PART II.

There is not a form under which the Devil disguises himself that so perplexes us in our efforts, or so bewilders us in the devising of our schemes, as the polluted harpies that, under the pretext of governing this city, are feeding day and night on its quivering vitals. They are a lying, perjured, rum-soaked and libidinous lot.

That was plain speaking in honest, ringing Saxon, for Dr. Parkhurst knew that there was no better way of spoiling the trump card of the Devil’s game than to refuse to let him keep things mixed. He maintained that the district attorney, or, as we should say, the public prosecutor, was guilty of complicity with vice and crime: that “every effort to make men respectable, honest, temperate, and sexually clean was a direct blow between the eyes of the mayor and his whole gang of drunken and lecherous subordinates, who shielded and patronised iniquity.” Criminals and officials, he declared, were hand-and-glove, and he summed up the whole matter in the following concise exposition of thestatus quoin “Satan’s Invisible World” in New York, 1892:—“It is simply one solid gang of rascals, half of the gang in officeand the other half out, and the two halves steadily catering to each other across the official line.”

FromFrank Leslie’s Weekly.REV. C. H. PARKHURST, D.D., DENOUNCING TAMMANY’S GOVERNMENT OF NEW YORK.

Of course there was a great outcry. Some good people were scandalised, while as for the bad ones, they were simply outraged at such “violent and intemperate utterances in the pulpit.” One of the police captains declared “it was a shame for a minister of the Gospel to disgrace the pulpit by such utterances.” Dr. Parkhurst was summoned before the Grand Jury, and solemnly reproved for making statements which he could not for the moment substantiate with chapter and verse. When the Grand Jury condemned him and the judge rebuked him, Tammany was in high glee; but Dr. Parkhurst bided his time. He was not a man to be “downed” by censure. Finding that his general statements were scouted because he could not produce first hand evidence as to the literal accuracy of each particular instance on which he built up his general finding, he took the bold and courageous step of going himself through the houses of ill-fame, gaming hells, and other resorts which were running open under the protection of the police. He was accompanied in his pilgrimage by a detective and a lawyer, and for three weeks every night Dr. Parkhurst, to use his own phrase, “traversed the avenues of our municipal hell.” They entered into no houses not easy of access, went into no places which were not recognised as notorious, and were perfectly well known by the constable on the beat. In one case they succeeded in proving police collusion by getting the policeman on beat to stand guard while they visited the house, ostensibly for an immoral purpose, in order to warn them against any signs of a possible raid.

Having thus mastered his facts and obtained incontrovertible evidence at first hand as to the fact of police complicity in the wholesale violation of the law, Dr. Parkhurst stood up in his pulpit on the morning of March 13th, 1892, and once more arraigned the city authorities. This time, however, he was armed with a mass of facts ascertained at first hand, and supported by unimpeachable, independent testimony. He brought forward no fewer than two hundred and eighty-four cases in which the law was flagrantly violated under the noses of the police, who, he maintained, were guilty of corrupt complicity in the violation of the law they were appointed to enforce.

It was a great sermon, and one that shook the city to its centre. Some idea of its drift and spirit may be gained from this extract:—

There is little advantage in preaching the Gospel to a young fellow on Sunday, if he is going to be sitting on the edge of a Tammany-maintained hell the rest of the week. Don’t tell me that I don’t know what I am talking about. Many a long, dismal, heart-sickening night, in company with two trusted friends, have I spent since I spoke on this matter before, going down into the disgusting depths of this Tammany-debauched town; and it is rotten with a rottenness that is unspeakable and indescribable, and a rottenness that would be absolutely impossible except by the connivance, not to say the purchased sympathy, of the men whose one obligation before God, men, their own consciences, is to shield virtue and make vice difficult.Now, that I stand by, because before Almighty God I know it, and I will stand by it though buried beneath presentments as thick as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa, or snowflakes in a March blizzard.

And stand by it Dr. Parkhurst did. He was promptly summoned again before the Grand Jury, and this time he had his facts at command. Instead of being rebuked, the Grand Jury reported emphatically that it was impossible to reconcile the facts presented by Dr. Parkhurst with any other theory than that of wholesale police corruption.

