mem '.$'-'& *'..& i, V is DUE on the last date stamped below SOUTHERN BRANCH, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LIBRARY, i-OS ANGELES, CALIF. YALE LECTURES ON THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF CITIZENSHIP AMERICAN' CITIZENSHIP. By the late DAVID J. BREWER, Asso- ciate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 131 pages. THE CITIZEN* IN His RELATION TO THE INDUSTRIAL SITUATION. By the late HENBY CODMAN POTTER, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of New York. 248 pages. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY IN THE EVOLUTION OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. By ARTHUR TWIN- ING HADLEY, PH.D., LL.D., President of Yale University. (Third printing.) 175 pages. FOUR ASPECTS OF Civic DUTY. By WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, LL.D., D.C.L., as President of the United States. (Second printing.) Ill pages. THE CITIZEN'S PART IN GOVERNMENT. By HON. ELIHU ROOT, LL.D., D.C.L. 123 pages. THE HINDRANCES TO GOOD CITIZENSHIP. By RT. HON. JAMES BRYCE, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., British Ambassador to the United States. (Fourth printing.) 138 pages. CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS IN DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. By CHARLES EVANS HUGHES, LL.D., formerly Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. (Second print- ing.) 123 pages. AMERICA IN THE MAKING. By REV. LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D., LL.D., Kditor of "The Outlook." 234 pages. Tin: RELATIONS OF EDUCATION TO CITIZENSHIP. By SIMEON E. BALDWIN, LL.D., ex-Governor of Connecticut. 178 pages. THK POWER OF IDKALS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. By EPHRAIM DOUGLAS ADAMS, PH.D., Professor of History, Leland Stan- ford Jr. University. 159 pages. '['in. LIBERTY OF CITIZENSHIP. By HON. SAMUEL WALKER Mc- (' vi.i , LL.D., Governor of Massachusetts. 134 pages. THE CONSTITUTION OF CANADA IN ITS HISTORY AND PRACTICAL WORKING. By WILLIAM RENWICK RIUDELL, LL.D., Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario. 170 pages. Uniform /,?mo cloth hound volumes. SOCIETY AND PRISONS, liy THOMAS MOTT OBBORNE. L.H.I). (Third printing.) 8ro. Cloth liinding. 240 pages. YALE LECTURES ON THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF CITIZENSHIP POLICEMAN AND PUBLIC Policeman and Public by Arthur Woods, A.M. Colonel, Air Service, U. S. A. Formerly Police Commissioner of New York City Author of ' Crime Prevention" New Haven : ^ Yale University Press. I .on. Inn: Humphrey Milford: Oxford University Press. Mdccccxix. Copyright, 1919, by Yale University Press Preface K) A The following lectures in the Dodge Course at Yale University upon the Responsibility of Citizenship were delivered in April, 1918, while we were at war with Germany, and before nation-wide prohibition had gone into effect. Some of the matters treated may therefore seem out of date, but the text has been /^ left unchanged, for the principles are enduring. H As the book goes to press, the questions of police labor unions and strikes are much in the public mind. I cannot but feel that these questions would never have arisen if a better and truer understanding had i xisted between police and public if the public paid its guardians proper salaries, provided them witfy single-minded public servants for leaders, kept itself informed as to police methods and results, and adopted means to reward men who were rendering commendable service; and if the police had been made to realize that they are entrusted with the proud duty of maintaining law and order, that they.) serve the whole people regardless of sect, politics, station in life or industry. This would make intolerable anv action on their 8 Policeman and Public part that would tend to commit them more to the service of one part of the community than another, except that of the law-abiding against the law- defying. Contents I. The Puzzling Law 11 II. The Policeman as Judge .... 27 III. The People's Advocate .... 47 IV. Methods of Law Enforcement ... 55 V. Esprit de Corps 83 VI. Reward and Punishment .... 96 VII. Grafting 110 VIII. Influence 135 IX. Police Leadership 143 X. The Public's Part 162 Policeman and Public I The Puzzling Law WHAT is the average man's conception of the policeman's job? How does he think the guardian of law and order spends his time? Most people probably picture to themselves the rather traditional officer that is seen strolling care- free up and down the street, with no particular aim, swinging his club, good-natured, yet with a certain degree of menace. It is known, of course, that he sometimes makes an arrest, and once in a while a brave deed he has done is read of in the paper, or an allegation of graft. It is known, too, that there are detectives, but the general idea of detective work and methods is a bit vague, and is apt to have been formed more from absorbing books or films than from the actual performances of flesh-and-blood de- tectives. An opinion