their promotions by bribery; where the superior officers were the bene- 
 ficiaries of blackmailing: and where the honest men, as a rule, remained 
 subordinates — the attempt to instil a spirit of respect among the men 
 for their superiors excited only ridicule, and added to the prevalent 
 demoralization. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the men were often forced to report crimes 
 and other events in a way indicated by their superior officers. It was 
 also a common experience for sergeants and roundsmen to make com- 
 plaints against men who had either no influential friends or who " made 
 trouble.'' This " trouble " consisted in arresting for violations of the 
 law men and women who were paying for f J protection." The men were 
 expected not to run counter to jj the system " ; if they did they were 
 cither transferred far from their homes, or dismissed or disciplined on 
 trumped-up charges. A special point was also made against patrolmen 
 who would not pay assessments or make presents to their superior of- 
 ficers. 
 
 The transferring of men from precinct to precinct was an old abuse 
 
 [405] 
 
5^ 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 which Commissioner Partridge did little to remedy. It was made to 
 serve a two-fold purpose by " the system." Patrolmen who were not 
 pliable were transferred to precincts where they " could do no harm," 
 and for $25 or $50 a patrolman could secure transfer to a precinct near 
 his home. Commissioner Partridge promised to transfer the members 
 of the force in such a way that each should live as near as possible to 
 his station house. Many of the men lived miles from their precincts, and 
 the uncertainty as to transfers discouraged the members of the force 
 from moving their homes so that they should be near their work. With 
 few exceptions every transfer of a patrolman was made on the request 
 of his captain, or upon the man's request, approved by the captain. A 
 corrupt captain could easily abuse this power. 
 
 • Commissioner Partridge made no effort to apply to police methods 
 a general telephone and signal system. Other cities had complete and 
 effective systems of police telephones, and in the Bronx and Brooklyn 
 systems of police signal boxes were installed, but in Manhattan there 
 was no police signal service. A citizen in Manhattan borough who 
 needed instant police aid or a patrolman on duty had to call up head- 
 quarters through the public central, and get into communication with 
 the proper station through headquarters. This meant considerable delay. 
 
 In reviewing his work Commissioner Partridge, in an authoritative 
 statement published in the iVczv York World, November 30th, 1902. said 
 in substance : — 
 
 That at the close of 1903 conditions in the police department would 
 be much more satisfactory than at the time when the statement was made. 
 
 That he had been working quietly to learn the men, with a view to 
 placing those upon whom he could absolutely rely where they could be 
 of greatest service in reforming the department. 
 
 That he had retired T13 men, and had dismissed 74, — a much greater 
 number 111 proportion to the time covered than had been retired and dis- 
 missed by either the Strong or the Van Wyek administration. 
 
 That the net result of retirements, abolition of sinecures, and re- 
 duction of the number of men at headquarters, in the detective bureau 
 and in the bicycle squad, had been to increase by 300 the number of able- 
 bodied men available for active patrol service. 
 
 That " Deveryism " was on the decrease in the department all the 
 time. 
 
 I400J 
 
CITY CLUB'S INVESTIGATION 
 
 57 
 
 That he was confident that there was no such systematic collection 
 of blackmail as formerly. 
 
 That gambling had decreased, and had been greatly restricted. 
 
 That he had proved that officers proved guilty of serious charges 
 could expect no leniency. 
 
 That it had been demonstrated that appointments, promotions, and 
 transfers could not be obtained for a consideration. 
 
 That discipline had been greatly improved. 
 
 Some weeks before Commissioner Partridge's statement was pub- 
 lished The City Club had begun an elaborate investigation, extending 
 over six weeks, of the police department. The report of the committee 
 which conducted the investigation said with reference to Commissioner 
 I 'artridge's statement : — 
 
 " These conclusions deserve the consideration due to the statements 
 " of an officer whose sincerity and honesty are unquestioned. It is fair, 
 " however, to ask by what process and from what sources the commis- 
 " sioncr obtained the information upon which his conclusions rest. 
 
 " We desire to make it clear that the purpose of this statement is 
 " neither to controvert nor to sustain the views of Commissioner Part- 
 " ridge. Our investigation of the police department was begun long 
 " before his statement was published, and has, we believe, been conducted 
 " without passion or prejudice. Indeed, it is hardly necessary to 
 " say that The City Club, having co-operated in the election of 
 " Mayor Low, would prefer to find that the facts were entirely favor- 
 " able to the administration, and that the evil condition which had 
 " developed under Tammany had been cured during the present year. 
 " Tammany was voted out of power chiefly because of its administra- 
 " tion of the police department. Whether justifiably or not, public at- 
 " tention is now concentrated upon what is generally believed to be the 
 " failure to reform that department, rather than upon the great improve- 
 " merit which has been wrought in other branches of the city govern- 
 " ment." 
 
 " The committee does not attempt, however, to present legal proof 
 " of all the facts stated. The committee's purpose has been to procure, 
 " through the best sources available, information as to specific facts, and 
 " further information showing what may be called the popular opinion 
 
 [407] 
 
58 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " in the force and among those best informed about the department. The 
 " committee does not believe that its function is to make a series of 
 " legal cases. It believes, ns a body of citizens interested in the govern- 
 " ment of the city, and alive to the vital importance to the cause of 
 " decent government of an intelligent and determined effort to improve 
 " the efficiency and the morale of the police force, that The City Club has 
 " discharged its duty when it has given a picture, as accurate as cir- 
 " cumstances will permit, of the conditions constituting • the police prob- 
 " lem.' Nothing is stated that has not been so presented to the committee 
 " as to appear to be at least a moral certainty. The statement of the 
 " beliefs which we have found to prevail among the men in the police 
 "force and observers not in the force, must not be understood to imply 
 " that the committee entertains these beliefs ; but the fact that such be- 
 " liefs exist generally among those most familiar with the department 
 1 has been fully proved to us, and is an important and significant fact. 
 " Their very existence is in itself a part of the existing conditions which 
 " must be recognized in any intelligent effort to correct abuses. The 
 " City Club neither attacks nor defends the police force or the police ad- 
 " ministration. It makes no argument. It finds the following facts: — 
 
 " That among intelligent observers, whether police officers or others, 
 " the following beliefs are held with practical unanimity: — 
 
 "' a. That Commissioner Partridge's administration is a failure, 
 " and the commissioner weak and gullible. 
 
 " b. That the ' grafters ' and criminals in the department say, that 
 " Commissioner Partridge is 1 all right.' ' Only leave him alone.' 
 
 " c. That nobody fears him; but that wrongdoers in the force fear 
 " District Attorney Jerome. 
 
 " d. That blackmail and extortions by the police continue, with higher 
 " prices. 
 
 " c. That the affairs of the force are somehow controlled in large 
 " measure by a corrupt and criminal element in the force itself. 
 
 " f. That promotions and appointments are paid for. but that suspi 
 " cion does not attach to the commissioner. 
 
 . f g. That 75 per cent, or 8o per cent, of the force voted for Low in 
 " k;oi, and that 90 per cent, voted for Coler in 1902. 
 
 ''h. That Captain Piper's 'pounding' makes the patrolmen 'sore,' 
 H because bigger offenders escape punishment. 
 