The following month various keepers of disreputable houses were prosecuted upon Dr. Parkhurst’s evidence, when every effort was made to damage Dr. Parkhurst by representing him as the vicious criminal who was responsible for the very evils which he had brought to light.

It is the old, old story. As long as you sit still and say nothing you are all right, but the moment you call attention to a hideous wrong or a shameful crime, all those whose iniquities you have disclosed combine with your enemies in order to make a busy public believe that it is you who have exposed the crime who is the real criminal, while they, poor innocents, are the injured parties, for whom a respectable public should have nothing but sympathy, and commiseration.

The ferocity of the attacks upon Dr. Parkhurst provoked a reaction in his favour. The City Vigilance Society was formed by the association of forty religious and secular societies of the city. The work of sapping and mining went steadily on. In order to bring odium upon Dr. Parkhurst, the police suddenly decided to close up several houses of ill-fame, so as to turn their unfortunate occupants into the streets on one of the coldest nights of the winter of 1892. Dr. Parkhurst met this by promptly providing homes for all the dispossessed women. Foiled in this cruel manœuvre, the police prosecuted Dr. Parkhurst’s detective for an alleged attempt to levy blackmail. This was Satan reproving sin with a vengeance, and for the moment it had a temporary success. The detective was convicted, in the first instance, but on appeal the verdict was set aside. Undaunted, however, by this reverse, Dr. Parkhurst began to carry the war into the enemy’s camp. He got up cases against forty-five of the sixty-four gambling and disorderly houses which were allowed to run by the police captain of a single precinct. The trials followed with varying results. It was evident that the difficulties in the way of obtaining a full disclosure of police corruption could only be overcome by special measures. Public opinion was now deeply stirred, and the Chamber of Commerce memorialised the Senate of New York City to hold an inquiry into the Police Department of New York.

The Senate appointed a Committee of Investigation, and passed a bill providing for the payment of its expenses. This bill was vetoedby Governor Flower, himself a Democrat, whose veto elicited another illustration, if it were wanted, of the marvellous Pharisaism of Tammany and its friends.

GOVERNOR FLOWER.

Where party feeling runs high, anything that one party proposes the other one opposes, and Governor Flower, finding the Republican majority of the Senate in favour of the investigation into the misdeeds of the New York police, could only see in it a Republican plot for the manufacture of political capital in the division of political patronage. So he took special objection to any investigation of the Police Department of New York. The following passage from the veto message deserves to stand on record as one of the most extraordinary eulogies ever pronounced upon a rotten system on the very eve of its exposure. Speaking of New York, Governor Flower said:—

Except for political objects, there is no good reason why that city should be singled out for legislative scrutiny. The same men who do the investigating in public will admit in private what every well-informed person knows is true—that no city in the State is so well governed as New York. No city in the State has a lower tax rate; no city has a better police regulation; no city has a lower ratio of crime; no city has better streets; no city has a better fire department; no city has better parks; no city has better schools; no city has a better health department; no city has a better credit; no city is so comfortable a place to live in. That bad men sometimes get in office there is true. That frauds upon the city treasury sometimes occur is true; that mal-administration sometimes happens is true; that ideal municipal government has not yet been attained there is true; but these things are as equally true of every city in the world, they are truer of other cities of our State than they are of New York.—Lexow Commission, vol. i., p. 10.

In order to get round the Governor’s veto, prominent members of the Chamber of Commerce guaranteed to the Committee counsel’s fees to an amount necessary to enable them to prosecute the investigation. Thereupon the Committee was appointed and set to work. All its members were Senators of the State of New York. It was presided over by Mr. Clarence Lexow. The names of the other members were Edmund O’Connor, George W. Robertson,Cuthbert W. Pound, Charles T. Saxton, Jacob A. Cantor, Daniel Bradley, with William A. Sutherland and John W. Goff as counsel. The only member of the Committee representing New York City was Mr. Cantor, who presented the minority Report, which maintained that the Republicans were as bad as the Democrats, and that most of the officials in the Police Department implicated in blackmail, fraud and corruption were Republicans.

JOHN W. GOFF.

