Chapter VI: Preface (5)

From the beginning of the present system each President of the United States has been its friend, but no President has been a radical Civil Service reformer. Presidents Arthur, Harrison, and Cleveland have all desired to see the service extended, and to see the law well administered. No one of them has felt willing or able to do all that the reformers asked, or to pay much heed to their wishes save as regards that portion of the service to which the law actually applied. Each has been a sincere party man, who has felt strongly on such questions as those of the tariff, of finance, and of our foreign policy, and each has been obliged to conform more or less closely to the wishes of his party associates and fellow party leaders; and, of course, these party leaders, and the party politicians generally, wished the offices to be distributed as they had been ever since Andrew Jackson became President. In consequence the offices outside the protection of the law have still been treated, under every administration, as patronage, to be disposed of in the interest of the dominant party. An occasional exception was made here and there. The postmaster at New York, a Republican, was retained by President Cleveland in his first administration, and the postmaster of Charleston, a Democrat, was retained by President Harrison; but, with altogether insignificant exceptions, the great bulk of the non-classified places have been changed for political reasons by each administration, the office-holders politically opposed to the administration being supplanted or succeeded by political adherents of the administration.

Where the change has been complete it does not matter much whether it was made rapidly or slowly. Thus, the fourth-class postmasterships were looted more rapidly under the administration of President Harrison than under that of President Cleveland, and the consular service more rapidly under President Cleveland than under President Harrison; but the final result was the same in both cases. Indeed, I think that the brutality which accompanied the greater speed was in some ways of service to the country, for it directed attention to the iniquity and folly of the system, and emphasized, in the minds of decent citizens, the fact that appointments and removals for political reasons in places where the duties are wholly non-political cannot be defended by any man who looks at public affairs from the proper standpoint.

The advance has been made purely on two lines, that is, by better enforcement of the law, and by inclusion under the law, or under some system similar in its operations, of a portion of the service previously administered in accordance with the spoils theory. Under President Arthur the first classification was made, which included 14,000 places. Under President Cleveland, during his first term, the limits of the classified service were extended by the inclusion of 7000 additional places. During President Harrison’s term the limit was extended by the inclusion of about eight thousand places; and hitherto during President Cleveland’s second term, by the inclusion of some six thousand places; in addition to which the natural growth of the service has been such that the total number of offices now classified is over forty thousand. Moreover, the Secretary of the Navy under President Harrison, introduced into the navy yards a system of registration of laborers, which secures the end desired by the Commission; and Secretary Herbert has continued this system. It only rests, however, upon the will of the Secretary of the Navy; and as we cannot expect always to have secretaries as clear-sighted as Messrs. Tracy and Herbert, it is most desirable that this branch of the service should be put directly under the control of the Commission.

The Cabinet officers, though often not Civil Service reformers to start with, usually become such before their terms of office expire. This was true, without exception, of all the Cabinet officers with whom I was personally brought into contact while on the Commission. Moreover, from their position and their sense of responsibility they are certain to refrain from violating the law themselves and to try to secure at least a formal compliance with its demands on the part of their subordinates. In most cases it is necessary, however, to goad them continually to see that they do not allow their subordinates to evade the law; and it is very difficult to get either the President or the head of a department to punish these subordinates when they have evaded it. There is not much open violation of the law, because such violation can be reached through the courts; but in the small offices and small bureaus there is often a chance for an unscrupulous head of the office or bureau to persecute his subordinates who are politically opposed to him into resigning, or to trump up charges against them on which they can be dismissed. If this is done in a sufficient number of cases, men of the opposite political party think that it is useless to enter the examinations; and by staying out they leave the way clear for the offender to get precisely the men he wishes for the eligible registers. Cases like this continually occur, and the Commission has to be vigilant in detecting and exposing them, and in demanding their punishment by the head of the office. The offender always, of course, insists that he has been misunderstood, and in most cases he can prepare quite a specious defence. As he is of the same political faith as the head of the department, and as he is certain to be backed by influential politicians, the head of the department is usually loath to act against him, and, if possible, will let him off with, at most, a warning not to repeat the offence. In some departments this kind of evasion has never been tolerated; and where the Commission has the force under its eye, as in the departments at Washington, the chance of injustice is minimized. Nevertheless, there have been considerable abuses of this kind, notably in the custom-houses and post-offices, throughout the time I have been at Washington. So far as the Post-Office Department was concerned the abuses were more flagrant under President Harrison’s Postmaster-General, Mr. Wanamaker; but in the Treasury Department they were more flagrant under President Cleveland’s Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Carlisle.

