The New York Tombs Inside and Out! / Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison.

This is a practical age, and the people demand of their servants, the Police, practical up-to-date methods in the prevention and suppression of crime, and no matter what other virtues our civic guardians may possess, the old adage that “Prevention is better than cure,” will always remain the true motto by which our police will be judged as the real protectors of our city.

Under the bi-partisan Commission which controlled the Department for many years, the practical work of the force was intrusted to an experienced officer known as the Superintendent. This man knew every detail of the department and could not be deceived by any one, as he grew up with the system.

During the past fifty years New York has had some of the brainiest and shrewdest of Superintendents, but they could not bring about needed reforms because of the controlling power of politics. They were Superintendents only in name! The entire inefficiency of the police the past fifty years must be laid to politics and graft. Rid the Department of these two excresencies and you have one of the best police systems in the world.

During the past year the sickening game of politics has been played to an excess never before known, so as to keep in power for four years more a gang of mean grafters. How long it is going to last no one can tell.

It is an undeniable fact that for forty years or more 300 Mulberry Street has been the “happy hunting ground” for politicians of every creed. Some went there to exercise the power of a “pull,” while others had axes to grind. Here the ward “heeler,” in the language of the Roman Tacitus, “could exercise the power of a king with the temper of a slave.” And often removed faithful officers who would not do his bidding. It is not a great while ago when if a policeman dared to do his duty by arresting a saloon keeper, a gambler or a dive keeper he at once became a marked man. Some politician at once became his Nemesis and “for the good of the service” had him removed among the goats in the upper Bronx, or, since the union of the five boroughs, he might be sent to Far Rockaway or even to Staten Island. If, on the other hand, he wilfully evaded his duty as a policeman his superior might prefer charges against him and if found guilty he would either be fined or dismissed from the service. The life of the faithful officer, therefore, has been a hard one. He was like the man who was between the Devil and the deep sea, when he did his duty he was persecuted, when he did not, he was “broke,” provided, of course, he had no “pull.”

The Lexow Investigating Committee showed that many police officials from Commissioners down to patrolmen were in the business for “graft.” In those days nearly all promotions cost money. An inspectorship meant a fortune for some man, a captaincy cost as high as $20,000 and even higher. But the bi-partisan Commission was mainly responsible for this shameful corruption. Many high officials were involved in the scandals, while the rank and file were more or less affected. It is our firm opinion that if the police were protected in the line of their daily duty, freed from the domination of the ward “heeler” and given to understand that they could be promoted only on the ground of efficiency and meritorious conduct, no body of men in the world would be more faithful to the public interest.

The result of the Lexow investigation was that nearly fifty Police Inspectors, Captains and wardmen were indicted for bribery and other offences against the law, but only one man suffered imprisonment. All the others fought for vindication in the Courts and succeeded in having the indictments in every case dismissed.

It is a foregone conclusion in the minds of those best able to judge that the man who is to rightly control the New York Police must be one of their own number, an experienced officer, paid a good salary so that he may be honest in his relations to the City Government, and just to the men under him. Indeed, the only way to keep the police situation within proper bounds is to put the entire force in the hands of a practical, level headed honest man. Give him a free hand and hold him responsible for keeping the city clear of crime. Then let this official put the crime of the city up to the Inspectors, holding each of them responsible for his own district. In turn let the Inspectors hold each Captain responsible for the condition of his own precinct. When the Captain of the Precinct finds that he cannot shift the responsibility on somebody else he will do his duty or get out. Only in this way shall we have real police efficiency.

Since January 1900 the police of Greater New York have been in charge of single-headed Commissioners; each in turn ruled the department, viz: Ex-Senator Murphy, Col. Partridge, General Greene, ex-Congressman McAdoo, General Bingham and Commissioner Baker. They were all good men in private life but some were sadly deficient in the experience that pertained to police matters. Each Commissioner made serious mistakes from start to finish which would not have taken place had he been familiar with the routine of the department. And each Commissioner in his turn complained that he had been grossly deceived by the higher officials of the Department when he tried to bring about any lasting reforms. Had these men been practical policemen it would have been impossible to have deceived them.