 1 408 1 
 
STATE OF THE FORCE 
 
 '• i. That the application of strict military methods is unfair to the 
 " rank and file in a force in which, as in the police force, the superior 
 " officers as a body are under serious suspicion. 
 
 " j. That the criminals in the force say that Captain Piper's course 
 " in emphasizing formal infractions of discipline shows that he is not ' on 
 " to them.' 
 
 '* k. That the men must report as indicated by their superior officers. 
 " or suffer the consequences. 
 
 " 1. That the criminals in the department will go to any lengths to 
 " protect themselves in case of necessity. 
 
 " m. That no man in the force who values his job will go against 
 " these criminals. 
 
 * n. That the men expect Tammany to come back. 
 
 *' <>. That the retention of men like Cross and Titus in important 
 " places has discouraged the decent mtn. 
 
 " p. That Devery has influence in the force. 
 
 * q. That many of the complaints by roundsmen and other officers 
 u against patrolmen are against men without influential friends. 
 
 " r. That ' fake ' rescues and other bogus heroic actions appear in 
 "the records to the credit of favored men; and that the records of the 
 " men at headquarters are of little value. 
 
 ' s. That the common belief, freely expressed among the men, is 
 " that the inspectors and captains, with few exceptions, are corrupt and 
 " therefore rich. 
 
 " t. That civil service examnation papers are sold in the depart- 
 " ment. and that there is probably some crookedness in the office of the 
 {t Civil Service Commissioner. 
 
 " u. That raids made by captains are not usually made in good faith, 
 " but are made for the purpose of s u ing the captains or of putting the 
 " screws on law-breakers for financial ends. 
 
 " v. That the uncertainty as to the enforcement of the excise law has 
 " worried and demoralized the force. 
 
 " w. That the retirement with pensions of officers whom the men 
 " commonly call ' notorious grafters.' and the failure to suspend others of 
 " the same class under charges, have created dissatisfaction among 
 " the men. 
 
 " Section 292 of the charter gives the commissioner power to sus- 
 
 [409] 
 
6o 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " pend men under charges, without pay; but it seems probable that the 
 " dissatisfaction said to prevail as to retirements rests upon a misap- 
 " prehension of the law requiring the commissioner to make retirements. 
 
 " x. That the force is demoralized, — many say more demoralized 
 " than under Devery." 
 
 The report showed further that Commissioner Partridge had not 
 taken steps to correct the abuses in which the ". wardmen " were the 
 chief instruments, that he had permitted loose and corrupt methods to 
 continue in the detective bureau, the complaint bureau, the bureau of 
 repairs, and the board of police surgeons, that the decent men in the 
 force did not feel that the commissioner would protect them if in the 
 discharge of their duty they incurred the displeasure of rascally su- 
 periors, and that the commissioner had not taken steps to supply the 
 department with a much needed signal system. 
 
 Upon this report, the board of trustees of The City Club determined 
 to ask Mayor Low to remove Commissioner Partridge. Half an hour 
 before the time at which a committee of the Club was to present this 
 request to the Mayor the resignation of Commissioner Partridge was 
 announced. 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT IN 1903 — THE ADMINISTRA- 
 TION OE COMMISSIONER GREENE 
 
 Gen. Erancis V. Greene, appointed by Mayor Low to succeed John 
 X. Partridge as commissioner of police, took office on January 1st, 1903. 
 
 Gen. Green had taken pains to acquaint himself with the under- 
 lying conditions in the department. Before entering upon his duties 
 he had consulted with men who were familiar with long-standing abuses 
 in the department, the causes of .those abuses, and the nature of remedial 
 measures demanded. Erom the beginning of his term, Commissioner 
 Greene showed appreciation of the problems with which he had to deal. 
 Without delay he took vigorous measures to put an end to the systematic 
 collection of blackmail, and othcrw ise to improve the morale and dis- 
 cipline of the force. Within half an hour of his taking office Commis- 
 sioner Greene issued radical orders, and within a few weeks a succes- 
 sion of other radical changes followed. The necessity of all these 
 
 |+io| 
 
COMMISSIONER GREENE 
 
 61 
 
 changes had been pointed out in the report of The City Club's committee. 
 These changes included : 
 
 1. The remanding of the precinct detectives, popularly called 
 " wardmen," to patrol duty, and the consequent breaking up of the 
 machinery by which police captains had developed the systematic collec- 
 tion of blackmail. 
 
 2. Ordering each inspector of police to make his headquarters in 
 his inspection district. Inspectors had made department headquarters 
 their headquarters, and had spent much of their time there. Commis- 
 sioner Greene also issued an order requiring captains and sergeants to 
 supervise the work of the men on patrol. This requirement had never 
 been insisted upon, although the rules of the department expressly 
 require these officers to perform this duty. 
 
 3. Making the superior officers fully responsible for the condition 
 of their respective districts or precincts. 
 
 4. Suspending officers or patrolmen against whom charges were 
 pending. 
 
 5. Taking measures to prevent the award of medals for " fake " 
 rescues. ^ 
 
 6. Improving the character of the street patrol. 
 
 7. The re-organization of the detective bureati. 
 
 8. The re-organization of the boiler inspection squad. 
 
 9. The re-organization of the bureau of repairs and supplies. 
 
 10. The re-organization of the bureau of records and complaints. 
 
 11. The installation of a police telephone system. 
 
 12. The re-organization of the board of police surgeons. 
 
 REMANDING OF THE " WARDMEN ft 
 
 Upon his first day in office Commissioner Greene issued an order 
 by which the power of the precinct detectives, popularly known as 
 " wardmen," as instruments of blackmail and corruption, was broken 
 up. By this order the three hundred and six " wardmen " were re- 
 manded to patrol duty. Every " wardman " was transferred to a pre- 
 cinct remote from the one in which he had been serving. It was also 
 ordered that no * wardman " should receive a detail of any kind for 
 a period of ninety days. At the end of ninety days new " wardmen " 
 
 [4ii] 
 
02 
 
 were put in the various precincts, thus breaking up the old associa- 
 tion between the captains and the " wardmen." After the expiration of 
 ninety days applications were received to detail some of the old " ward- 
 men " to similar duty, but such applications were carefully scrutinized, 
 and were granted only when the character of the applicant, so far as 
 could be ascertained, was of the best. Under no circumstances was 
 any " ward-man " allowed to go back to a precinct where he had done 
 duty as il wardman " during the previous five years, or to a captain or 
 inspector with whom he had done duty as a " wardman " during the 
 previous five years. 
 
 INSPECTORS ORDERED TO INSPECT 
 
 A group of precincts constitutes an inspection district. There are 
 eleven of these inspection districts in the city. The inspectors were 
 supposed to inspect these districts and see that the captains did their 
 work properly. Instead of inspecting, however, the inspectors before 
 1903 congregated at department headquarters where they had their of- 
 ficers. Some of them were fifteen or twenty miles from their inspec- 
 tion districts. They did not seem to have much time to do inspecting, 
 although, as is well known, one of them was frequently busy at the 
 real estate exchange, and others at the horse races. If illegal resorts 
 were found in any district, the inspector concerned would contrive to 
 shift the blame to the captain or other inferior. 
 