Congress has control of the appropriations for the Commission, and as it cannot do its work without an ample appropriation the action of Congress is vital to its welfare. Many, even of the friends of the system in the country at large, are astonishingly ignorant of who the men are who have battled most effectively for the law and for good government in either the Senate or the Lower House. It is not only necessary that a man shall be good and possess the desire to do decent things, but it is also necessary that he shall be courageous, practical, and efficient, if his work is to amount to anything. There is a good deal of rough-and-tumble fighting in Congress, as there is in all our political life, and a man is entirely out of place in it if he does not possess the virile qualities, and if he fails to show himself ready and able to hit back when assailed. Moreover, he must be alert, vigorous, and intelligent if he is going to make his work count. The friends of the Civil Service Law, like the friends of all other laws, would be in a bad way if they had to rely solely upon the backing of the timid good. During the last six years there have been, as there always are, a number of men in the House who believe in the Civil Service Law, and who vote for it if they understand the question and are present when it comes up, but who practically count for very little one way or the other, because they are timid or flighty, or are lacking in capacity for leadership or ability to see a point and to put it strongly before their associates.

There is need of further legislation to perfect and extend the law and the system; but Congress has never been willing seriously to consider a proposition looking to this extension. Bills to provide for the appointment of fourth-class postmasters have been introduced by Senator Lodge and others, but have never come to anything. Indeed, but once has a measure of this kind been reported from committee and fought for in either House. This was in the last session of the 53d Congress, when Senators Morgan and Lodge introduced bills to reform the consular service. They were referred to Senator Morgan’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, and were favorably reported. Senator Lodge made a vigorous fight for them in the Senate, but he received little support, and was defeated, Senator Gorman leading the opposition.

On the other hand, efforts to repeal the law, or to destroy it by new legislation, have uniformly been failures, and have rarely gone beyond committee. Occasionally, in an appropriation bill or some other measure, an amendment will be slipped through, adding forty or fifty employees to the classified service, or providing that the law shall not apply to them; but nothing important has ever been done in this way. But once has there been a resolute attack made on the law by legislation. This was in the 53d Congress, when Mr. Bynum, of Indiana, introduced in the House, and Mr. Vilas, of Wisconsin, pushed in the Senate, a bill to reinstate the Democratic railway mail clerks, turned out before the classification of the railway mail service in the early days of Mr. Harrison’s administration.

The classification of the railway mail service was ordered by President Cleveland less than two months before the expiration of his first term of office as President. It was impossible for the Commission to prepare and hold the necessary examinations and establish eligible registers prior to May 1, 1889. President Harrison had been inaugurated on March 4th, and Postmaster-General Wanamaker permitted the spoilsmen to take advantage of the necessary delay and turn out half of the employees who were Democrats, and replace them by Republicans. This was an outrageous act, deserving the severe condemnation it received; but it was perfectly legal. During the four years of Mr. Cleveland’s first term a clean sweep was made of the railway mail service; the employees who were almost all Republicans, were turned out, and Democrats were put in their places. The result was utterly to demoralize the efficiency of the service. It had begun to recover from this when the change of administration took place in 1889. The time was too short to allow of a clean sweep, but the Republicans did all they could in two months, and turned out half of the Democrats. The law then went into effect, and since that time there have been no more removals for partisan purposes in that service. It has now recovered from the demoralization into which it was thrown by the two political revolutions, and has reached a higher standard of efficiency than ever before. What was done by the Republicans in this service was repeated, on a less scale, by the Democrats four years later in reference to the classification of the small free-delivery post-offices. This classification was ordered by President Harrison two months before his term of office expired; but in many of the offices it was impossible to hold examinations and prepare eligible registers until after the inauguration of President Cleveland, and in a number of cases the incoming postmasters, who were appointed prior to the time when the law went into effect, took advantage of the delay to make clean sweeps of their offices. In one of these offices, where the men were changed in a body, the new appointees hired the men whom they replaced, at $35 a month apiece, to teach them their duties; in itself a sufficient comment on the folly of the spoils system.

Mr. Bynum’s bill provided for the reinstatement of the Democrats who were turned out by the Republicans just before the classification of the railway mail service. Of course such a bill was a mere partisan measure. There was no more reason for reinstating the Democrats thus turned out than for reinstating the Republicans who had been previously turned out that these same Democrats might get in, or for reinstating the Republicans in the free-delivery offices who had been turned out just before these offices were classified. If the bill had been enacted into law it would have been a most serious blow to the whole system, for it would have put a premium upon legislation of the kind; and after every change of parties we should have seen the passing of laws to reinstate masses of Republicans or Democrats, as the case might be. This would have meant a return to the old system under a new form of procedure. Nevertheless, Mr. Bynum’s bill received the solid support of his party. Not a Democratic vote was cast against it in the House, none even of the Massachusetts Democrats being recorded against it. In the Senate it was pushed by Mr. Vilas. By a piece of rather sharp parliamentary procedure he nearly got it through by unanimous consent. That it failed was owing entirely to the vigilance of Senator Lodge. Senator Vilas asked for the passage of the bill, on the ground that it was one of small importance, upon which his committee were agreed. When it was read the words “classified civil service” caught Senator Lodge’s ear, and he insisted upon an explanation. On finding out what the bill was he at once objected to its consideration. Under this objection it could not then be considered. If it could have been brought to a vote it would undoubtedly have passed; but it was late in the session, the calendars were crowded with bills, and it was impossible to get it up in its regular order. Another effort was made, and was again frustrated by Senator Lodge, and the bill then died a natural death.

