Roosevelt’s “Cops”
The New York Police Department needed a cleaning up. The force at that
time was under a heavy cloud. There had been a Mayorality election.
Tammany had made a hard fight but the Republican candidate, Strong,
had been elected. The vote meant that the citizens thought the time
had come for a New York police reform. Mayor Strong asked Roosevelt,
then serving on the national Civil Service Commission, to be Police
Commissioner.
Roosevelt’s friends thought that he was too big a man to take such a
position. He saw a work that needed to be done.
Proctor, a friend and fellow worker, tried to persuade him not to
undertake the job. Roosevelt had given the matter earnest thought. He
believed himself capable of bringing about the necessary reforms. He
knew that such a work would be of great benefit to his fellow citizens.
“Proctor,” he said, “it is my duty. I am going.”
“Go then!” said Proctor. “You must always have your own way. Yet I
believe you are right. Clean up the city thoroughly!”
Roosevelt faced a bigger job than he knew. The metropolitan police
system was in the hands of corrupt politicians. The Tammany ring
exercised a tyranny over the policemen. Incompetency, immorality and
dishonesty honeycombed the department. Many of the policemen, instead
of being a protection to the people, were a menace.
Promotions went by favor and money. The man who wanted to become a
policeman could get the job for from $200 to $300. A police lieutenant
could buy his appointment for from $10,000 up. The men who secured
positions in this way paid the money with the expectation of getting it
back through graft. They had free rope so long as they delivered to the
political leaders half of their spoils.
If a saloonkeeper wanted to obey the law and tried to get along without
paying tribute to the policemen of his district, he found that a rival
saloonkeeper was being accorded extraordinary privileges in order that
he himself might be either ruined or forced to “come across.” Gambling
dens, saloons and disorderly houses were free from punishment so long
as they paid toll. Vice flaunted itself in the face of the law-abiding
element of the city.
The very coming of Roosevelt to Mulberry Street was a challenge to the
disorderly and corrupt elements of the metropolis. His friends warned
him that other commissioners, with good intentions, had tried to do
what he was about to attempt, but had found the police force so full of
jealousy, favoritism and blackmail that little progress could be made.
“Tom” Byrnes, a detective of national fame, was the head of the New
York police at that time. Roosevelt decided that reform should begin at
the top. He dismissed Byrnes. The latter hurled at him this challenge:
“The system will break your opposition. You will give in, for you are
only human, after all.”
Roosevelt kept on. No one was allowed anything to say concerning his
appointments and promotions. Those who were physically and morally weak
he banished from the service. Those who showed merit and faithfulness
he promoted.
He started in at once to acquire an intimate knowledge of the men who
worked under him. He accomplished this by making personal tours at
night through the various police districts. Francis E. Leupp, whose
previously-mentioned book, “The Man Roosevelt,” will always be a
fruitful source to Roosevelt’s biographers, gives this description of
such an expedition: