Policewomen
From these various official positions occupied by women it was only a step to secure the appointment of women on the regular police force to aid in the protection of the young. This step was first taken in Los Angeles, California, when Mrs. Alice Stebbins Wells was placed upon the police staff.
The present administration of Syracuse (1914) has appointed a woman as police officer as a result of a movement begun over a year ago by women and approved by the Chamber of Commerce. Mrs. Wells, the police officer of Los Angeles, aroused the club women of Syracuse to the advantages of such an official and later, when a moral survey of Syracuse was made under the chairmanship of Miss Arria Huntington, the advice of Mrs. Wells was more fully appreciated. The work of the policewoman will involve the training, tact and ability of a social worker and the women of Syracuse regard her as a constructive element in the city government. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Women’s Political Union and the churches assisted in the movement to secure the policewoman. “The number of cities and towns which have placed women on the police force with full or partial power is increasing so rapidly that it is no longer possible to keep count. Chicago, of course, is the recent shining example. Within the past year San Francisco has changed its charter so as to admit women to the force without meeting the physical requirements which apply to men. Three women have already been appointed. Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota; Topeka, Kansas; Ottawa, Illinois; and Kansas City are other places which have recently intrusted police power to women.”[[47]]
In Chicago, Mayor Harrison sent Mrs. Gertrude Howe Britton, superintendent of the Juvenile Protective Association and a member of the school board, to visit all the police stations of the city to instruct the regular force of policemen how best to protect and promote the welfare of the children on their beats. When one realizes the great number of arrests of children, one will appreciate that a considerable portion of the policeman’s time is concerned in the oversight of children.
Under the caption, “Policewomen’s Efficiency in Danger,” The Survey described the situation which prevailed in Chicago in the spring of 1914:
Some of the most influential clubs and civic organizations of Chicago have protested vigorously against the action of Chief of Police Gleason in regard to the city’s twenty policewomen. Under Second Deputy Superintendent Funckhouser, the civilian police official, they have proved effective in regulating public dance halls. Under Deputy Superintendent Schuettler, to whose command they have been transferred, they are assigned to regular police duty scattered among various station houses and can no longer be used for inspection of dance halls or other pieces of work requiring concerted action.
In making over 1,500 inspections of dance halls, in which they found many violations of law for which arrests might have been made, the women officers, being more intent upon prevention than punishment, determined to make no arrests at first, but to warn the managers and to win the girls who patronize the dances. This policy has proved successful in securing obedience to law and observance of propriety.
Such results in the dance halls made the second deputy’s administration a shining mark for assaults from the underworld just as his strict censorship of motion pictures has attracted opposition from those who make and promote films suggestive of evil. Such enemies of public safety and common decency are believed to have found aid and comfort at the hands of certain police officials and of those higher up.
It is feared that the fine esprit de corps of the new women police will suffer by being forced to conform to the varying standards of the stations to which they have been assigned.
The ostensible reason for taking them away from Major Funckhouser is that his use of their service transcends his function as the civilian deputy and belongs to the active force. But his squad of male officers is left under his command apparently without fear of inconsistency, perhaps, because, under the surface, it is not inconsistent with the purpose dictating the transfer of the women.
The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners announce that the policewoman recently appointed by them is to be “the city’s mother to the motherless.”
The work of Miss Roche in Denver, as described by George Creel, in a recent number of The Metropolitan, illustrates the inestimable value of the addition of women to the police force of cities.