In the final session of the 53d Congress a little incident occurred which deserves to be related in full, not for its own importance, but because it affords an excellent example of the numerous cases which test the real efficiency of the friends of the reform in Congress. It emphasizes the need of having, to watch over the interests of the law, a man who is willing to fight, who knows the time to fight, and who knows how to fight. The secretary of the Commission was, in the original law of 1883, allowed a salary of $1600 a year. As the Commission’s force and work have grown, the salary in successive appropriation bills for the last ten years has been provided for at the rate of $2000 a year. Many of the clerks under the secretary now receive $1800, so that it would be of course an absurdity to reduce him in salary below his subordinates. Scores of other officials of the Government, including, for instance, the President’s private secretary, the First Assistant Postmaster-General, the First Assistant Secretary of State, etc., have had their salaries increased in successive appropriation bills over the sum originally provided, in precisely the same way that the salary of the secretary of the Commission was increased. The 53d Congress was Democratic, as was the President, Mr. Cleveland, and the secretary of the Commission was himself a Democrat, who had been appointed to the position by Mr. Cleveland during his first term as President. The rules of the House provide that there shall be no increase of salary beyond that provided in existing law in any appropriation bill. When the appropriation for the Civil Service Commission came up in the House, Mr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, made the point of order that to give $2000 to the secretary of the Commission was to increase his salary by $400 over that provided in the original law of 1883, and was therefore out of order. He also produced a list of twenty or thirty other officers, including the President’s private secretary, the First Assistant Postmaster-General, etc., whose salaries were similarly increased. He withdrew his point of order as regards these persons, but adhered to it as regards the secretary of the Commission. The chairman of the Committee of the Whole, Mr. O’Neill, of Massachusetts, sustained the point of order; and not one person made any objection or made any fight, and the bill was put through the House with the secretary’s salary reduced.

Now, the point of order was probably ill taken anyhow. The existing law was and had been for ten years that the salary was $2000. But, in any event, had there been a single Congressman alert to the situation and willing to make a fight he could have stopped the whole movement by at once making a similar point of order against the President’s private secretary, against the First Assistant Postmaster-General, the Assistant Secretary of State, and all the others involved. The House would of course have refused to cut down the salaries of all of these officials, and a resolute man, willing to insist that they should all go or none, could have saved the salary of the secretary of the Civil Service Commission. There were plenty of men who would have done this if it had been pointed out to them; but no one did so, and Mr. Breckinridge’s point of order was sustained, and the salary of the secretary reduced by $400. When it got over to the Senate, however, the Civil Service reformers had allies who needed but little coaching. In the first place, the sub-committee of the Committee on Appropriations, composed of Messrs. Teller, Cockrell, and Allison, to which the Civil Service Commission section of the Appropriation bill was referred, restored the salary to $2000; but Senator Gorman succeeded in carrying, by a bare majority, the Appropriations Committee against it, and it was reported to the full Senate still at $1600. The minute it got into the full Senate, however, Senator Lodge had a fair chance at it, and it was known that he would receive ample support. All that he had to do was to show clearly the absolute folly of the provision thus put in by Mr. Breckinridge, and kept in by Mr. Gorman, and to make it evident that he intended to fight it resolutely. The opposition collapsed at once; the salary was put back at $2000, and the bill became a law in that form.

Whether bad legislation shall be choked and good legislation forwarded depends largely upon the composition of the committees on Civil Service reform of the Senate and the Lower House. The make-up of these committees is consequently of great importance. They are charged with the duty of investigating complaints against the Commission, and it is of course very important that if ever the Commission becomes corrupt or inefficient its shortcomings should be unsparingly exposed in Congress. On the other hand, it is equally important that the falsity of untruthful charges advanced against it should be made public. In the 51st, 52d, and 53d Congresses a good deal of work was done by the Civil Service Committee of the House, and none at all by the corresponding committee of the Senate. The three chairmen of the House committee were Mr. Lehlbach, Mr. Andrew, and Mr. De Forest. All three were able and conscientious men and stanch supporters of the law. The chairman in the 52d Congress, Mr. John F. Andrew, was throughout his whole term of service one of the ablest, most fearless, and most effective champions of the cause of the reform in the House. Among the other members of the committee, in different Congresses, who stood up valiantly for the reform, were Mr. Hopkins, of Illinois, Mr. Butterworth, of Ohio, Mr. Boatner, of Louisiana, and Mr. Dargan and Mr. Brawley, of South Carolina. Occasionally there have been on the committee members who were hostile to the reform, such as Mr. Alderson, of West Virginia; but these have not been men carrying weight in the House. The men of intelligence and ability who once familiarize themselves with the workings of the system, as they are bound to do if they are on the committee, are sure to become its supporters. In both the 51st and the 52d Congresses charges were made against the Commission, and investigations were held into its actions and into the workings of the law by the House committee. In each case, in its report the committee not only heartily applauded the conduct of the Commission, but no less heartily approved the workings of the law, and submitted bills to increase the power of the Commission and to render the law still more wide-reaching and drastic. These bills, unfortunately, were never acted on in the House.