The Committee held its first meeting on the 9th of March, 1894. At the earlier sittings the Police Department was represented by counsel, but after a while he was withdrawn, and the Committee was left to conduct its inquiries as best it could. It was fortunate in securing the services of a famous lawyer, Mr. John W. Goff, who is now Recorder of New York, “succeeding a man who fined him for contempt because he insisted upon his rights as counsel in protecting one of Dr. Parkhurst’s agents.” As even the one dissentient member of the Committee reported, “No more tireless, industrious or effective counsel was ever employed by a Committee charged with the responsibility of its character.” As I read over the voluminous reports of the evidence taken by the Lexow Committee, I could not repress a sigh: would that we had enjoyed the privilege of having such an examiner as John W. Goff on the South Africa Committee! But, of course, there was one great difference: the Lexow Committee was appointed for the purpose of finding out the facts and exposing scandal, whereas the South Africa Committee seems to have accepted the theory thatit was appointed for exactly the opposite purpose of hushing them up, and of screening Mr. Chamberlain at any cost.

The members of the Lexow Committee when they undertook their duties had no idea as to how far it would lead them. They thought that two days a week for three weeks would complete the investigation. No sooner, however, had they begun to apply the probe than they came upon evidence of such rottenness that even the laziest of them felt they had no option but to go on. Go on they did day after day, taking evidence from morning till night, but it was not until the end of the year that they were able to finish their Provisional Report. This was dated January 16th, 1895. In the Report they thus summarise the evidence which they took:—

The record shows a total of 10,576 pages of proceedings. This does not include a mass of documentary exhibits which were read and considered in evidence, for the purpose of information. Of this testimony, 1,077 pages embrace the subject-matter of police interference at the polls, and the balance, or almost 9,500 pages, refer to the subject-matter of blackmail, extortion and corruption. In all, 678 witnesses were examined, of whom 81 were examined on the first and 597 on the second branch of the inquiry. In all, about 3,000 subpœnas were served, of which upwards of 2,750 were with reference to the second branch of the inquiry.—Ib., vol. i., p. 4.

It is upon this immense body of evidence taken on oath, under cross-examination in public audiences, that I have based this volume. “Satan’s Invisible World” is thus displayed, not by a stranger or a casual observer, or an amateur investigator. The revelation has been made by American subjects testifying on oath before an American tribunal as to the state of things that actually existed in the City of New York. As the result of the investigation the old system of Tammany rule was overthrown, and the police thoroughly reorganised. They have now as Chief Commissioner Mr. Moss, who, after Mr. Goff, was the chief instrument in exposing the corruption of the old system. If any one doubts the accuracy of the picture of what actually existed down to 1894, which is set forth in this and the following pages, I can only refer him to the volumes of evidence to which reference is made throughout in the passages quoted.

It is not surprising that men who have lived in the midst of such a city should sometimes burst out like Dr. Parkhurst with the despairing cry:—

You can love your country and work for it, pray and plead for it, but there is a stage of rottenness which once reached, the country is damned beyond the power of the Holy Ghost to do anything for it.

That such a state of rottenness has been reached in any part of the English-speaking world we must all be loath to admit. The great popular uprising which swept Tammany from power in 1894 was a healthy sign that the rottenness had not eaten to the vitals of the community. But the Charter of Greater New York proves only too well how deeply distrust has sapped the faith of the citizens in the possibility of governing their city by the ordinary democratic machinery of an elective assembly.

SENATOR LEXOW.

Satan’s Invisible World.

THE POLICE BANDITS OF NEW YORK.

The Lexow Committee experienced great difficulty in procuring evidence owing to the Reign of Terror which was established in New York by the police. The story reads more like a description of an Indian province terrorized by a band of Thugs than a statement of how New York was governed. When unwilling witnesses—and the vast majority of witnesses were most unwilling—were placed on the stand, they were thus addressed by the Chairman:—

Any testimony you give now, under oath, before this Committee with reference to bribery or corruption, cannot be used against you in any form, shape, or way. The fact of your confession here before this Committee will be a complete bar against any prosecution against you for that offence. In other words, if you sit here and tell the truth, and confess that you have committed any crime of that description, you will be absolutely relieved from any punishment for the commission of that crime. On the other hand, if you swear to anything that is false, then, not only could you be punished for the crime that you committed, if you did commit the crime of bribery, but for the crime of false swearing, or perjury, besides; you understand that?—Vol. iv., p. 3,615.

