But the origin of the mischief was found to exist not in the department at all, but outside the department. The first thing that was wrong was that the police were practically run by Tammany Hall politicians in the interest of their party, and that the real governing power in the force lay outside of it. Two of the Police Commissioners in whose hands the control of the force was nominally lodged were leaders in their own districts for Tammany Hall, and their sense of their obligations to their party far outweighed their obligations to the law or to the city. As one of the witnesses put it bluntly:—
So long as our municipal departments are run by Boss Croker, they will be regarded as adjuncts of a political organisation, and will be used to perpetuate its power. A police commission controlled by such influence is incapable of rendering justice.—Vol. i., p. 114.
From an English point of view what New York needed most was a City Council, with some effective control over the affairs of the city. The shadowy unreality known as the Board of Aldermen cuts no figure in the inquiry into the forces which actually governed New York. Tammany Hall, the executive committee of Tammany Hall, came much nearer to the ideal of a Municipal Assembly than the Board of Aldermen. It was to Tammany Hall, and not to the Board of Aldermen, that the Police Commissioners appealed when they wanted to enforce their authority over the men under their own orders. This came out very plainly in Commissioner Martin’s evidence. He found that his subordinates were taking so active a hand in politics, joining political clubs and the like, that he wished to check it. He went, not to the Board of Aldermen, but to Tammany Hall. He was asked:—
Q. Why did you go there?
A. I took occasion to speak in Tammany Hall about it, because there I could reach people from different assembly districts; I have spoken to representatives of the different districts about it in my office.
Q. And you went to Tammany Hall to engage their co-operation in securing greater efficiency of the police force in New York city?
A. To aid in making it efficient; yes, sir.
Q. Was that because there was no other place to go to?
A. There was no other place to go to that would be as effective as that.—Vol. i., p. 443.
No wonder the Committee reports:—