* * * * *
Charges of “Crime Wave” Lead to Grand Jury Investigation.—In an open letter to the newspapers of the city, published during the latter part of March, Magistrate Joseph E. Corrigan declared that crime was flourishing in New York City more flagrantly than it had for years, that criminals were allowed to
carry on their work with little molestation, that the police force was demoralized and cowed, and that the responsibility for these conditions lay upon the shoulders of Mayor Wm. J. Gaynor and upon his reforms in the police administration.
Within less than two weeks after the publication of this letter the grand jury was at work, under the direction of special assistants to the district attorney, upon the task of investigating these charges, in an effort to ascertain their truth, and to fix responsibility for the conditions described, in the event that those conditions were found actually to exist.
Meanwhile the newspapers, public bodies and private societies, to say nothing of the general community, were engaged in an intense and aggressive discussion of the situation of the city with reference to crime, heated tempers were being displayed in more than one quarter, crimination was being met by recrimination, and only such a catastrophe as the Asch building fire could divert the attention of the city from the discussion of the “crime wave” and its causes.
Magistrate Corrigan’s general charges were followed by an array of specific facts and instances, presented by himself, by some of the newspapers, and by many private individuals, including social workers. It was freely alleged that Mayor Gaynor’s doctrine of “personal liberty,” and his discouragement of “needless and unjustifiable arrests,” were responsible for the demoralization of the police force, and the consequent influx of criminals of every sort.
To all this Mayor Gaynor finally entered a general and emphatic denial. He praised the police force, scouted the idea of demoralization, declared that the laws were being efficiently enforced, and characterized the whole agitation as but a periodic recurrence of a long series of similar protestations. Such outcries, he said, were as regular in their coming as is the spring marble season among boys.
The grand jury investigation bids fair to be thorough. Police Commissioner Cropsey has been called upon for some extended testimony, and the district attorney has declared his intention to probe the situation to the bottom.
[1] From other extracts from report of this association see REVIEW for February, 1911, page 10.
[2] For other information see the March REVIEW, page 24.