Notwithstanding this, the amount of perjury committed, especially by policemen, was appalling. One of them, of the name of Interman, admitted frankly that it was the common understanding among the members of the force that it was their duty to swear falsely to conceal the facts about bribery and corruption. If they spoke the truth they would be bounced or persecuted, whereas if they came forward and perjured themselves they would stand high with their superiors. The wrath of a captain who can make it hot for you next day evidently weighed much more with the police than the wrath of an offended God, whose mills grind so slowly that retribution may not begin till the day of judgment.

The answers to questions put to brothel-keepers and others as to their belief in the binding character of an oath and the reality of a future state were hardly edifying. One woman, Julia Mahoney,broke the record for the unhesitating candour with which she answered counsel’s questions.

“Do you not know,” said Mr. Goff, “that you would meet your punishment in the world hereafter?”

“I hope not,” Julia replied simply.

“And you know that you would be liable to go to the State’s prison?” persisted Mr. Goff. But Mrs. Mahoney was proof against that threat.

“If I was in prison I would be out in twenty-four hours,” she remarked. “She has got a pull,” sagely observed Senator Bradley.

It must be admitted that it was a task of uncommon difficulty to extract the truth from witnesses such as these, who fear not God neither regard man. Why should they? They have got a pull, and the pull ends all things.

Two competent American observers have recently told us what a policeman is in an American city. Both confirm to the letter what was stated by a leading citizen of Chicago five years ago. “Never mind what is said about this or that system of city government. In Chicago and all the West the police govern the city, and that is all there is to it.” In New York it would appear to have been much the same. Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, who was head of the New York police in the first two years of the Reform Administration, writing in theCentury Magazinefor October, says:—

The police occupy positions of great importance. They not merely preserve order, the first essential of both liberty and civilisation, but to a large portion of our population they stand as the embodiment as well as the representative of the law of the land. To the average dweller in a tenement-house district, especially if born abroad, the policeman is in his own person all that there is of government: he is judge, executive and legislature, constitution and town meeting.

The other witness is Mr. Godkin, the editor of theEvening Post, who, writing in theNorth American Reviewseven years back, says of the newly landed immigrant:—

No sooner has he established himself in a tenement-house or a boarding-house than he finds himself face to face with three functionaries who represent to him the government of his new country—the police justice of the district, the police captain of his precinct, and the political “district leader.” These are, to him, the Federal, State and municipal governments rolled into one.... These three men are to him America. Everything else in the national institutions in which Americans pride themselves he only sees through a glass darkly, if he sees it at all.

These dwellers in tenement-houses in New York, to whom the police—of whom there were then 4,000—are judge, executive, and legislature, constitution and town meeting, comprise two-thirds of the population of the city. To the foreign denizen of these districts—say one-half of the whole—the policeman and his masters of the political machine are all of America that he can see or understand.

Now let us see what kind of an America the New York police presented to the eyes of the majority of the population of the city.The Lexow Committee in its final Report, after commenting on the difficulty of obtaining evidence owing to the terrorism practised by the police, said of a typical case:—

This situation was characteristic. A consuming desire to put an end to an outrageous servitude on the one hand, and a dread lest failure might result in a still more galling thraldom on the other! It seemed, in fact, as though every interest, every occupation, almost every citizen, was dominated by an all-controlling and overshadowing dread of the police department.Those in the humbler walks of life were subjected to appalling outrages which to some extent continued, even to the end of the investigation. They were abused, clubbed and imprisoned, and even convicted of crimes on false testimony by policemen and their accomplices. Men of business were harassed and annoyed in their affairs, so that they too were compelled to bend their necks to the police yoke, in order that they might share that so-called protection which seemed indispensable to the profitable conduct of their affairs. People of all degrees seemed to feel that to antagonize the police was to call down upon themselves the swift judgment and persecution of an invulnerable force, strong in itself, banded together by self-interest and the community of unlawful gain, and so thoroughly entrenched in the municipal government as to defy ordinary assault. Strong men hesitated when required to give evidence of their oppression, and whispered stories; tricks, subterfuges and schemes of all kinds were resorted to to withhold from this committee and its counsel the fact that they had knowledge of acts of corruption or oppression by the police. The uniform belief was that if they spoke against the police, or if the police discovered that they had been instrumental in aiding your Committee, or had given information, their business would be ruined, they would be hounded from the city, and their lives even jeopardised.—Vol. i., pp. 25, 26.