 By a radical order issued within an hour of his taking charge of 
 the department Commissioner Greene changed this condition. He re- 
 quired the inspectors to have offices in their respective districts, and he 
 made each inspector directly responsible for police conditions in his 
 district. Commissioner Greene warned the inspectors that easy-going 
 supervision would not be tolerated, and that his instructions must be 
 literally carried out. Under Commissioner Greene's administration the 
 duty of seeing that each precinct is kept in good condition has been 
 placed directly upon the inspectors. 
 
 SUSPENSION OF MEN UNDER CHARGES 
 
 One of the most demoralizing practises in its effect upon the force 
 in general was the retention in active service of superior officers and 
 
 [412] 
 
TOLICE HEADQUARTERS. 
 
 (SMITH STREET, BOROUGH OF BROOKLYN'.) 
 
SUSPENSIONS, DISMISSALS, ETC. 
 
 63 
 
 other members of the force against whom charges had been preferred. 
 Many of these superiors were known as hardened " grafters," and had 
 grown rich by that process. The honest men of the force had long 
 complained unavailingly of the influence, favoritism, or incompetence 
 which allowed officers under charges to retain their positions and uni- 
 forms, and to draw full pay. Patrolmen against whom petty complaints 
 were made, were quickly brought to trial and punished, while the su- 
 perior officers enjoyed comparative immunity. This discrimination 
 was discouraging to the honest men, and contributed to the general 
 demoralization. Although a provision in the charter distinctly author- 
 ized the commissioner of police to suspend men under charges,' Com- 
 missioner Partridge had taken this action in two cases only. On the 
 day he took office Commissioner Greene issued an order suspending 
 all men under serious charges, and this policy he has continued. The 
 results have been most beneficial. When Inspector Cross was sus- 
 pended he told an official of the department that the thing that hurt him 
 most was not the fact of suspension but the loss of his uniform which 
 it entailed. The suspension of men under charges has made the force 
 as a whole feel that " influence no longer counts, and that no distinc- 
 tion of rank is made among offenders. 
 
 DISMISSALS AND RETIREMENTS 
 
 The dismissals made by Commissioner Greene have included some 
 of the worst officers in the department. There are still men in the 
 force who have bad reputations, and who are known to have been 
 " grafters " ; but they have managed " to cover " their past operations 
 so well that it has not been possible to secure legal proof against them. 
 Moreover, under the present administration they have been forced, by 
 the fear of detection and punishment, to be on their H good behavior." 
 Among those whom Commissioner Greene dismissed, and who had par- 
 ticularly bad reputations, were Inspectors Donald Grant and Adam A. 
 Cross, Captains James Gannon and John T. Stevenson, and Sergeant 
 John H. Shiels. Other known " grafters " applied for retirement 
 rather than face trial on charges. Commissioner Greene thus got rid 
 of at least thirty-five superior officers who were hardened " grafters." 
 The full list of dismissals and retirements of inspectors, captains, and 
 
 [-H3] 
 
64 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 sergeants, and of the men appointed to their places, and the list of 
 dismissals of roundsmen and patrolmen in 1903, and a table of 
 changes in the personnel of the force in the years 1892-1902 and 
 in the first eight months of 1903 are given in Appendix II., page 84. 
 
 APPOINTMENTS AND PROMOTIONS 
 
 Under the present administration no applicant for a position on the 
 force and no member of the force has had to pay tribute for appoint- 
 ment or promotion. Commissioner Greene has never informed any one 
 of his plans or intentions in regard to appointments or promotions, so 
 that no one has known in advance whether he was going to be appointed 
 or promoted. Under these conditions any payments made have there- 
 fore been made to persons who could not ? deliver the goods " and have 
 been accepted under false pretenses. No member of the force who has 
 been appointed or promoted by Commissioner Greene has had the old 
 excuse that he must recoup himself for such a payment by collecting- 
 blackmail from law-breakers. 
 
 MORALE AND DISCIPLINE 
 
 The placing of direct responsibility upon the inspectors and the sus- 
 pension of men under charges were, however, only important details in 
 Commissioner Greene's general effort to improve morale and discipline. 
 From the patrolman up, every member of the force has been required 
 to do his duty. No slipshod methods have been tolerated. Until Com- 
 missioner Greene took office patrolmen on beat were practically not 
 subject to supervision by any officers higher than roundsmen. The 
 means by which the efficiency of the force has been raised may be sum- 
 marized: — 
 
 K The patrolman, in addition to constant and regular inspection of 
 his post, is required to keep a memorandum book of all duties performed 
 of a police nature. This memorandum book is subjected later to the 
 scrutiny and certification of the desk sergeant at the end of each tour of 
 patrol. 
 
 2. The roundsmen have immediate charge and supervision of patrol- 
 men on patrol. They are required to supervise thoroughly the duties 
 of patrolmen, and arc held to rigid accountability for the work of the 
 patrolmen. Each roundsman is required to enter, in a book kept by 
 
MORALE AND DISCIPLINE 
 
 65 
 
 him for the purpose, the name and the post of each patrolman met by 
 him, with the hour and the place of meeting. The roundsman's reports 
 are subject to inspection and certification by the commanding officer of 
 the precinct, who, for his own safety, must be certain that his sub- 
 ordinates are not shirking their duties. 
 
 3. Sergeants, when not on desk duty, must make rounds of the pre- 
 cinct in the same manner as roundsmen. The sergeants' reports are 
 subject to inspection and certification by the commanding officer of the 
 precinct. The penalty for false statements in these memoranda is 
 immediate dismissal from the department. 
 
 4. Captains and inspectors are required to do inspection duty and to 
 keep written memoranda subject to the inspection of higher officials. 
 
 5. Inspectors are required to live as nearly as possible in the center 
 of their respective districts, and to exercise constant supervision and juris- 
 diction over their districts, this inspection being at irregular hours of 
 day and night. 
 
 6. The deputy commissioners also inspect from time to time the dif- 
 ferent precincts, giving particular attention to the condition of station 
 houses and to entries in the blotters. 
 
 7. The present police commissioner has, during his term of office, 
 personally visited and inspected every one of the stations and sub- 
 stations in the Greater New York; and at each of these visits he has 
 given special consideration to the comfort of the men. As the result of 
 these inspections preliminary plans for the construction of a number of 
 new station houses to replace old and unsanitary houses have been 
 drafted, and also preliminary plans for a new central headquarters 
 building. 
 
 THE UNIFORMED FORCE AND THE PUBLIC 
 
 Commissioner Greene has repeatedly called the attention of the 
 force to their duties towards the public. As set forth by law these 
 duties are: first, the preservation of the lives and property of citizens; 
 second, arrests for lesser crimes; third, arrests for violations of the city 
 ordinances. In the furtherance of these duties, officers have received 
 instructions that they are to co-operate with the public. They have been 
 instructed to give immediate attention to all complaints. As a result of 
 
 [4i5] 
 
66 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 the courteous treatment now given at station houses and the courteous 
 attention paid at headquarters to complaints made in person or in writ- 
 ing, the public experiences no trouble in complaining of cases of alleged 
 violations of law or of other matters demanding police attention. A 
 letter, whether signed or anonymous, is promptly investigated and 
 reported upon. 
 
