NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN BRIDGE.
CHAPTER III.
PROMOTION BY PULL AND PROMOTION BY PURCHASE.
The New York Police Department as it existed in 1894 was like the Scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel. It was like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness. Hardly a single thing that was proved to exist could have existed if the laws, rules and regulations had been faithfully enforced. Therefore until the searchlight of the Lexow inquiry was turned on, it was the correct thing to deny that the abuses, the corruption, the blackmail had any existence. On paper the New York police was the finest in the world. It was the most perfectly equipped, and it was armed with authority as great as that of any autocrat. What then could possibly be wrong?
The answer of the Lexow Committee, after hearing the evidence, was short and succinct. Their answer to the question, What is wrong in the Police Department? might be summed up in one word—Everything. From the crown of the head down to the sole of the feet, the department was proved to be one mass of putrefying sores. There was no health in it, and it was worst of all at the top.
The Lexow Report says:—
The conclusion which has impressed itself upon your Committee is that the disorganising elements at work in the Police Department are such that operate from the higher officials down, rather than from the patrolmen up.—Vol. i., p. 29.