Mr. Moss: We have got a situation here as autocratic as anything than can be found in St. Petersburg; a law was passed in 1873 for the purpose of giving the police abundant opportunity to enter such places for any purpose that they might see fit to enter.
Mr. Goff: Judicial functions have been vested in the Superintendent of Police, in a policeman of this city, who, on his own motion, can under Section 285 of the Consolidation Act issue a warrant, and on the execution of that warrant the doors of any house in the City of New York may be broken in. If we had time to introduce evidence of cases, we could do so where from spleen and malice on the part of some common policeman, the respectable houses have been invaded without colour or authority of right, except this arbitrary power given to the police by law.
Senator O’Connor: That is simply a horrible condition of affairs; better submit to a thousand disorderly houses than that one decent house should be treated in such a manner.
Mr. Goff: Under the law as it exists to-day in the City of New York, a policeman who is the Superintendent of Police—that is all he is, a policeman—has the power to issue his warrant fully equal to that exercised by the Prefect of Police in St. Petersburg....
Counsel then read as follows:—
“If any member of the police force, or if any two or more householders, shall report in writing under his or their signature, to the Superintendent of Police that there are good grounds, and state them, for believing any house, room or premises within the said city to be kept or used as a common gaming-house or common gaming premises or room for playing for wagers, or for money at any game of chance, or to be kept or used for lewd and obscene purposes or amusements, or the deposit or sale of lottery tickets or lottery policies, it shall be lawful for the Superintendent of Police to authorise in writing any member or members of the police force to enter the same, who may forthwith arrest all persons there found offending against the law, but none other, and seize all implements of game or lottery tickets or lottery policies and convey any person so arrested before a magistrate and bring the article so seized to the office of the clerk; it shall be the duty of the said Superintendent of Police to cause such arrested person to be rigorously prosecuted and such articles seized to be destroyed as the orders, rules and regulations of the Board of Police shall direct.”
There has been no law in our country under our system of a more complete, sweeping and comprehensive measure placed within the powers of a simple executive office, as the Superintendent of Police is, as this law. It exceeds that of the Common Law, where the power is vested in a judicial officer to issue a warrant; but here a policeman may authorise in writing any members of his police force to enter any place complained of by either a member of the police force or by two householders, and arrest all such persons found therein.—Vol. iv., 4,493-7.
Notwithstanding this right of domiciliary visitation, which equals or exceeds that possessed by the Prefect of St. Petersburg, we have it admitted on all hands that it utterly failed in attaining its end. The police machine, Mr. Goff declared, was by no means inefficient. Regarded as a machine it was indeed, in his opinion, the most perfect machine ever invented in New York. Notwithstanding all its mechanical perfection the result was nothing but organised impotence.
Witness after witness appeared on the stand to attest the extraordinary inability of the police authorities to cope with the flagrant evils in the city or in the force under their command. On one occasion it was proved that the agents of the Society for the Prevention of Crime had been hunted by a mob of bullies and crooks for half a mile through Bowery. It was a regular riot, in which the agents for the Society were struck and stoned through the whole of Captain Devery’s precinct; the police officers looking on as amused spectators. They were appealed to for assistance, and took no notice. At last, the hunted men jumped on a car, and escaped with their lives. But although this riot had taken place in the heart of the city, and created a scandal through the whole of New York, Superintendent Byrnes reported that he could not find any evidence that there had been a riot (p. 4,834.) The extraordinary inability of the police to see what was going on under their noses, although apparently phenomenal, was so habitual that it ceased to excite any surprise. Saloons ran open all Sunday under the eyes of the patrolmen. The Superintendent of the Society for the Prevention of Crime gave evidence on this subject as follows:—
I pointed out an open saloon to a patrolman, whose name I do not know, and inquired why he did not close it; he said that if I insisted upon it, he supposed he must do so; but it would do no good, and only get him in trouble with the department and cause his removal to some undesirable precinct.—Vol. v., p. 4,835.