 THE PRESENT PATROL SYSTEM 
 
 Until 1901 the police force worked under what is known as the two- 
 platoon system. Under this system the command of each precinct was 
 divided into two platoons of two sections each. In 1901, Commissioner 
 Murphy instituted the three-platoon system. Each platoon was divided 
 into three sections, and each section performed eight hours of patrol 
 daily, and was upon reserve duty at the station house for eight hours 
 every third day. 
 
 This system was opposed by many citizens, some newspapers and also 
 by some of the oldest and most experienced police officers. In February, 
 1902, Commissioner Partridge abolished the three-platoon system, and 
 restored the old system. 
 
 Commissioner Greene disapproved both the two-platoon and the 
 three-platoon system. The two-platoon system, which required sixteen 
 hours of actual work daily from the men, he thought was too hard 
 upon the force. The three-platoon system Commissioner Greene consid- 
 ered unsatisfactory, because under that system the reserve was too 
 small, being only one-ninth of the entire force. While the two-platoon 
 system required the men to devote sixteen hours a day to duty, and the 
 three-platoon ten hours and forty minutes a day to duty, much addi- 
 tional duty was required of the men in connection with riots, strikes, 
 drills, parades, etc. 
 
 In January, 1903, Commissioner Greene adopted a six-section sys- 
 tem. Under this system each man was required to give twelve hours a 
 day to the work of the department (eight hours on patrol and four hours 
 on reserve), each man doing patrol duty for three weeks at night and 
 three weeks by day alternately. 
 
 On June 22d, 1903, Commissioner Greene modified the six-section 
 system by ordering eight hours patrol daily and eight hours reserve 
 
 [416] 
 
PATROLMEN GOING ON PATROL DUTY. 
 (sixty-seventh street police station.) 
 
TRANSFERS AND "DETAILS' 
 
 67 
 
 every other day. This system requires each man to devote an average 
 of twelve hours a day to the department. It is, however, a far more 
 satisfactory system to the men than the original six-section system, as 
 each man has sixteen hours to himself every other day and thirty-two 
 consecutive hours every third week. At the same time it strengthens 
 the reserve force, as it is not necessary to give the men on reserve duty 
 absent leave for meals. A diagram of this system of patrol is given in 
 Appendix III, page 89. 
 
 TRANSFERS AND " DETAILS." 
 
 Under previous administrations patrolmen were subjected in general 
 to a more or less promiscuous transferring from precinct to precinct. 
 They were often transferred long distances from their homes. These 
 transfers were made ostensibly for the " good of the service.'" It was 
 well understood that this frequent shifting was often employed as a 
 means for extorting " graft." If a patrolman paid an amount, variously 
 ranging from $25 to $50, he found no difficulty in securing a transfer 
 back to a precinct near his home. " Details " were also used for " shake- 
 downs." A "' detail " is an assignment to special service in a public 
 building, a departmental office, etc. It takes a patrolman off patrol 
 duty, calls for less arduous work, and relieves him from night and Sun- 
 day duty. Under Tammany these " details " were distributed among 
 favored patrolmen, most of whom had been but a short time in the de- 
 partment and were comparatively young men. Older men in the service 
 were discriminated against. It was understood that upon payment of 
 from $200 to $300 a patrolman could get one of these " details." 
 
 Unde r Commissioner Greene's administration every application for 
 a transfer has been subjected to rigid investigation. It has had to re- 
 ceive in turn the written indorsement of the captain, the inspector, and 
 the chief inspector before finally reaching the police commissioner for 
 action. The papers upon which the application is granted are filed 
 away for reference, with the reason for the transfer fully stated. 
 
 The assignment of " details " is no longer regulated by favoritism 
 or by payments of money. Commissioner Greene first reduced the ex- 
 cessive number of these "details." Most of the young patrolmen who 
 filled them, and who were physically better able to patrol the streets 
 than the older patrolmen, have been remanded to patrol duty. Their 
 
 [4i7] 
 
THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 " details " have been given generally in order of seniority to patrolmen 
 who have served more than fifteen years, and who have good records. 
 
 AWARD OF MEDALS. HONORABLE MENTION. COMMENDATIONS 
 
 Before Febuary 3d, 1903, the awarding of medals and the giving 
 of honorable mention and commendation to policemen was often a far- 
 cical proceeding. Not only are these tributes matters of pride, but they 
 count in examinations for promotion. In these examinations a medal 
 counts for seven points, honorable mention for five points, and commen- 
 dation for three points. 
 
 Under the Tammany administration it was well known in police 
 circles that " fake " rescues and other bogus heroic actions often ap- 
 peared in the records to the credit of favored men. In one case the 
 " rescue of a drowning man " standing to the credit of a policeman 
 represented the voluntary immersion of a tramp in a watering trough 
 from which he was pulled by the rescuer. The commissioners of police 
 made no independent investigations in cases of this kind. The captain 
 reported to the inspector information received at the station house of 
 acts of real or alleged bravery on the part of patrolmen, and the in- 
 spector made a report with recommendation. Under this system it was 
 easy for a favored patrolman to get rewards which he did not deserve. 
 
 On February 3d, 1903, Commissioner Greene issued an order requir- 
 ing a full report of the circumstances to be made by the captain of the" 
 precinct in each case and an independent investigation to be made by 
 the inspector of the district. In the same order a distinction was drawn 
 between a recommendation for a medal, an honorable mention and a 
 commendation. 
 
 THE BUREAU OF RECORDS AND COMPLAINTS 
 
 The bureau of records and complaints is one of the most important 
 branches of the department. The records of the antecedents and status 
 of every member of the force are kept in this bureau. When an officer 
 is delinquent in his duties, his superiors forward a complaint to this 
 bureau. The bureau notifies the delinquent officer of the time and the 
 date of the trial. The bureau keeps records of appointments, promo- 
 tions, fines, awards of medals, honorable mention — in brief, of all h.c{< 
 dealing with the official career of every member of the force. 
 
 [418I 
 
THE COMPLAINT BUREAU 
 
 60 
 
 Before January ist, 1903, this bureau was in a most demoralized 
 condition, as was disclosed in the trial of " Gus " Peterson, the com- 
 plaint clerk, before Deputy-Commissioner Piper early in 1903. For 
 twenty years Peterson had been acting complaint clerk. During that 
 period no full appointment had been made. On December 31st, 1902, 
 Commissioner Partridge appointed John J. Corkhill, his private secre- 
 tary, complaint clerk. The evidence unearthed by Mr. Corkhill resulted 
 in Peterson's trial and his dismissal from the department by Commis- 
 sioner Greene. 
 
 Under Peterson nine-tenths of the employees were totally incom- 
 petent, and some were corrupt. For a payment varying from $100 to 
 $1,000 a policeman could have a record altered. The complaint clerk 
 or others in the bureau would obliterate or change a record of charges 
 so that the officer's career on the force would appear greatly to the 
 officer's advantage. Many officers had records so bad that it was im- 
 possible for them to be promoted to a higher office, even though they 
 should attain the highest percentage in the mental examination. After 
 attempting two or three examinations and realizing that their past 
 career had been so bad as to militate against their future chances of 
 advancement, they were often willing to accept the proposal of the act- 
 ing complaint clerk or his emissary and traffic with him for the purifi- 
 cation of their records of complaints. This bribing had been carried 
 on for many years. There is proof that it was carried on even during 
 the year 1902, but no tangible evidence has been collected against those 
 then in charge. 
 
