American ideals, and other essays, social and political

by Theodore Roosevelt

In re-organizing the force the Board had to make, and did make, more promotions, more appointments, and more dismissals than had ever before been made in the same length of time. We were so hampered by the law that we were not able to dismiss many of the men whom we should have dismissed, but we did turn out 200 men—more than four times as many as had ever been turned out in the same length of time before; all of them being dismissed after formal trial, and after having been given full opportunity to be heard in their own defence. We appointed about 1700 men all told—again more than four times as many as ever before; for we were allowed a large increase of the police force by law. We made 130 promotions; more than had been made in the six preceding years.

All this work was done in strictest accord with what we have grown to speak of as the principles of civil service reform. In making dismissals we paid heed merely to the man’s efficiency and past record, refusing to consider outside pressure; under the old regime no policeman with sufficient influence behind him was ever dismissed, no matter what his offence. In making promotions we took into account not only the man’s general record, his faithfulness, industry and vigilance, but also his personal prowess as shown in any special feat of daring, whether in the arresting of criminals or in the saving of life—for the police service is military in character, and we wished to encourage the military virtues. In making appointments we found that it was practicable to employ a system of rigid competitive examinations, which, as finally perfected, combined a very severe physical examination with a mental examination such as could be passed by any man who had attended one of our public schools. Of course there was also a rigid investigation of character. Theorists have often sneered at civil service reform as “impracticable;” and I am very far from asserting that written competitive examinations are always applicable, or that they may not sometimes be merely stop-gaps, used only because they are better than the methods of appointing through political endorsement; but most certainly the system worked admirably in the Police Department. We got the best lot of recruits for patrolmen that had ever been obtained in the history of the force, and we did just as well in our examinations for matrons and police surgeons. The uplifting of the force was very noticeable, both physically and mentally. The best men we got were those who had served for three years or so in the Army or Navy. Next to these came the railroad men. One noticeable feature of the work was that we greatly raised the proportion of native-born, until, of the last hundred appointed, ninety-four per cent. were Americans by birth. Not once in a hundred times did we know the politics of the appointee, and we paid as little heed to this as to their religion.

Another of our important tasks was seeing that the elections were carried on honestly. Under the old Tammany rule the cheating was gross and flagrant, and the police were often deliberately used to facilitate fraudulent practices at the polls. This came about in part from the very low character of the men put in as election officers. By conducting a written examination of the latter, and supplementing this by a careful inquiry into their character, in which we invited any decent outsiders to assist, we very distinctly raised their calibre. To show how necessary our examinations were, I may mention that before each election held under us we were obliged to reject, for moral or mental shortcomings, over a thousand of the men whom the regular party organizations, exercising their legal rights, proposed as election officers. We then merely had to make the police thoroughly understand that their sole duty was to guarantee an honest election, and that they would be punished with the utmost rigor if they interfered with honest citizens on the one hand, or failed to prevent fraud and violence on the other. The result was that the elections of 1895 and 1896 were by far the most honest and orderly ever held in New York City.

There were a number of other ways in which we sought to reform the police force, less important, and nevertheless very important. We paid particular heed to putting a premium on specially meritorious conduct, by awarding certificates of honorable mention, and medals, where we were unable to promote. We introduced a system of pistol practice by which, for the first time, the policemen were brought to a reasonable standard of efficiency in handling their revolvers. The Bertillion system for the identification of criminals was introduced. A bicycle squad was organized with remarkable results, this squad speedily becoming a kind of corps d’elite, whose individual members distinguished themselves not only by their devotion to duty, but by repeated exhibitions of remarkable daring and skill. One important bit of reform was abolishing the tramp lodging-houses, which had originally been started in the police stations, in a spirit of unwise philanthropy. These tramp lodging-houses, not being properly supervised, were mere nurseries for pauperism and crime, tramps and loafers of every shade thronging to the city every winter to enjoy their benefits. We abolished them, a municipal lodging-house being substituted. Here all homeless wanderers were received, forced to bathe, given night-clothes before going to bed, and made to work next morning, and in addition they were so closely supervised that habitual tramps and vagrants were speedily detected and apprehended.

There was a striking increase in the honesty of the force, and there was a like increase in its efficiency. When we took office it is not too much to say that the great majority of the citizens of New York were firmly convinced that no police force could be both honest and efficient. They felt it to be part of the necessary order of things that a policeman should be corrupt, and they were convinced that the most efficient way of warring against certain forms of crime—notably crimes against person and property—was by enlisting the service of other criminals, and of purveyors of vice generally, giving them immunity in return for their aid. Before we took power the ordinary purveyor of vice was allowed to ply his or her trade unmolested, partly in consideration of paying blackmail to the police, partly in consideration of giving information about any criminal who belonged to the unprotected classes. We at once broke up this whole business of blackmail and protection, and made war upon all criminals alike, instead of getting the assistance of half in warring on the other half. Nevertheless, so great was the improvement in the spirit of the force, that, although deprived of their former vicious allies, they actually did better work than ever before against those criminals who threatened life and property. Relatively to the population, fewer crimes of violence occurred during our administration of the Board than in any previous two years of the city’s history in recent times; and the total number of arrests of criminals increased, while the number of cases in which no arrest followed the commission of crime decreased. The detective bureau nearly doubled the number of arrests made compared with the year before we took office; obtaining, moreover, 365 convictions of felons and 215 convictions for misdemeanors, as against 269 and 105 respectively for the previous year. At the same time every attempt at riot or disorder was summarily checked, and all gangs of violent criminals brought into immediate subjection; while on the other hand the immense mass meetings and political parades were handled with such care that not a single case of clubbing of any innocent citizen was reported.

The result of our labors was of value to the city, for we gave the citizens better protection than they had ever before received, and at the same time cut out the corruption which was eating away civic morality. We showed conclusively that it was possible to combine both honesty and efficiency in handling the police. We were attacked with the most bitter animosity by every sensational newspaper and every politician of the baser sort, not because of our shortcomings, but because of what we did that was good. We enforced the laws as they were on the statute books, we broke up blackmail, we kept down the spirit of disorder, and repressed rascality, and we administered the force with an eye single to the welfare of the city. In doing this we encountered, as we had expected, the venemous opposition of all men whose interest it was that corruption should continue, or who were of such dull morality that they were not willing to see honesty triumph at the cost of strife.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Atlantic Monthly, September, 1897.

[15]My predecessor in the Presidency of the Police Board.