Those in the humbler walks of life were subjected to appalling outrages which to some extent continued, even to the end of the investigation. They were abused, clubbed and imprisoned, and even convicted of crimes on false testimony by policemen and their accomplices. Men of business were harassed and annoyed in their affairs, so that they too were compelled to bend their necks to the police yoke, in order that they might share that so-called protection which seemed indispensable to the profitable conduct of their affairs. People of all degrees seemed to feel that to antagonize the police was to call down upon themselves the swift judgment and persecution of an invulnerable force, strong in itself, banded together by self-interest and the community of unlawful gain, and so thoroughly entrenched in the municipal government as to defy ordinary assault. Strong men hesitated when required to give evidence of their oppression, and whispered stories; tricks, subterfuges and schemes of all kinds were resorted to to withhold from this committee and its counsel the fact that they had knowledge of acts of corruption or oppression by the police. The uniform belief was that if they spoke against the police, or if the police discovered that they had been instrumental in aiding your Committee, or had given information, their business would be ruined, they would be hounded from the city, and their lives even jeopardised.—Vol. i., pp. 25, 26.

For wrongs inflicted by the police there was no redress. Mr. Goff in the concluding stages of the investigation referred to this phase of the question in the following significant terms:—

A great many innocent people who have been clubbed by the police in our city have thought that the city was responsible for the actions of its employés; but the courts have held time and time again that the city is not responsible; and then from the further fact that nearly every policeman in the city has his property in his wife’s name, it has become a notorious thing that it is useless to bring an action for assault against a policeman.... Mr. Jerome reminds me now of the celebrated case of Mr. Fleming; I think it was a Decoration Day parade. Captain Williams clubbed him in Madison Square, and he got a judgment of $2,500; but the judgment was never collected. We have never been able to get it on the record that a judgment against a police official has been paid.—Vol. v., p. 4,661.

It is not surprising after this to read the answer of a witness, a journalist of standing, who had been nearly murdered by a police captain in the cells of the police-station. He was asked if he had taken proceedings against his assailant. He replied:—

“I never did, sir. It is no use going to law with the Devil, and Court, and Hell!”

To quote the more formal but not less emphatic finding of the Lexow Committee:—

It appears, therefore, that the police formed a separate and highly privileged class, armed with the authority and the machinery for oppression and punishment, but practically free themselves from the operation of the criminal law.—Vol. i., p. 30.

A VIEW IN ST. PETERSBURG.A City where the Police have as much power as in New York.

THE POWERS AND THE IMPOTENCE OF THE POLICE.

One of the most pathetic of human fallacies is the assumption that you have only to pass a law in order to extirpate an evil. The touching faith of English-speaking men in the efficacy of statute-made law is nowhere more strikingly illustrated than in the great cities of the United States. The fact that a statute is only so much good paper inked by a printing-press does not seem to occur to the citizens, even after the repeated demonstrations of its impotence. Nowhere can severer laws be found for the suppression of all manner of vice and crime than in those cities where vice and crime hold high carnival under the patronage of the police. It has been frequently observed that this habit of finding relief for moral indignation by placing a stringent law upon the statute-book is exactly the instinct which leads the private citizen to say “Damn!” There is a great deal of this swearing at large in the passing of rigorous statutes, which are no sooner passed than they appear to be forgotten. Take, for instance, the laws which were passed from time to time to secure the extirpation of vice and crime in the City of New York. They certainly did not err in the direction of leniency. The usual complaint of the police elsewhere is that they are not vested with sufficient power in order to deal with the vicious and criminal classes. This cannot be said with truth of the New York police, as will be seen from the following extract from the proceedings before the Lexow Committee:—

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—hasthe 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.

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—hasthe 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 hemust 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.

JOHN C. SHEEHAN.Ex-Police Commissioner. Boss of Tammany.