 Sinc^ January ist, 1903, over 1,100 records have been restored to 
 their proper state. One man, for instance, was found to have had 
 seventy-one days' fines wiped from his record, while his record as 
 altered still shows seventy days' fines against him. 
 
 Because of the corrupt omission of sixteen days' fines from his 
 record which was forwarded to the civil service commission when Ser- 
 geant Deevy took his examination for the rank of captain, Commissioner 
 Greene, after Deevy had been appointed captain, reduced him to the 
 rank of sergeant. There are many similar cases, but the Deevy case 
 has been made a test, Sergeant Deevy having applied to the courts for 
 re-instatement. The case has not yet been finally decided. 
 
 [419] 
 
7o 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 For many years before 1902 police lawyers, money sharks, diamond 
 brokers, and others of like character, had free access to the complaint 
 clerk's office. The money broker would charge the officer 25 per cent, 
 per month for the use of money, and being in collusion with the com- 
 plaint clerk would immediately make charges against him if he did not 
 pay the usurious fees. The diamond broker would sell jewelry on the 
 installment plan at an advance of 50 per cent., and should the officer be 
 derelict in his payments, the broker's friend, the former complaint clerk, 
 would immediately place a charge against the patrolman in arrears. 
 Very often for a "consideration" the police lawyers would have a 
 charge against an officer suppressed and never brought to trial. 
 
 •From a filthy and inadequate office the complaint bureau has been 
 transferred into a modern business office thoroughly equipped with up 
 to-date material. New and accurate index systems and systematic 
 methods of book-keeping and record-keeping have been substituted for 
 the soap-box depositories and old-fashioned methods which were in use 
 when Commissioner Greene took office. 
 
 THE BOARD OF POLICE SURGEONS 
 
 There are twenty-three police surgeons, all members of the force. 
 These surgeons are appointed after a civil service examination. Before 
 October 7th, 1903, the surgeons elected annually two of their number 
 as president and secretary, respectively. The city is divided into sur- 
 geon districts, and a surgeon is assigned to each district. It is the duty 
 of the surgeons to attend sick members of the force, to keep records of 
 all " sick time," and to make monthly reports of their work, 'the board 
 of police surgeons investigates and reports upon the physical condition 
 of all persons applying for appointment to the force, and of all members 
 of the force applying for promotion and retirement. 
 
 Under Tammany the police surgeons derived a rich revenue from 
 making favorable reports on the physical condition of applicants for 
 appointment to the force, and on that of members of the force taking the 
 examination for promotion. Tf a patrolman or other member of the 
 force was under charges for intoxication, the police surgeon who ex- 
 amined him at the time the charge was made would give, upon payment 
 of twenty-five dollars, such favorable testimony as would result in the 
 
 1 420] 
 
HOARD OF SURGEONS 
 
 charges being dismissed on trial. It was a common joke about police 
 'Headquarters that when a police surgeon said that he would testify 
 against a member of the force he was >] hard up " and expected to be 
 
 On October 7th. 1903, Commissioner Greene reorganized the board 
 of police surgeons by rescinding the department rule which gave the 
 surgeons the right to elect their own officers, and by placing in charge 
 of the Board Dr. Edward T. T. Marsh, himself a police surgeon of 
 twenty-five years' experience, and a man of excellent record. 
 
 The commissioner had long been dissatisfied with the work of the 
 board of surgeons under the leadership of Dr. Stephen G. Cook, who 
 had been chief surgeon for many years. It appeared to be impossible to 
 get the board to retire certain men who were believed to be incapable 
 of performing proper police duty. In one instance the board recently 
 certified to the good health of a patrolman who, according to hospital 
 surgeons, had lost almost an entire lung. There was also somewhat of 
 a scandal three months ago over a discovery by the surgeons of the 
 Civil Service Commission, that the police surgeons were using a stand- 
 ard of measure that could be " worked " in favor of candidates who 
 lacked the requisite height for appointment on the force. 
 
 The official order reorganizing the Board was as follows : 
 
 " Ordered. That under the authority conferred upon the Police Com- 
 " missioner by section 202 of the Greater New York charter, the fol- 
 " lowing change is made in the rules and regulations of the Police De- 
 " partment of the city of New York, namely: 
 
 The official order reorganizing the board was as follows : 
 
 " The Police Commissioner shall appoint and remove, at pleasure, 
 " from the members of the Board of Surgeons, a president, who shall be 
 " chief surgeon, and a secretary. 
 
 " A majority of the members shall form a quorum for business. They 
 " may adopt by-laws for the government of their meetings not incon- 
 " sistent with law or the rules and regulations of the Police Department. 
 
 " Ordered. That under the provisions of Rule 10, paragraph b, as 
 " this day amended, Dr. E. T. T. Marsh, Police Surgeon, is hereby ap- 
 " pointed chief surgeon and President of the Board of Police Surgeons, 
 " and Dr. Henry P. De Forest, police surgeon, is hereby appointed sec- 
 " retary of the Board of Surgeons." 
 
 [421] 
 
12 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 Dr. Marsh is a surgeon in the Seventy-first Regiment, and received 
 a medal for life-saving at the Park Avenue Hotel fire last year. Gen. 
 Greene has known him for a long time, and thinks very highly of him. 
 Dr. De Forest, who succeeds Dr. Smith as secretary of the Board, was, 
 until a few months ago, a surgeon on the staff of the Municipal Civil 
 Service Commission. President Ogden of the latter body said when he 
 was transferred to the Police Department that he was not only very 
 competent, but " as straight as a string." 
 
 THE DETECTIVE BUREAU 
 
 All robberies, burglaries, larcenies, homicides, kidnapping and sus- 
 picious deaths are reported at once to the detective bureau by the pre- 
 cincts for investigation. The detective bureau makes an investigation 
 independently of that carried on by the precinct force. The bureau is 
 equipped with a photograph bureau. All persons charged with felony 
 and all professional criminals are photographed, and are measured under 
 the Bertillon system. The central office of the bureau of detectives is 
 at number 300 Mulberry Street, Manhattan, and a branch office is main- 
 tained at the Brooklyn borough headquarters, number 16 Smith Street. 
 The force of the detective bureau is made up of patrolmen and rounds- 
 men who are supposed to be especially qualified for detective duly. 
 These detectives are called detective-sergeants. There are J71 of these 
 officers now attached to the detective bureau. 
 
 Commissioner Partridge made a partial attempt to re-organize this 
 bureau. He remanded 174 detective-sergeants to patrol duty. Many of 
 these men were close friends of Devery, and were deeply implicated in 
 " the system." Rather than resume patrol duty several resigned. 
 Others, taking advantage of section 290 in the charter of 1901, by which 
 their rank was made a permanent one with a salary of $2,000 a year, 
 and by which they were given the same rights of promotion as any other 
 sergeant of police, contested in the courts the legality of the order re- 
 manding to patrol duty. The Court of Appeals sustained their con- 
 tention. 
 