commonly held about the pojice- umn, and frrrly r\|>rrsM- successfully retain, all this knowledge of law and have it automatically available for application to particular, puzzling cases as they occur. At any rate, it is not conceivable that all policemen should have such vast legal knowledge, though many of them are extraordinarily well versed in law, and wise and prompt in applying their knowledge. Hence the need for capable police leadership. The policeman on post, at $1400 or $1500 a year, cannot be a sort of muscular combination of Black- stone and Sherlock Holmes. He must be taught and trained. His compHetg*l ^]*"ft TTTMfft be simplified forjiim bv the clear and patient instructions of his Igadergj for capable leadership can make easy the difficult, can clear up the obscure, and can make 26 Policeman and Public each individual policeman an effective member of the force by continual inst^^^^^and by limiting his duties according to his capacity. The time-worn professional police theory thai everyone in the uniform knows aLLaboutJbhe^iob^and only needs to be let alone by bosses andpublicj_has been responsible for most of our weak, and much of our dishonest, police service. II The Policeman as Judge TN this duty of law enforcement the policeman is _in a very real sense a judge. ___ He has to decide whether or not a law is violated and therefore whether he should take official action. This is about the same duty that a judge is charged with, but the conditions under which the two work, judge and policeman, seem about as different as their salaries. The judge sits on his bench in a quiet room with court officers scattered around to make his work easy, to run errands for him, to ensure quiet and decorum. He has clerks and stenographers. He has libraries of law books, with messengers to go and get them for him and clerks to assist him in looking up the authori- ties. He can take the time he requires to consult musty tomes athis leisure and as many of them as he thinks fit, before he has to give his decision. And if he make a mistake, if his decision be wrong, the only penalty he incurs is the chagrin he may feel at being reversed by the superior court. Compare the poor policeman. He is alone on_a street corner: things am h^ppjpning all around him ; 28 Policeman and Public an excited crowd is gathering; people are talking loud and perhaps fisticuffing; all is confusion. He must decide instantly and take immediate action, for delay may mean an irremediable error; a life may be indirectly at stake. All the policeman's knowl- edge of all the laws jnust be on automatic tap ready to be applied unerringly upon an instant's notice. And if he make a mistake, woe betide him, for he is between the devil and the deep blue sea : if he takes a person into custody wrongfully he subjects him- self to a personal suit for civil damages, yet if he fails to take the person into custody he may render himself liable to departmental discipline and perhaps dismissal for having failed to take proper police action. The odds are all against him, and all with the judge, yet we seldom criticise judges if they make honest errors, and we seldom fail to criticise police- men when they make much the same kind of error. It is interesting to realize that only in free coun- tries is the public protected against this sort of official misconduct, against the overstepping of its rights by police officers. In Germany the policeman is not liable to a citizen whom he wrongfully arrests. In the United States the policeman is protected only in the exercise of his legal duties. In the confusion of the scene or because of the puzzle of the point at issue a policeman may easily overstep his rights under the law, yet if he does so even by the fraction The Policeman as Judge 29 of an inch, "even in the estimation of a hair," he at once loses his immunity, becomes a plain ordinary citizen like the rest of us and is personally liable under either criminal or civil action like any other civilian. The law permits him, for instance, to use force, and all the force that is necessary in order to perform his legal duty* but he must be able to demon- strate that it actually was his duty, that force was needed, and that he did not use one ounce more than was absolutely necessary. A policeman is therefore apt to be cautious and to refrain from taking action if there is doubt. And there is often doubt. What should he do when he walks through the heart of the tenement district of the city on a sweltering August night and sees a pale, driven mother sleeping on a fire escape with her five children, trying to get a trace of a breath of fresh air which they could not find in their stuffy room? The law forbids this use of fire escapes ; but the policeman will hardly have the heart to enforce the law by driving these unfortunate people into agony again. What is his "duty"? Picture to yourself another case. There is a huge political meeting in Madison Square Garden. The seating capacity inside is 8500, and the hall has been filled, seating