The main fight in each session comes on the Appropriation bill. There is not the slightest danger that the law will be repealed, and there is not much danger that any President will suffer it to be so laxly administered as to deprive it of all value; though there is always need to keep a vigilant lookout for fear of such lax administration. The danger-point is in the appropriations. The first Civil Service Commission, established in the days of President Grant, was starved out by Congress refusing to appropriate for it. A hostile Congress could repeat the same course now; and, as a matter of fact, in every Congress resolute efforts are made by the champions of foul government and dishonest politics to cut off the Commission’s supplies. The bolder men, who come from districts where little is known of the law, and where there is no adequate expression of intelligent and honest opinion on the subject, attack it openly. They are always joined by a number who make the attack covertly under some point of order, or because of a nominal desire for economy. These are quite as dangerous as the others, and deserve exposure. Every man interested in decent government should keep an eye on his Congressman and see how he votes on the question of appropriations for the Commission.

The opposition to the reform is generally well led by skilled parliamentarians, and they fight with the vindictiveness natural to men who see a chance of striking at the institution which has baffled their ferocious greed. As a rule, the rank and file are composed of politicians who could not rise in public life because of their attitude on any public question, and who derive most of their power from the skill with which they manipulate the patronage of their districts. These men have a gift at office-mongering, just as other men have a peculiar knack in picking pockets; and they are joined by all the honest dull men, who vote wrong out of pure ignorance, and by a very few sincere and intelligent, but wholly misguided people. Many of the spoils leaders are both efficient and fearless, and able to strike hard blows. In consequence, the leaders on the side of decency must themselves be men of ability and force, or the cause will suffer. For our good fortune, we have never yet lacked such leaders.

The Appropriation committees, both in the House and Senate, almost invariably show a friendly disposition toward the law. They are composed of men of prominence, who have a sense of the responsibilities of their positions and an earnest desire to do well for the country and to make an honorable record for their party in matters of legislation. They are usually above resorting to the arts of low cunning or of sheer demagogy to which the foes of the reform system are inevitably driven, and in consequence they can be relied upon to give, if not what is needed, at least enough to prevent any retrogression. It is in the open House and in Committee of the Whole that the fight is waged. The most dangerous fight occurs in Committee of the Whole, for there the members do not vote by aye and no, and in consequence a mean politician who wishes ill to the law, but is afraid of his constituents, votes against it in committee, but does not dare to do so when the ayes and noes are called in the House. One result of this has been that more than once the whole appropriation has been stricken out in Committee of the Whole, and then voted back again by substantial majorities by the same men sitting in open House.

In the debate on the appropriation the whole question of the workings of the law is usually discussed, and those members who are opposed to it attack not only the law itself, but the Commission which administers it. The occasion is, therefore, invariably seized as an opportunity for a pitched battle between the friends and foes of the system, the former trying to secure such an increase of appropriation as will permit the Commission to extend its work, and the latter striving to abolish the law outright by refusing all appropriations. In the 51st and 52d Congresses, Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts, led the fight for the reform in the Lower House. He was supported by such party leaders as Messrs. Reed, of Maine, and McKinley, of Ohio, among the Republicans, and Messrs. Wilson, of West Virginia, and Sayers, of Texas, among the Democrats. Among the other champions of the law on the floor of the House were Messrs. Hopkins and Butterworth, Mr. Greenhalge, of Massachusetts, Mr. Henderson, of Iowa, Messrs. Payne, Tracey, and Coombs, of New York. I wish I had the space to chronicle the names of all, and to give a complete list of those who voted for the law. Among the chief opponents of it were Messrs. Spinola, of New York, Enloe, of Tennessee, Stockdale, of Mississippi, Grosvenor, of Ohio, and Bowers, of California. The task of the defenders of the law was, in one way easy, for they had no arguments to meet, the speeches of their adversaries being invariably divisible into mere declamation and direct misstatement of facts. In the Senate, Senators Hoar, of Massachusetts, Allison, of Iowa, Hawley, of Connecticut, Wolcott, of Colorado, Perkins, of California, Cockrell, of Missouri, and Butler, of South Carolina, always supported the Commission against unjust attack. Senator Gorman was naturally the chief leader of the assaults upon the Commission. Senators Harris, Plumb, Stewart, and Ingalls were among his allies.