 Commissioner Greene was forced to re-instate 170 of these men itf 
 sergeants. He assigned as many of them as he could to desk work in the 
 precincts instead of restoring them to detective duty. 
 
 [422] 
 
THE ''BOILER SQUAD' 
 
 1$ 
 
 Other measures, however, were taken by Commissioner Greene to 
 reorganize the detective bureau. Captain Titus, who had long been in 
 command, was sent to precinct duty, and the entire detective bureau 
 was placed under charge of Inspector Brooks, with Captain Langan com- 
 manding in the Manhattan office and Captain Formosa in the Brooklyn 
 office. Inspector Brooks did not give satisfaction, and he was promptly 
 removed from command of the bureau, and Inspector McClusky was 
 appointed in his place. 
 
 Under Inspector McClusky the bureau has been raised to a high 
 state of efficiency. Upon taking charge of the bureau Inspector Mc- 
 Clusky " rounded up " several hundred well-known " crooks," confidence 
 men and pickpockets who before had not been molested. This vigorous 
 action of the detective bureau under Commissioner Greene has resulted 
 in the city's being generally cleared of swindlers and desperate char- 
 acters. The detective work in murder cases has been better than ever 
 before. In twelve cases of homicide which the bureau has had to in- 
 vestigate in 1003, the guilty persons have been arrested in eleven cases. 
 
 THE " BOILER SQUAD " 
 
 The steam boiler inspection and engineers' bureau is an anomalous 
 hianch of the department. Its work is not properly police work. Its 
 general duties are the testing and inspecting of all stationary steam 
 boilers excepting those which carry less than ten pounds of steam. The 
 duties of the bureau were enlarged by an ordinance which went into 
 effect cn September 1st, 1903, giving it supervision over all boilers 
 operated on bridges and in schools and boats. The bureau further ex- 
 amines persons applying for engineers' or firemen's certificates; it 
 issues licenses to operate steam plants; it keeps records of all boiler 
 tests and inspections and of the location of all steam plants and the 
 names of their owners; it authorizes the transfer of licensed engineers 
 and firemen from one steam plant to another; and it renews annually 
 the licenses of engineers and firemen. Upon its recommendation the 
 commissioner of police can revoke the license of any engineer or fire- 
 man, y 1 ..jk, • j* n F , rY *4 , /t i ? n u nj .<j m .fp 'o 
 
 The bureau is under the charge of a sergeant of police. Subordi- 
 nate to the sergeant are one roundsman, one superintendent of steam 
 
 [423] 
 
74 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 boilers, four boiler inspectors, five patrolmen on duty inspecting and 
 testing steam boilers, three patrolmen who act as examining engineers, 
 one patrolman who acts as wagon driver, three civilian wagon drivers, 
 and ten patrolmen on clerical duty. For each boiler inspected a fee of 
 two dollars is charged. The annual sum thus collected amounts to about 
 $26,000. This money goes to the pension fund of the department. 
 
 The following testimony given before the " Mazet Committee " in 
 1899 by John B. Sexton, one of the commissioners of police, indicates 
 what the "boiler squad"' was under Tammany: 
 
 Bv Mr. Moss : 
 
 We have a squad called a boiler squad, its duties are looking after 
 all the engineers' licenses throughout the city. 
 
 Q. After engineers' licenses — is that all ? A. Boilers. 
 
 O. What do they do about boilers? A. They inspect them. 
 
 Q. Do they have a competent engineer, do you have a competent 
 engineer in the employ of the department to do the inspecting? A. Yes. 
 
 Q. You don't mean to say that is done by common policemen? 
 A. T believe there are some engineers. 
 
 Q. There are some engineers specially employed? A. Yes. 
 
 O. Then the testing of boilers is not actually done by policemen, is 
 it? A. I believe there are engineers there on the force; they have got 
 I think a sergeant as an engineer that has got charge of the department. 
 
 O. Do you mean to say that the business of issuing licenses to en- 
 gineers and of the examination of steam boilers in this city is com- 
 mitted to uniformed policemen or do you have in your employ some 
 competent trained engineers for that purpose? A. There is a sergeant 
 at the head of that department that is an engineer, and he has got charge 
 of it. 
 
 (J. He is an engineer? A. He examines all the applicants. I be- 
 lieve. 
 
 Q. Well, he happens to be an engineer, but suppose you had no 
 -crgeant that was an engineer, what would you do then? A. I suppose 
 we would have to get one then. 
 
 Q. Does this sergeant receive any extra compensation because of 
 his engineering ability? A. No. , 
 
 Q. Then, do you mean to say that all of the steam boilers in the 
 city have to be inspected by a sergeant of police? A. Oh, no; he has a 
 dozen of men under him. , 
 
THE "BOILER SQUAD' 
 
 75 
 
 [}. Policemen or engineers? A. Policemen, I believe. 
 Q. Do you mean to say that all the steam boilers in New York have 
 to be inspected, to be practically licensed by police officers? A. That 
 
 arc engineers. 
 
 Q. Suppose yon did not have a sufficient number of engineers in 
 the department, what are the provisions of the law? A. How was it 
 when you were there? Ain't it just the same? 
 
 Q. You are not asking me questions; I am asking you. A. I am 
 telling you, ain't I ? 
 
 O. Suppose you had not sufficient number of policemen that under- 
 stood boilers? A. Then I suppose we would have to get engineers. 
 
 By the Chairman: 
 
 ( ). How many other men arc employed for that purpose? A. I 
 think there are about ten or twelve under this sergeant who do not have 
 any other work to do. They are inspecting boilers all the time. 
 
 By Mr. Moss: 
 
 Q. There are at present two police officers that are connected with 
 that squad that are under indictment and about to be tried under accu- 
 sation of taking money? A. They have been dismissed from the force 
 and are not members of the force. 
 
 By the Chairman: 
 
 Jrtpuoid 9g£:> siTi .inafrmiiqsb snJ to eoiO09i Jilouq aril ^tuJiu 
 
 (J. How are their places supplied — by taking men from the force? 
 A. Yes | I suppose they try to get engineers that are on the force. 
 O. They may have some special qualifications? A. Oh, yes. 
 Q. Who passes upon those qualifications? A. The sergeant. 
 
 By Mr. Moss: 
 
 Q. Sergeant in charge? A. Yes. The chief assigns the police 
 officers to the boiler squad. Of course those men do not have to do the 
 ordinary patrol duty. We have not made any changes in it since I have 
 been there. I suppose policemen rather like that detail. They get no 
 compensation. 
 
 -teoq ibrtt ioI bdriilfitip flaw 3i& orfw nom k> qu sbcm v/otr ei WK*mjd 
 Under Tammany the " boiler squad " was a fertile ff grafting " 
 bureau. If a business man did not pay the required tribute, the inspector 
 would put him to great annoyance and considerable financial loss by 
 
 [425] 
 
76 
 
 causing his boiler to be examined during hours when the shutting off of 
 steam would cause inconvenience. 
 
 On April ist, 1903, Commissioner Greene found that conditions in 
 this bureau called for a complete reorganization. 
 