But it is only when the Police Commissioners, who stand at the head of the whole force, are under examination that we discover the extent of their utter inability to find out anything. There was, for instance, Mr. Sheehan, who at that time was Police Commissioner, and who now is the titular Boss of Tammany Hall. The question of pool-rooms was under consideration when he admitted that they existed, and that he knew they were corrupting the police. Then the Chairman put the following question:—

And, notwithstanding the fact that you knew or had heard that those pool-rooms were corrupting the police, you thought it was not necessary to take any action upon it?

Mr. Sheehan replied:—

I did start an inquiry to find out if those pool-rooms were paying, what they were paying, and who they were paying it to. I did that within a few months after I became a Police Commissioner, but I couldn’t get any authoritative information of any kind on the subject; but I got it from all sides that they were paying,and it was believed that they were, but no person would substantiate or stand for it.—Vol. iv., p. 3,765.

So he abandoned the subject as one which it was no use discussing any further.

It was just the same with Mr. Commissioner Martin. He was asked concerning the existence of corruption in the police force. I quote the following from the Record:—

Examined by Mr. Sutherland: What did you do to restore the tone and efficiency of the police?A. The Board of Police was waiting for any evidence of that character to be brought to it.—Vol. i., p. 483.Q. What investigation has the Police Commissioners ever instituted to discover the falsity of those charges?A. No special investigation.—Vol. i., p. 484.

Examined by Mr. Sutherland: What did you do to restore the tone and efficiency of the police?

A. The Board of Police was waiting for any evidence of that character to be brought to it.—Vol. i., p. 483.

Q. What investigation has the Police Commissioners ever instituted to discover the falsity of those charges?

A. No special investigation.—Vol. i., p. 484.

It was the same thing with disorderly houses.

Examined by Mr. Nicoll: And, during all the years you have been Police Commissioner, you never have examined the record to see how many there are or where they are located?A. No, sir; I have not.Q. And hasn’t that led you to go to these records to see what houses were put down as disorderly in this category?A. No, sir; I have not.Q. Has the subject of suppression or diminution of these disorderly houses been a matter of discussion before the Board of Police?A. No, sir.—Vol. i., p. 528.

Examined by Mr. Nicoll: And, during all the years you have been Police Commissioner, you never have examined the record to see how many there are or where they are located?

A. No, sir; I have not.

Q. And hasn’t that led you to go to these records to see what houses were put down as disorderly in this category?

A. No, sir; I have not.

Q. Has the subject of suppression or diminution of these disorderly houses been a matter of discussion before the Board of Police?

A. No, sir.—Vol. i., p. 528.

Even when crime was discovered, when the criminal was, as it were, taken red-handed, there seemed to be a strange paralysis that prevented his appearance in court. This affected other Boards besides that of the Police. When the action of the Excise Board was under consideration, it was admitted by Mr. Andrews, a Commissioner of the Board, that in one notorious case the licence had been obtained by false swearing. Mr. Goff asked:—

Q. Did you ever, when you discovered these false papers, as you say, and of perjuries having been committed before the Board—did you ever take any steps to have the perpetrators called to answer for the crime?A. No steps were ever taken for indictment; no.—Vol. iv., p. 4,386.

A. No steps were ever taken for indictment; no.—Vol. iv., p. 4,386.

It was not for want of painstaking on the part of the Legislature that the police force was not more efficient. Every constable before being appointed had to comply with the provisions of the Civil Service law, which were thus explained by Commissioner Martin:—

The candidate is required to have the names of a certain number of citizens, usually five, to vouch for him as to his character—their acquaintance with him; and all those papers having been finally completed, the papers are sent to the Civil Service Board, where examinations are held from time to time of batches of such applicants. Application is made to the captain for examination of his character and as to the persons who signed the paper, and a report is made in writing by the captain. There are three Civil Service Commissioners appointed by the Mayor; I do not recollect the names just at this time. Once a year the Civil Service Board made an examination of all applicants for patrolmen, and they usually examine in batches of from 400 to 600.—Vol. i., p. 567.