In each session the net result of the fight was an increase in the appropriation for the Commission. The most important increase was that obtained in the first session of the 53d Congress. On this occasion Mr. Lodge was no longer in the House, having been elected to the Senate. The work of the Commission had grown so that it was impossible to perform it without a great increase of force; and it would have been impossible to have put into effect the extensions of the classified service had this increase not been allowed. In the House the Committee on Appropriations, of which Mr. Sayers was chairman, allowed the increase, but it was stricken out in the House itself after an acrimonious debate, in which the cause of the law was sustained by Messrs. Henderson and Hopkins, Mr. McCall, of Massachusetts, Mr. Coombs, Mr. Crain, of Texas, Mr. Storer, of Ohio, and many others, while the spoils-mongers were led by Messrs. Stockdale and Williams, of Mississippi, Pendelton, of West Virginia, Fithian, of Illinois, and others less important.

When the bill went over to the Senate, however, Mr. Lodge, well supported by Messrs. Allison, Cockrell, Wolcott, and Teller, had the provision for the increase of appropriation for the Commission restored and increased, thereby adding by one half to the efficiency of the Commission’s work. Had it not been for this the Commission would have been quite unable to have undertaken the extensions recently ordered by President Cleveland.

It is noteworthy that the men who have done most effective work for the law in Washington in the departments, and more especially in the House and Senate, are men of spotless character, who show by their whole course in public life that they are not only able and resolute, but also devoted to a high ideal. Much of what they have done has received little comment in public, because much of the work in committee, and some of the work in the House, such as making or combating points of order, and pointing out the danger or merit of certain bills, is not of a kind readily understood or appreciated by an outsider; yet no men have deserved better of the country, for there is in American public life no one other cause so fruitful of harm to the body-politic as the spoils system, and the legislators and administrative officers who have done the best work toward its destruction merit a peculiar meed of praise from all well-wishers of the Republic.

I have spoken above of the good that would come from a thorough and intelligent knowledge as to who were the friends and who were the foes of the law in Washington. Departmental officers, the heads of bureaus, and, above all, the Commissioners themselves, should be carefully watched by all friends of the reform. They should be supported when they do well, and condemned when they do ill; and attention should be called not only to what they do, but to what they fail to do. To an even greater extent, of course, this applies to the President. As regards the Senators and Congressmen also there is urgent need of careful supervision by the friends of the law. We need criticism by those who are unable to do their part in action; but the criticism, to be useful, must be both honest and intelligent, and the critics must remember that the system has its stanch friends and bitter foes among both party men and men of no party--among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Each Congressman should be made to feel that it is his duty to support the law, and that he will be held to account if he fails to support it. Especially is it necessary to concentrate effort in working for each step of reform. In legislative matters, for instance, there is need of increase of appropriations for the Commission, and there is a chance of putting through the bill to reform the Consular service. This has received substantial backing in the Senate, and has the support of the majority of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Instead of wasting efforts by a diffuse support of eight or ten bills, it would be well to bend every energy to securing the passage of the Consular bill; and to do this it is necessary to arouse not only the Civil Service Reform Associations, but the Boards of Trade throughout the country, and to make the Congressmen and Senators feel individually the pressure from those of their constituents who are resolved no longer to tolerate the peculiarly gross manifestation of the spoils system which now obtains in the consular service, with its attendant discredit to the national honor abroad.

People sometimes grow a little down-hearted about the reform. When they feel in this mood it would be well for them to reflect on what has actually been gained in the past six years. By the inclusion of the railway mail service, the smaller free-delivery offices, the Indian School service, the Internal Revenue service, and other less important branches, the extent of the public service which is under the protection of the law has been more than doubled, and there are now nearly fifty thousand employees of the Federal Government who have been withdrawn from the degrading influences that rule under the spoils system. This of itself is a great success and a great advance, though, of course, it ought only to spur us on to renewed effort. In the fall of 1894 the people of the State of New York, by a popular vote, put into their constitution a provision providing for a merit system in the affairs of the State and its municipalities; and the following spring the great city of Chicago voted, by an overwhelming majority, in favor of applying in its municipal affairs the advanced and radical Civil Service Reform Law, which had already passed the Illinois Legislature. Undoubtedly, after every success there comes a moment of reaction. The friends of the reform grow temporarily lukewarm, or, because it fails to secure everything they hoped, they neglect to lay proper stress upon all that it does secure. Yet, in spite of all rebuffs, in spite of all disappointments and opposition, the growth of the principle of Civil Service reform has been continually more rapid, and every year has taken us measurably nearer that ideal of pure and decent government which is dear to the heart of every honest American citizen.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _Scribner’s Magazine_, August, 1895.

