Captain William B. Sullivan, now in command of the Gates Avenue Police
Station, Brooklyn, who served as bodyguard to Roosevelt while he was
Police Commissioner, attests that Roosevelt was a born policeman.
“There wasn’t a man in the department,” said Sullivan, “that he didn’t
know by name.”
While prosecuting his fight for the enforcement of the Sunday laws,
Roosevelt made the police enforce a regulation which declared that
ice must not be sold after 10 o’clock in the morning on Sundays.
This proved to be a real hardship to the masses of the East side. A
strong appeal was made to the commissioner to be less severe in the
prosecution of this law, but he felt that he was in the right and kept
to his course.
Then a reporter wrote a story of the death of a little girl in a
tenement on the East Side. The narrative said that the mother had gone
to buy ice for her after 10 o’clock on Sunday morning and that the
iceman was arrested for selling it, and in the mother’s absence the
child was said to have died.
This tale proved to be nothing more or less than a fable, written
to show what could happen under the continued enforcement of this
law. Roosevelt furiously denounced both the reporter and the editor
of the newspaper which published this story, yet he soon withdrew
his opposition to the selling of ice on Sunday. He said that he had
received more than two hundred letters because of the story and that
some of the women who wrote him declared that they would like to tear
him to pieces.
In spite of the many bitter battles Roosevelt faced as Police
Commissioner, he never lost his kindness of heart. He found one
gray-haired veteran who had saved twenty-eight lives at the risk of his
own. All of the recognition he had earned from the Police Board for
this heroic deed was the privilege of buying a new uniform at his own
expense, after he ruined his old one in the rescue of the lives.
The Police Board resolved, at Roosevelt’s request, that the clothes
ruined in rescuing a life on duty should be paid for by the department.
Children found him always a warm, helpful friend. When things happened
in their neighborhood that did violence to their youthful sense of
justice, they came to him with their complaints and, if it were at all
possible, he adjusted them.
His enemies tried many times to “get something on him.” One night they
had him shadowed, thinking to catch him off his guard. News came to him
of their attempt. He bridled with indignation. “They found me going
home to my babies. Let them make the most of that,” he cried.
While Police Commissioner, Roosevelt acted also as a member of the
Department of Health. Here, working hand in hand with Jacob Riis, he
did much to make conditions better for the poor. In those days it was
the children that were the greatest sufferers from the lack of health
laws.
While on his night visits Roosevelt went into dark courts and entered
foul tenements to discover for himself the misery that lay within their
walls. At his recommendation, the worst of these shacks were bought by
the city and torn down. Fire-traps and disease-holes were abolished.
Public playgrounds and parks in the crowded districts were laid out.
Even in such good work Roosevelt met with opposition. He was sued by
two landlords who had been forced to tear down their old buildings, but
the court upheld his action.
Throughout his term of office he followed the rule he had inaugurated
while Civil Service Commissioner of giving the widest publicity to
everything that went on in his department. He gave full access to
newspaper men so that the public could know exactly what was going
on. Any one could visit him in his own office and he tried to help
everybody who desired help.
Roosevelt’s attitude toward the commercialized social evil in the
red-light districts was one of determined and unwavering opposition.
In his autobiography he states that he considered the social evil the
saddest part of his police work. He made it a rule to treat the men
caught in raids on houses of ill fame precisely as the women were
treated. It was his belief that by treating men and women on an exact
equality for the same act much could be done to minimize the evil. His
judgment was that the same moral level for both sexes must be achieved
by raising the standard for the man and not by lowering it for the
woman.
As a remedy for these evils Roosevelt advocated higher wages for girls,
early marriages and a co-operation of nation, state and municipality to
crush commercialized vice.
The verdict of history was that Roosevelt was in advance of his time in
his battle for righteousness within the police ranks of New York. He
did a great work, but the job he had undertaken would have worn out a
hundred Roosevelts.
He resigned from the department on April 17, 1897, to accept an
appointment from the McKinley administration as Assistant Secretary of
the Navy.