If you put an inexperienced man in charge of a railroad or a large factory in two years it is more than likely that one or both will be in the hands of a receiver. And every time you put an inexperienced outsider in charge of the Police Department he will fail utterly to do the best work.

On the first of January, 1909, the Police force of Greater New York consisted of 1 Commissioner, 4 Deputy Commissioners, 17 Inspectors, 25 Surgeons, 91 Captains, 627 Lieutenants, 585 Sergeants, 8,239 Patrolmen, 70 Matrons, 194 Doormen, together with 10 others who are classed as telegraph men and boiler inspectors, making a grand total of over 10,000 in the Department.

During the past year or two Commissioner Bingham asked for several hundred men and $50,000 a year for a Secret Service. It goes without saying that these Secret Service men would be used not only to watch some of the men now in the Department, but the blackhanders, anarchists and other criminal conspirators that hang around the city. But it is not more policemen the city needs as much as the system thoroughly reorganized.

The Parkhurst Society with a dozen of men has often been able to do more for the city than a whole platoon of policemen.

There is room in New York for hundreds of plain clothes men, to deal with certain kinds of crime, like the Secret Service men of the United States Government. It is not necessary to keep policemen in uniform patrolling the city. Much more crime would be discovered if they went about in citizens’ dress. We would like to suggest to the Commissioner the propriety of selecting a hundred strong-minded women detectives with full authority to make arrests, and putting them in those localities that are now infested with the worst female characters. We believe before long they would put such women crooks out of business.

The Policeman and His Work

The work of the New York policeman may be briefly summed up as follows: He is an enforcer of the law, a protector of society, a judge and jury to settle scores of cases that must be decided offhand without a moment’s hesitation, a preventor and detector of crime and a suppressor of lawlessness and violence. In his daily duties he removes obstacles to good order, stands for the liberty, peace and security of the citizen and in general looks after the moral welfare of the people.

More than that, the policeman should know the character of every gin-mill in the Precinct, the disorderly houses, the gambling hells, if any, where the crooks hang out, and the suspicious characters, who will need continual watching, to whom he should be a constant terror. All of which means that it will be necessary for him to patrol his post faithfully, otherwise he will not know these things.

The law gives him vast discretionary powers, which on the one hand involves personal liberty and guarantees prompt measures of relief in cases of emergency; yet his work is two-fold—administrative and judicial—to enforce the law and if possible prevent crime.

One of the main reasons why grafting and other abuses continued so long in the New York Police Department is on account of the “pull” that certain ones had. The policeman with a “pull” has been known to neglect his duty in a most shameful manner and when called to account could snap his fingers in the face of his superior. As long as the District Leader is a power at headquarters, all the offending policeman has to do is to “make it right with him” and he in turn sees the man-higher-up of his own party. Sometimes an officer received a “make-believe reprimand” but no more. The hard and fast discipline of the department was only for the man who had no political friends.

The total police appropriations for 1909 is $14,452,028.85 besides $400,000 for pensions, which makes the sum total expended on the Police of Greater New York for the present year $14,852,028.85.

The sum total of the Police work in this city for the past year is as follows:

Of the 104,000 discharges, 84,381 were liberated on the preliminary examination, which clearly shows that they were innocent of the charge or charges preferred against them. These outrages occur all the time in New York but would not be tolerated in Russia or Central Africa. According to Commissioner Bingham’s report in my possession there were 25,209 arrests for felonies, but only 6,099 convictions. This shows that 19,110 crooks got clear. That is to say, the crimes were committed but the crooks slipped away. Any one who will carefully examine the report will see at a glance that by far the larger number of arrests were for minor offences. Push cart peddlers are arrested daily for the crime (?) of standing longer than ten minutes in one place. And a multitude of boys for playing ball on the street, but the unterrified criminal remains at large.

On account of some differences of opinion between Mayor McClellan and Commissioner Bingham over the Duffy case, the Mayor ousted Bingham on the last of June and put in his place Deputy Commissioner Baker of Brooklyn. Commissioner Bingham may have some peculiar ways about him but other than that the common opinion of the best people in every grade of life is that he was a fearless official, and more than that he raised the standard of the police department higher than ever it was before. He was also an absolutely honest man. In this opinion we believe we have some of the best men in the city on our side. And we believe his removal was another example of vicious politics.