VIII

ADMINISTERING THE NEW YORK POLICE FORCE[14]

In New York, in the fall of 1894, Tammany Hall was overthrown by a coalition composed partly of the regular republicans, partly of anti-Tammany democrats, and partly of independents. Under the latter head must be included a great many men who in national politics habitually act with one or the other of the two great parties, but who feel that in municipal politics good citizens should act independently. The tidal wave, which was running high against the democratic party, was undoubtedly very influential in bringing about the anti-Tammany victory; but the chief factor in producing the result was the wide-spread anger and disgust felt by decent citizens at the corruption which, under the sway of Tammany, had honey-combed every department of the city government, but especially the police force. A few well-meaning people have at times tried to show that this corruption was not really so very great. In reality it would be difficult to overestimate the utter rottenness of many branches of the city administration. There were a few honorable and high-minded Tammany officials, and there were a few bureaus which were administered with more or less efficiency, although dishonestly. But the corruption had become so wide-spread as seriously to impair the work of administration, and to bring us back within measurable distance of the days of Tweed.

The chief centre of corruption was the Police Department. No man not intimately acquainted with both the lower and humbler sides of New York life--for there is a wide distinction between the two--can realize how far this corruption extended. Except in rare instances, where prominent politicians made demands which could not be refused, both promotions and appointments towards the close of Tammany rule were made almost solely for money, and the prices were discussed with cynical frankness. There was a well-recognized tariff of charges, ranging from two or three hundred dollars for appointment as a patrolman, to twelve or fifteen thousand dollars for promotion to the position of captain. The money was reimbursed to those who paid it by an elaborate system of blackmail. This was chiefly carried on at the expense of gamblers, liquor sellers, and keepers of disorderly houses; but every form of vice and crime contributed more or less, and a great many respectable people who were ignorant or timid were blackmailed under pretence of forbidding or allowing them to violate obscure ordinances and the like. From top to bottom the New York police force was utterly demoralized by the gangrene of such a system, where venality and blackmail went hand in hand with the basest forms of low ward politics, and where the policeman, the ward politician, the liquor seller, and the criminal alternately preyed on one another and helped one another to prey on the general public.

In May, 1895, I was made president of the newly appointed police board, whose duty it was to cut out the chief source of civic corruption in New York by cleansing the police department. The police board consisted of four members. All four of the new men were appointed by Mayor Strong, the reform Mayor, who had taken office in January.

With me, was associated, as treasurer of the Board, Mr. Avery D. Andrews. He was a democrat and I a republican, and there were questions of national politics on which we disagreed widely; but such questions could not enter into the administration of the New York police, if that administration was to be both honest and efficient; and as a matter of fact, during my two years’ service, Mr. Andrews and I worked in absolute harmony on every important question of policy which arose. The prevention of blackmail and corruption, the repression of crime and violence, safeguarding of life and property, securing honest elections, and rewarding efficient and punishing inefficient police service, are not, and cannot properly be made, questions of party difference. In other words, such a body as the police force of New York can be wisely and properly administered only upon a non-partisan basis, and both Mr. Andrews and myself were quite incapable of managing it on any other. There were many men who helped us in our work; and among them all, the man who helped us most, by advice and counsel, by stalwart, loyal friendship, and by ardent championship of all that was good against all that was evil, was Jacob A. Riis, the author of _How the Other Half Lives_.

Certain of the difficulties we had to face were merely those which confronted the entire reform administration in its management of the municipality. Many worthy people expected that this reform administration would work an absolute revolution, not merely in the government, but in the minds of the citizens as a whole; and felt vaguely that they had been cheated because there was not an immediate cleansing of every bad influence in civic or social life. Moreover, the different bodies forming the victorious coalition felt the pressure of conflicting interests and hopes. The mass of effective strength was given by the republican organization, and not only all the enrolled party workers, but a great number of well-meaning republicans who had no personal interest at stake, expected the administration to be used to further the fortunes of their own party. Another great body of the administration’s supporters took a diametrically opposite view, and believed that the administration should be administered without the least reference whatever to party. In theory they were quite right, and I cordially sympathized with them; but as a matter of fact the victory could not have been won by the votes of this class of people alone, and it was out of the question to put these theories into complete effect. Like all other men who actually try to do things instead of confining themselves to saying how they should be done, the members of the new city government were obliged to face the facts and to do the best they could in the effort to get some kind of good result out of the conflicting forces. They had to disregard party so far as was possible; and yet they could not afford to disregard all party connections so utterly as to bring the whole administration to grief.

