There are occasions, however, when a really strong in is needed. Washington is federal territory and is ruled nominally by the national administration. In such an instance, the guy who wants to call the cops off has to try other doors. The odds are, even if he is in business in Washington, he has his roots elsewhere. Many Washingtonians maintain voting addresses in the states from which they originally came. Others have friends, partners and relatives in various states.
The procedure is to make the connection through a Democratic county committeeman back home or through a member of Congress in the home state. Congress is the ruler of the District, and almost every Congressman is as busy as a Chicago alderman fixing everything from parking tags to felony warrants.
It is similar when a cop needs influence to square a rap or get an appointment or a promotion. Elsewhere we know that being a paid-up member of the local political club never hurt the career of a policeman. Here there are no political clubs, and most cops are not even Washingtonians. Their jobs are not confined to locals, but are open to all American citizens, regardless of residence. You can take a civil service test back home in Oskaloosa, then arrive in Washington a full-fledged policeman.
Most Washingtonians don’t even want to get on the force at the penny-ante salary. But $3,000 a year looks good to a cotton-picker in Mississippi, where the annual per capita income is $600. When he gets to Washington he finds the $600 back home goes further than $3,000 here.
So, what does a cop do when he needs help? He follows the procedure outlined above. If he comes from out of town he corresponds with his local ward-heeler or goes directly to his Congressman on Capitol Hill.
We asked one cop, “What do you do if you’re a native of Washington and have no vote?”
He replied, “You’re just out of luck.”
That is, unless you’re a Negro.
The Washington force had some fine colored cops and detectives, native-born men who decided to make a career of police work in the days before Washington was flooded with the displaced from the plantations in the Deep South. In those days Negroes got no special privileges in Washington. Now almost all of the 300 colored policemen are political appointees. The white applicant undergoes a rigid and rigorous investigation; Negroes are forced on the force even over the disapproval of the department’s intelligence squad.