and standing capacity both, for an hour, yet the crowds outside are surging toward the entrance through every street that leads to the Gar- 30 Policeman and Public den. Patrolman Gilligan is doing his best at his appointed station to keep back the crowd; though they are pressing him sorely he is trying hard to hold them, to keep himself and them good-natured, to avoid using force yet he must keep them back. As 'they crowd up against him once again and he raises his arms to stay them, his elbow strikes the eye of an infirm gentleman in the front rank, some sixty-five years old, and Gilligan calls out : "Don't you know enough to back up there? I'll lock up somebody in this bunch if you don't look out !" "You don't need to hit me in the eye !" someone answers. "Sorry, sir, I'm sure, but here there, you back there, quit your shoving now!" Not long after this incident the crowd begins to thin out, as people see at last that there's no hope of entering the Garden. Gilligan manages to main- tain his part of the lines, and dog-tired goes off duty just before midnight. A few days later Gilligan comes home from the dreary "late tour," from midnight to eight o'clock. His wife has a hot breakfast waiting for him and is standing out on the doorstep with the two little Gilligans waving a welcome to him, the little ones jumping up and down and clapping their hands, they are so glad to see father again. As he comes up to the doorstep a man walks up to him: "Are you The Policeman as Judge 31 Officer Patrick Gilligan?" and shoves a paper into his hand. This is what he reads : Supreme Court, County and State of New York. John Lovejoy, Plaintiff, vs. Patrick Gilligan, Defendant. 1. The above-named plaintiff is and was at all times hereinafter mentioned a citizen of the State of New York, residing in the County of New York. 2. On or about the 17th day of October, 1917, the defendant did at the southwest corner of Twenty- fifth Street and Madison Avenue, in the county of New York aforesaid, maliciously, wilfully and unlaw- fully assault the plaintiff, thereby causing great physical injury to the plaintiff. 3. The defendant did, at the time and place aforementioned, threaten, abuse and vilify this plain- tiff, thereby causing plaintiff to be grossly humiliated and to suffer great mental anguish to the plaintiff's damage. 4. The plaintiff annexes hereto a bill of particu- lars which he makes a part of this complaint. Wherefore the plaintiff asks for judgment against the defendant in the sum of Twenty-five Thousand Dollars and further asks that he be awarded his costs and disbursements in the action. KETCHUM & CHEATHAM, Plaintiff's Attorneys. 32 Policeman and Public Gilligan's breakfast is not apt to be eaten with a very keen relish. By his savings and through the economies and thrifty management of his wife he has managed to make his last payment on the $4000 he spent for his home, and he has $300 in the savings bank. He does not remember the political meeting episode, and has not the slightest idea of what the paper refers to, onjy he knows that he has not assaulted anyone or vilified anyone. Yet there he is, faced with the prospects of having to give up all his earnings. Another policeman is patrolling placidly down Broadway, swinging his club gently, counting the time till he will be relieved. All at once two angry, gesticulating men come out of the door of a hotel bar in front of him. They see him. "Arrest that man !" shouts one. "He swindled me out of a thousand dollars and I'd had a hard enough job to save it. He told me he had a gold mine, showed me some of the gold, showed me pictures of it, told me all about the fortune shareholders would make. And there's nothing to it. He's a plain swindler. I've never had a dollar of dividends and they tell me the stock isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Arrest him, officer! I'll teach him a thing or two and make him pay for that thousand." To which the second man rather calmly rejoins: "Officer, arrest me if you dare. He bought securi- The Policeman as Judge 33 ties of me for a thousand dollars, yes, but he has got the securities. The gold I showed him came from the mine, the photographs were taken of the mine, and it is not up to me if he has not got any dividends yet." Now, what is the policeman to do? If the gold did come from the mine and if the photographs were of the mine buildings, even though they were poor shanties, it would be likely that no law had been violated, for false promises do not constitute viola- tion, though false representations of existing facts do. If the policeman makes an arrest, he may simply be exposing himself to a civil suit ; if he fails to make an arrest and refers the aggrieved one to a magis- trate for a warrant, he may be letting a contemptible swindler go scot-free. A few hours later on the other side of the street two more excited men may come out of a hotel entrance, one, the hotel clerk, demanding that the officer arrest the other. "If you don't arrest him I will see the Commissioner and