In addition to these two large groups of supporters of the administration, there were other groups, also possessing influence who expected to receive recognition distinctly as democrats, but as anti-Tammany democrats; and such members of any victorious coalition are always sure to overestimate their own services, and to feel ill-treated.

It is of course an easy thing to show on paper that the municipal administration should have been administered without the slightest reference to national party lines, and if the bulk of the people saw things with entire clearness the truth would seem so obvious as to need no demonstration. But as a matter of fact the bulk of the people who voted the new administration into power neither saw this nor realized it, and in politics, as in life generally, conditions must be faced as they are, and not as they ought to be. The regular democratic organization, not only in the city but in the State, was completely under the dominion of Tammany Hall and its allies, and they fought us at every step with wholly unscrupulous hatred. In the State and the city alike the democratic campaign was waged against the reform administration in New York. The Tammany officials who were still left in power in the city, headed by the comptroller, Mr. Fitch, did everything in their power to prevent the efficient administration of the government. The democratic members of the Legislature acted as their faithful allies in all such efforts. Whatever was accomplished by the reform administration--and a very great deal was accomplished--was due to the action of the republican majority in the constitutional convention, and especially to the republican Governor, Mr. Morton, and the republican majority in the Legislature, who enacted laws giving to the newly chosen Mayor, Mr. Strong, the great powers necessary for properly administering his office. Without these laws the Mayor would have been very nearly powerless. He certainly could not have done a tenth part of what actually was done.

Now, of course, the republican politicians who gave Mayor Strong all these powers, in the teeth of violent democratic opposition to every law for the betterment of civic conditions in New York, ought not, under ideal conditions, to have expected the slightest reward. They should have been contented with showing the public that their only purpose was to serve the public, and that the republican party wished no better reward than the consciousness of having done its duty by the State and the city. But as a whole they had not reached such a standard. There were some who had reached it; there were others who, though perfectly honest, and wishing to see good government prosper, yet felt that somehow it ought to be combined with party advantage of a tangible sort; and finally, there were yet others who were not honest at all and cared nothing for the victory unless it resulted in some way to their own personal advantage. In short, the problem presented was of the kind which usually is presented when dealing with men as a mass. The Mayor and his administration had to keep in touch with the republican party or they could have accomplished nothing; and on the other hand there was much that the republican machine asked which they could not do, because a surrender on certain vital points meant the abandonment of the effort to obtain good administration.

The undesirability of breaking with the republican organization was shown by what happened in the administration of the police department. This being the great centre of power was the especial object of the republican machine leaders. Toward the close of Tammany rule, of the four Police Commissioners, two had been machine republicans, whose actions were in no wise to be distinguished from those of their Tammany colleagues; and immediately after the new board was appointed to office the machine got through the Legislature the so-called bi-partisan or Lexow law, under which the department is at present administered; and a more foolish or vicious law was never enacted by any legislative body. It modelled the government of the police force somewhat on the lines of the Polish parliament, and it was avowedly designed to make it difficult to get effective action. It provided for a four-headed board, so that it was difficult to get a majority anyhow; but, lest we should get such a majority, it gave each member power to veto the actions of his colleagues in certain very important matters; and, lest we should do too much when we were unanimous, it provided that the chief, our nominal subordinate, should have entirely independent action in the most important matters, and should be practically irremovable, except for proved corruption; so that he was responsible to nobody. The Mayor was similarly hindered from removing any Police Commissioner, so that when one of our colleagues began obstructing the work of the board, and thwarting its effort to reform the force, the Mayor in vain strove to turn him out. In short, there was a complete divorce of power and responsibility, and it was exceedingly difficult either to do anything, or to place anywhere, the responsibility for not doing it.

If, by any reasonable concessions, if, indeed, by the performance of any act not incompatible with our oaths of office, we could have stood on good terms with the machine, we would certainly have made the effort, even at the cost of sacrificing many of our ideals; and in almost any other department we could probably have avoided a break, but in the police force such a compromise was not possible. What was demanded of us usually took some such form as the refusal to enforce certain laws, or the protection of certain law-breakers, or the promotion of the least fit men to positions of high power and grave responsibility; and on such points it was not possible to yield. We were obliged to treat all questions that arose purely on their merits, without reference to the desires of the politicians. We went into this course with our eyes open, for we knew the trouble it would cause us personally, and, what was far more important, the way in which our efforts for reform would consequently be hampered. However, there was no alternative, and we had to abide by the result. We had counted the cost before we adopted our course, and we followed it resolutely to the end. We could not accomplish all that we should have liked to accomplish for we were shackled by preposterous legislation, and by the opposition and intrigues of the basest machine politicians, which cost us the support, sometimes of one, and sometimes of both, of our colleagues. Nevertheless, the net result of our two years of work was that we did more to increase the efficiency and honesty of the police department than had ever previously been done in its history.