 The records of the bureau were a confused mass stored away in 
 barrels and boxes. Records were found falsified, books were scattered 
 about on the floors and tables, and the bureau was generally in a dis- 
 organized and confused state. Of the twenty-five patrolmen on duty in 
 the bureau Commissioner Greene found that only about nine were com- 
 petent. 
 
 Complaints were constantly coming in from citizens that they could 
 not obtain either prompt or proper inspection of their boilers. " Fake " 
 reports were made by the bureau force. Engineers were licensed pro- 
 miscuously. Certificates for the purpose were made out in advance, 
 stamped with rubber stamps; and any officer in the bureau could issue 
 a license without a fellow officer having any knowledge of it. Polit- 
 ical demands that men with practically no qualifications be made en- 
 gineers were frequently acceded to. These were some of the more 
 notorious abuses that existed in this bureau under the Tammany ad- 
 ministration. In 1903 these conditions brought about the arrest of a 
 patrolman doing duty in the bureau, who was charged with collusion 
 with an outsider, and with aiding and abetting in falsifying and muti- 
 lating the public records of the department. The case was brought 
 before a magistrate, and it came out in the evidence that $100 had been 
 paid for each of two licenses to engineers. The extent to which this 
 practice was indulged in is not known and will never be known because 
 of the mutilated state of the bureau's records. 
 
 Commissioner Greene removed Sergeant Frank Mangin, who was 
 in charge of the bureau, and appointed Sergeant George W. Brown in 
 his place. Of the bureau's force nine were transferred to police duty, 
 and one was suspended by Commissioner Greene. 
 
 During the administration of Commissioner Greene the "boiler 
 squad has done its duties honestly and efficiently. The force of the 
 bureau is now made up of men who are well qualified for their posi- 
 tions. The records are kept systematically. Engineers and firemen 
 are licensed upon their merits. The bureau endeavors to make its 
 inspection of steam boilers at times when the inconvenience and in- 
 
 [426] 
 
POLICK HOAT PATROL. 
 
REPAIRS AND SUPPLIES 
 
 77 
 
 terruption to business will be as small as possible. Since the reorganiza- 
 tion of the bureau there has not been a steam casualty in the city — a 
 record not equalled under any previous administration. A record is 
 now kept of the qualifications of all school janitors who act as engineers 
 and their competency is carefully inquired into. This had never been 
 done before. 
 
 BUREAU OF REPAIRS AND SUPPLIES 
 
 The personnel of the bureau consists of the inspector of repairs and 
 supplies, a mechanical force of fourteen men, together with several mem- 
 bers of the uniformed force assigned to clerical duty. 
 
 The bureau maintains a complete record of operations, showing the 
 supplies on hand and the distribution of the supplies to the precincts 
 upon approved requisitions. Beginning January ist, 1903, a new sys- 
 tem of requisitions was instituted under which a stock of supplies 
 is, with the approval of the commissioner, furnished monthly and 
 quarterly. Steps were also taken to prevent the issuance of requisi- 
 tions which may not be filled, all of which has resulted in decreas- 
 ing the total number of requisitions by one third, giving better 
 results. General alterations, repairing and painting 17 station houses, 
 and the central department building are being made under public con- 
 tract. Four new patrol wagons have been ordered after public bid- 
 ding. During the year nearly all contracts for supplies and repairs have 
 been awarded after public bidding, with the best results. 
 
 Ja-iuary ist, 1903, found the department almost destitute of coal. 
 The coal famine was then at its height, and it was impossible to make 
 a contract for the department's -coal. The police commissioner, having 
 rejected the one excessive bid received in response to public advertising, 
 directed that informal bids be invited for furnishing coal as actually re- 
 quired until conditions make it possible to obtain proper response to 
 public proposals. This method, prevailing for the first ten weeks of the 
 year, gave entire satisfaction, and resulted in saving many thousands of 
 dollars to the city. Many minor changes ordered and effected during 
 the year in the management of the bureau have resulted in a more effi- 
 cient handling of its affairs. 
 
 Upon the whole, there has been a general and pronounced improve - 
 
 [427] 
 
7* 
 
 THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
 
 ment in the condition of the department buildings, in the purchase 
 and administration of supplies, and in the handling of the work of the 
 bureau. 
 
 PATROL SIGNAL SYSTEM 
 
 On taking office January ist of this year General Greene at once 
 took in hand the important matter of installing an adequate system of 
 telephone communication for patrol service. He has now completed 
 arrangements for installing such a system with 661 stations in the 
 Borough of Manhattan, at a comparatively small cost. One of these 
 boxes will be located on each beat or at the junction of two beats, so 
 that all the officers on patrol can report regularly. It is a matter for 
 future determination whether responsible persons, such as officers of 
 banks, and exchanges and of other responsible business concerns will be 
 permitted to have keys to this telephone system, to enable them to com- 
 municate directly with the police station in case of emergency. The 
 great advantages to be derived from the introduction of such a system 
 are obvious. It will increase the efficiency of the police force in the 
 protection of life and property as much as would the addition of many 
 hundred men to the force. 
 
 The great difficulty in securing, under former administrations, a 
 telephone patrol signal system had been the supposed enormous expense 
 of installing such a system, particularly in the Borough of Manhattan, 
 where the wires would have to be in cables under ground. It had been 
 estimated that such a system would cost about $600,000, added to which 
 would be the expense of maintenance, — about $25,000 a year. 
 
 Commissioner Greene succeeded in completing arrangements with 
 the New York Telephone Company for installing a police patrol tele- 
 phone system at an expense of $20,855.20, or less than the annual expense 
 of maintaining a system installed by the city. 
 
 The preparations for the installation have so far progressed to the 
 point of securing permission from owners and occupants of buildings to 
 make the necessary attachments of telephone boxes and equipment to the 
 walls of buildings. This consent has been given, as a rule, cheerfully 
 and with expressions of appreciation of the proposed improvement. 
 
 [426] 
 
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8 4 
 
 Appendix I — Continued. 
 
 SUMMARY OF COMPLAINTS AGAINST MEMBERS OF THE UNIFORMED FORCE DURING i 
 
 NATURE OF COMPLAINT 
 
 
 
 Fined 
 
 Repre- 
 nianded 
 
 
 
 Complaints 
 dismissed 
 
 
 
 Complaint 
 upon which 
 
 dismissed 
 
 the Force 
 
 Pending 
 when men 
 
 dismissed 
 on other 
 charges 
 
 Pending 
 when 
 
 
 
 Pending 
 when died 
 
 Pending 
 when 
 
 Others 
 pending 
 
 Dis- 
 approved 
 
 Fines 
 remitted 
 
 Reduced to 
 patrolman 
 
 Suspended 
 
 TOTAL 
 
 Did not properly patrol or relieve 
 
 Miscellaneous violations of rules and neglect of duty. 
 