have your shield taken away. This man tried to beat the hotel out of his bill, he tried to slip over a phony check on me." "If you arrest me," answers the other, "I will sue you and stay with it till I've got your year's salary. There was nothing phony about that check. I just happened to let my account get overdrawn for a day or two." 34 Policeman and Public Again, what is the policeman to do? If the man never had an account in the bank he would be guilty of larceny; if, on the other hand, he had had an account and simply overdrew it, he would be guilty only of carelessness. But the policeman has no time to make an examination at the bank. He has to decide right then and there whether or not he will make the arrest. One of the hardest things a policeman must decide on the spot is whether a misdemeanor or a felony has been committed. If a felony, he has the right to make an arrest without a warrant, if he has rea- sonable grounds to believe that the man he arrests committed the act ; if a misdemeanor, he has no right to arrest, unless he witnessed the occurrence. Thus, if a policeman sees a woman with a bleeding face shrieking down the street after a man who, she cries out, has struck her, he has the right to make an arrest if the man hit her with a dangerous weapon, but not if he hit her with his fist. An umbrella or a cane, in the eye of the law, would qualify as a dan- gerous weapon. And it must be remembered that the mere stopping of the man would be technically false imprisonment. Unless he is willing to take the risk of being able to prove later that a weapon was used, he arrests at his peril, for if it was what is called a "simple assault," he legally has no right to take action more drastic than suggesting to the mal- The Policeman as Judge 35 treated woman that she apply to a magistrate for a warrant, or informing her that she has the power of arrest, and assuring her that if she exercises it he will preserve the peace. The inevitable result of this sort of thing is that the policeman learns by experience and by the wise advice of his elders that his best course is to play safe, to keep out of trouble, to think before he acts, and think especially how any action he might take would affect him personally. He can never afford to lose sight of either penalty, the chance of being taken to court on either a civil or criminal charge, and the danger of being put on charges before the trial Deputy Commissioner of the Department. He may dodge Scylla only to be sucked into Charybdis. And the discipline of the Department is no joke; if he is dismissed from the Force he loses not only his job, but all his accumulated rights to a pension; and a good bit of his savings probably goes to pay the legal expenses of his trial. The mistakes that get a policeman into trouble are usually those of action. The temptation is therefore to do nothing, to see nothing, not to be there; and if there by some un- happy chance, to look the other way, to step around the corner. A young policeman one night, very late, was patrolling his post not far from the Pennsylvania railroad station. There were not many people 36 Policeman and Public around. This policeman was rather new in the pro- fession, having been graduated from the Training School only a few months, and being still full of the excellent instruction he received there. A rather unusual number of night burglaries had been occur- ring in the precinct, and the captain had warned all sergeants and patrolmen to be particularly on the alert for suspicious-looking characters. The patrol- man had been taught in the school that during the small hours of the morning if a man came along the post carrying a bundle, it was good police work tactfully but firmly to insist upon being shown the contents of the bundle, for burglars must carry away their loot somehow or it is of no use to them; and men with bundles on lonely posts, at lonely hours, might be burglars. A man who, under ordinary circumstances, would have excited no one's suspicion, came along this offi- cer's post carrying a rather large and pretty well stuffed-out dress-suit case. The policeman eyed him for a few moments, and then stepped up to him : "I am sorry, sir, but I must ask you to let me see what you have in that bag." "I shall do nothing of the kind ; it is none of your business." "I am very sorry, sir," replied the young officer; "my instructions are that I must investigate any bag or bundle that is carried along the street at this time The Policeman as Judge 37 of night. I hope you won't be offended ; I am pretty sure you're all right. Won't you be a good fellow and help me out by just letting me take a look in the bag? Or else I might get into all sorts of trouble with the boss for not doing what he told me." Somewhat mollified by the patrolman's address, the man asked: "What is all this about, officer; what's the game?" "Well, there have been a few burglaries in this precinct lately, and the captain's red-hot to stop 'em; so he has told all of us to keep an extra eye out for