But a decent people will have to show by emphatic action that they are in the majority if they wish this result to be permanent; for under such a law as the “bi-partisan” law it is almost impossible to keep the department honest and efficient for any length of time; and the machine politicians, by their opposition outside the board, and by the aid of any tool or ally whom they can get on the board, can always hamper and cripple the honest members of the board, no matter how resolute and able the latter may be, if they do not have an aroused and determined public opinion behind them.

Besides suffering, in aggravated form, from the difficulties which beset the course of the entire administration, the police board had to encounter--and honest and efficient police boards must always encounter--certain special and peculiar difficulties. It is not a pleasant thing to deal with criminals and purveyors of vice. It is very rough work, and it cannot always be done in a nice manner. The man with the night stick, the man in the blue coat with the helmet, can keep order and repress open violence on the streets; but most kinds of crime and vice are ordinarily carried on furtively and by stealth, perhaps at night, perhaps behind closed doors. It is possible to reach them only by the employment of the man in plain clothes, the detective. Now the function of the detective is primarily that of the spy, and it is always easy to arouse feeling against a spy. It is absolutely necessary to employ him. Ninety per cent. of the most dangerous criminals and purveyors of vice cannot be reached in any other way. But the average citizen who does not think deeply fails to realize the necessity for any such employment. In a vague way he desires vice and crime put down; but, also in a vague way, he objects to the only possible means by which they can be put down. It is easy to mislead him into denouncing what is necessarily done in order to carry out the very policy for which he is clamoring. The Tammany officials of New York, headed by the Comptroller, made a systematic effort to excite public hostility against the police for their warfare on vice. The law-breaking liquor seller, the keeper of disorderly houses, and the gambler, had been influential allies of Tammany, and head contributors to its campaign chest. Naturally Tammany fought for them; and the effective way in which to carry on such a fight was to portray with gross exaggeration and misstatement the methods necessarily employed by every police force which honestly endeavors to do its work. The methods are unpleasant, just as the methods employed in any surgical operation are unpleasant; and the Tammany champions were able to arouse more or less feeling against the police board for precisely the same reason that a century ago it was easy to arouse what were called “doctors’ mobs” against surgeons who cut up dead bodies. In neither case is the operation attractive, and it is one which readily lends itself to denunciation; but in both cases it is necessary if there is a real intention to get at the disease. Tammany of course found its best allies in the sensational newspapers. Of all the forces that tend for evil in a great city like New York, probably none are so potent as the sensational papers. Until one has had experience with them it is difficult to realize the reckless indifference to truth or decency displayed by papers such as the two that have the largest circulation in New York City. Scandal forms the breath of the nostrils of such papers, and they are quite as ready to create as to describe it. To sustain law and order is humdrum, and does not readily lend itself to flaunting woodcuts; but if the editor will stoop, and make his subordinates stoop, to raking the gutters of human depravity, to upholding the wrong-doer, and furiously assailing what is upright and honest, he can make money, just as other types of pander make it. The man who is to do honorable work in any form of civic politics must make up his mind (and if he is a man of properly robust character he will make it up without difficulty) to treat the assaults of papers like these with absolute indifference, and to go his way unheeded. Indeed he will have to make up his mind to be criticised, sometimes justly, and more often unjustly, even by decent people; and he must not be so thin-skinned as to mind such criticism overmuch.

In administering the police force we found, as might be expected, that there was no need of genius, nor indeed of any very unusual qualities. What was needed was exercise of the plain, ordinary virtues, of a rather commonplace type, which all good citizens should be expected to possess. Common sense, common honesty, courage, energy, resolution, readiness to learn, and a desire to be as pleasant with everybody as was compatible with a strict performance of duty--these were the qualities most called for. We soon found that, in spite of the wide-spread corruption which had obtained in the New York police department, the bulk of the men were heartily desirous of being honest. There were some who were incurably dishonest, just as there were some who had remained decent in spite of terrific temptation and pressure; but the great mass came in between. Although not possessing the stamina to war against corruption when the odds seemed well-nigh hopeless, they were nevertheless heartily glad to be decent and to welcome the change to a system under which they were rewarded for doing well, and punished for doing ill.

Our methods for restoring order and discipline were simple, and indeed so were our methods for securing efficiency. We made frequent personal inspections, especially at night, turning up anywhere, at any time. We thus speedily got an idea of whom among our upper subordinates we could trust and whom we could not. We then proceeded to punish those guilty of shortcomings, and to reward those who did well, refusing to pay any heed whatever in either case to anything except the man’s own character and record. A very few of these promotions and dismissals sufficed to show our subordinates that at last they were dealing with superiors who meant what they said, and that the days of political “pull” were over while we had the power. The effect was immediate. The decent men took heart, and those who were not decent feared longer to offend. The morale of the entire force improved steadily.