 Assaulting citizens 
 
 Neglect to pay debt 
 
 Conversation 
 
 Unbecoming conduct 
 
 Intoxication and alcoholism 
 
 Assaulting an officer 
 
 584 
 496 
 310 
 106 
 21 
 18 
 140 
 27 
 63 
 
 209 
 208 
 272 
 
 >l 
 
 56 
 
 57 
 14 
 
 4 
 
 65 
 
 59 
 235 
 14 
 47 
 85 
 12 
 27 
 4 
 
 16 
 
 13 
 10 
 23 
 
 6 
 
 18 
 24 
 1 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 16 
 8 
 1 
 7 
 
 3 
 4 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 - 
 
 28 
 
 18 
 1 
 
 3 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 881 
 781 
 886 
 189 
 83 
 197 
 210 
 99 
 97 
 
 5 
 
 
 1,767 
 
 861 
 
 548 
 
 114 
 
 46 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 30 
 
 29 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 3.414 
 
 IN THE ABOVE TABLE THE FOLLOWING ARE THE CASES OF OFFICERS ABOVE THE RANK OF PATROLMAN 
 
 John Reardon . . 
 D. C. Moynihan 
 
 James Churchill 
 
 Thomas McCormick. 
 Joseph F. Melledy . . 
 
 Date of complaii 
 
 I902 
 
 May 23 
 September 10 
 
 October 27 
 September 9 
 September 18 
 
 1902 
 
 July 8 
 
 September 16 
 
 November 6 
 
 November 25 
 October 18 
 
 NATURE OF COMPLAINT 
 
 Made false entries in blotter 
 
 Detailed patrolman to perform wot 
 police duty 
 
 Neglect of duty, making false 
 obedience of orders anil conduct 
 an officer 
 
 eports, uis- 
 unbecoming 
 
 Received money for accepting bail 
 
 Under the influence of liquor 
 
 Under the influence of liquor 
 
 Date certiorari 
 
 Status certiorari 
 
 1902 
 
 August 1 5 
 
 October 24 
 
 1903 
 hebruary 17 
 
 1902 
 December 3 1 
 
 Tending 
 ('ending 
 
 Pending 
 
 
 
 [434] 
 
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87 
 
 APPENDIX \\—Contimced. 
 TABLE OF CHANGES IN THE PERSONNEL OF THE POLICE 
 FORCE OF NEW YORK CITY IN THE YEARS 1892-1902, 
 AND IN THE FIRST EIGHT MONTHS OF 1903 
 
 1892. 
 
 Superintendent 
 
 Inspectors 
 
 Captains 
 
 Sergeants 
 
 Det. Sergeants. 
 Roundsmen . . . 
 Patrolmen 
 
 1893. 
 
 Superintendent. 
 
 Inspectors 
 
 Captains 
 
 Sergeants 
 
 Det. Sergeants. 
 Roundsmen . . . 
 Patrolmen 
 
 1894. 
 
 Superintendent 
 
 Inspectors 
 
 Captains , 
 
 Sergeants 
 
 Det. Sergeants. 
 Roundsmen . . . 
 Patrolmen 
 
 1895. 
 
 •thief 
 
 Inspectors 
 
 Captains 
 
 Sergeants 
 
 Det. Sergeants 
 Roundsmen . . . 
 Patrolmen 
 
 1 
 I 
 
 49 
 
 61 
 
 *7 
 
 93 
 
 7 
 
 96' 
 
 2Q 
 
 '4 
 
 30 
 
 1 
 2 
 7 
 7 
 
 95 
 
 Si 
 
 275 
 
 301 
 
 344 
 
 * Title changed from Superintendent. 
 
 [437] 
 
88 
 
 APPENDIX W—ConUmied. 
 
 1896. 
 
 Chief 
 
 x 'Denurv Chief 
 
 
 
 ixjj 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 InsDectors 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 1 
 
 ( - "V • 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 19 
 
 19 
 36 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 ... 
 
 Det. Sergeants 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■■■■) 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 21 
 
 
 02 
 
 
 
 
 
 — ) 
 
 
 I 2Q^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ *Jt\ 
 
 
 
 
 1897. 
 
 Chief . . 
 
 
 
 
 tJ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 6 
 17 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 6 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 5 
 
 ■ 
 
 I 
 
 Det. Sergeants 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3i 
 
 35 42 
 
 92 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 Patrolmen 
 
 ::::< 
 
 
 222 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 1898. 
 
 Chief 
 
 Deputy Chiefs. 
 
 Inspectors 
 
 Captains 
 
 Sergeants 
 
 Det. Sergeants. 
 Roundsmen . . . 
 Patrolmen 
 
 1899. 
 
 Chief 
 
 ♦ Deputy Chiefs 
 ^Inspectors .... 
 
 Captains 
 
 Sergeants. 
 
 Det. Sergeants. 
 Roundsmen . . . 
 Patrolmen 
 
 AFTER CONSOLIDATION. 
 
 45 
 
 3 
 49 
 
 44 
 
 48 
 
 3 
 
 100 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 ♦Promoted from Inspector. 
 + Reduced to Inspector, 1. 
 X Reduced to Captain, 1. 
 
 I438J 
 
 117 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 39 
 168 
 
 36 
 182 
 4,484 
 
 4,912 
 
 1 
 1 
 6 
 40 
 172 
 5o 
 202 
 4,454 
 
 4,926 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 72 
 
 324 
 88 
 361 
 6,397 
 
 7,258 
 
 5 
 9 
 73 
 326 
 88 
 374 
 6,319 
 
 7,195 
 
8 9 
 
 APPENDIX U— Continued. 
 
 1900. 
 
 Chief 
 
 Deputy Chiefs. 
 
 Inspectors 
 
 Captains. 
 
 Sergeants 
 Det. Sergeants, 
 Roundsmen . , . 
 Patrolmen 
 
 1901. 
 
 -Chief 
 
 fDeputy Chiefs 
 
 Inspectors 
 
 Captains 
 
 Sergeants 
 
 Det. Sergeants. 
 Roundsmen . . . 
 Patrolmen 
 
 1902. 
 
 Inspectors 
 
 Captains 
 
 Sergeants 
 
 Det. Sergeants. 
 Roundsmen.. . . 
 Patrolmen 
 
 83 
 
 First 8 Months 1903. 
 
 Inspector o 
 
 ^Captains 
 
 Sergeants 
 
 !| Det. Sergeants 
 
 Roundsmen 
 
 *i Patrolmen 
 
 49 
 
 2 
 4 
 
 70 
 
 43 
 
 19 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 100 
 
 3 
 17 
 12 
 
 16 
 
 4 
 
 82 
 
 34 
 
 1 
 
 170 
 
 9 
 
 16 
 61 
 
 30 
 1 
 48 
 49 
 
 EOg 
 
 391 
 
 16 
 61 
 
 500 
 
 8 
 3i 
 40 
 
 1 
 
 49 
 513 
 
 * Office abolished, t Four Deputy Chiefs reduced to Inspectors. § Reduced to Sergeant, 1. 
 I Remanded, 8. To Sergeant, 40. 1 To Det. Sergeant, 8. Dropped, 1 ; Reappointed, 1 ; Rein- 
 stated to Det. Sergeant, 163. 
 
 I 439] 
 
go 
 
 Appendix III 
 
 DIAGRAM OF THE PRESENT PATROL SYSTEM. 
 FIRST WEEK 
 
 [440] 
 
CIVIOOHeJ 
 
 HT 
 
i