The Commissioners themselves, when asked about the subject, were at a loss to explain how it was vice and crime flourished under their very eyes. Mr. John McClave, the Republican Police Commissioner, told the Committee that he had always voted with his Tammany Commissioners on the Board, because “he had never known them to do anything wrong.” There was a very touching little scene described by Mr. McClave’s son-in-law, as to the grief which the appointment of the Lexow Committee occasioned Mr. McClave. Mr. and Mrs. McClave were going to a reception one night, and, said Mr. Gideon Granger, the son-in-law—

Mr. McClave was quite nervous, and Mrs. McClave turned to him and said, “Why, Johnnie, what is the matter with you?” And he says, “Oh, nothing, nothing.” And she says, “Oh yes, there is; it is that police investigation business. I would not worry over that.” And he said, “I don’t see why it is those hayseed politicians up in Albany want to come down here and bother us honest men.”—Vol. i., p. 1,162.

Notwithstanding Mr. McClave’s pathetic lament, the Lexow Committee went on with its work, and the conduct of these “honest men” was brought forth to the light of day. With results.

SUPERINTENDENT BYRNES.

NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN BRIDGE.

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.

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.

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:—

No stronger illustration is necessary to show how under the then existing conditions a political faction had impressed itself so strongly upon the police force that its authority was more potent than that of the nominal chiefs of the department.—Vol. i., p. 19.

It was to Tammany Hall also that the liquor dealers appealed for protection from the intolerable exactions of the police. “There was no other place to go to.” The legal authorities were paralysed by the extreme distrust felt by Americans in all elective assemblies. Tammany Hall naturally and inevitably became the one living centre of popular authority in the city. Its moral authority in New York was something like that of the Land League over Ireland under Mr. Parnell. The Lexow Committee report with a certain jealous awe concerning the “supreme head of authority,” Mr. Richard Croker, who, although a private citizen, unconnected with the Police Department, but leader of Tammany Hall, “was able to do what all the other legally constituted authorities failed to accomplish.” They say:—

The same private citizen whose authority was so potent to accomplish all this, was able, by a word of command, at once to shut up all the pool-rooms then in full operation, and which, according to the testimony up to that time, neither the whole force of police, of detectives, of superintendent, or of the Commissioners themselves could effectively close.—Vol. i., pp. 18-19.

“Taken as a whole,” says the Lexow Report, “the records disclose the fact that the Police Department, from the highest down to the lowest, was thoroughly impregnated with the political influence of Tammany Hall”; and they add, what naturally follows, “that the suppression and repression of crime depended not so much upon the ability of the police to enforce the law, but rather upon the will of that organisation or faction to have the law enforced” (vol. i., p. 19).

The leaders of Tammany, no doubt, were not “agin the law” in the abstract. But they owed their first allegiance to their party, and their first thought was not of the duty they owed to the city, but of the duty they owed to Tammany. The claims of that great brotherhood had precedence over such trifles as the laws of the State, which after all were passed by “Hayseed” legislators, or, in plain English, by the rustic vote of the rural districts of the State of New York. One redoubtable worthy, Judge and ex-Senator Roesch, who figures conspicuously in this American Tartarus as one of the minor Plutonian deities, gave very interesting evidence on this point. He was a Judge, an ex-Senator, and a leader of Tammany Hall. His aid in the latter capacity seems to have been generally invoked by the various law-breakers of the neighbourhood. He was asked by Senator O’Connor whether it was not one of the duties of the district leader, “if the members of his party were labouring under any kind of difficulty at all, for the purpose of conducting his organisation and making that solid with the parties, to do what he could to give them aid?”

The Senator answered unhesitatingly, “In every case.” When he was proved to have received money from keepers of disorderly houses, whose girls were run in by the police, he said that he received it entirely as a lawyer for giving legal advice. But he admitted that when he went to the station-house to bail out the girls, he acted as a political leader. So the Chairman observed, “You advised as a lawyer and acted as a political leader in carrying out your advice.” Mr. Senator Roesch is in many ways a more typical representative of Tammany than Mr. Croker himself. Both, however, agree on one principle. They always stick by their friends, and when anything is going they see that, their supporters are not left out in the cold. This, which would be denounced as scandalous nepotism on the part of a less democratic Government, was unblushingly proclaimed as the sole saving principle of appointing officials under Tammany. Senator Roesch had used his influence or political pull in order to induce the Police Commissioner Martin to transfer one Sergeant Schryer to another precinct. Questioned by Mr. Goff before the Committee as to the grounds for this intervention on his part in the promotion of the police, he made the following answer:—

Back to Index Next