people carrying bundles at unusual hours. It is no crime to carry bundles through the street, and I don't wonder that you're sore at being held up like this just when you are probably hurrying home to get some sleep. It is a tough job, the cop's job; he has to do all sorts of things that get him in wrong with people." By this time the man had his dress-suit case open, and the officer satisfied himself by a couple of glances that no spoils of burglary were in it. They said good-night to each other and the man went along. The patrolman forgot the incident. A couple of days later, however, a letter came to the Police Commissioner from the employer of the man in question, who was the president of a large company. The letter said that a young man in the employ of the company, thoroughly respectable, 38 Policeman and Public completely trusted, well mannered and of good hab- its, had been brusquely accosted by an officer two nights before on his way home from a business trip out of town. In spite of his protests the officer had insisted upon examining the contents of his bag. Such conduct on the part of the policeman was wholly without warrant of law, was unjustifiable, and was the kind of conduct which can not be tolerated in public officials. An immediate investigation was demanded, with proper disciplinary measures against the officer. The writer of the letter announced that he was not going to be put off in this matter; that he proposed to see it through, and, if the police authorities did not take action that seemed to him adequate, he would go higher. No harm came to the policeman in this case. The risk he ran, however, was great, for, in trying to do his duty, he exposed himself to the resentment of a man who proved to be possessed of influence and who was thoroughly capable of driving a matter to a finish. Is it any wonder that the policeman gradually comes to conclude that no action is probably the safest action? It is clear that, under such condi- tions, the policeman cannot be the clear-headed, impartial judge which the best interests of his work demand. The effect on him in his performance of duty of this play of forces is apt to work unfavor- The Policeman as Judge 39 ably to the public interest, for, although at first thought it might appear that police action would be influenced in the right direction, and that the caution bred in him in this way would merely prevent him from making unnecessary arrests, such an impres- sion is not true, for the making of arrests is only one part of police duty, and there is no virtue, either in the mere making of a large number of arrests, or in cutting the number down. What the public inter- est demands is that the policeman should take action, whether that action mean arrest or mere admonition, when action is called for; and that he should refrain from taking action, not because he shirks, because he fears the consequences to himself, but only because his good judgment tells him action would be wrong. There is all the difference in the world between fail- ing to make an arrest became intelligent, judgmenjshows if should not he made ? and failing to make it only because personal trouble may follow or time be required in court. The soundness of the policeman's judicial conduct is of the greatest importance to the public, and per- haps especially to that part of the public which may have offended and brought itself to his judicial notice. A mistake made by a policeman may often have a disastrous and irrevocable effect. Let us sup- pose, for instance, that a policeman on duty in a park sees a citi/.en on his hands and knees on the 40 Policeman and Public lawn with his head down, apparently chewing grass. The officer takes him into custody. On his way to court he must decide what to charge the man with. On the one hand, the charge may be violating an ordi- nance, in which case the specifications would be, tres- passing on the grass of the park. The magistrate would probably find him guilty, say, "Don't do it again," and suspend sentence, or perhaps might fine him a dollar, and the man would walk out of court little the worse for his experience. On the other hand, the policeman might decide that trespassing on the grass was only an accidental feature of the case and that the man's actions were such as to indicate he was of unsound mind. In this case he would tell the magistrate : "My name is John Conver; I am a patrolman attached to the 33d Precinct, Shield No. 1234. On the 3d of May, 1918, at about 3: 30 p.m., my atten- tion was attracted to the defendant by seeing him on the grass in the park on my post. I drew near to him and saw that he was on his hands and knees chewing grass, your Honor. When I addressed him he looked up and there was a kind of a wild look in his eyes. He kept on chewing and did not answer. I thereupon took the defendant into custody and accompanied him to the station house." Upon such testimony the magistrate undoubtedly would commit the defendant to a hospital for obser- The Policeman as Judge 41 ration as to his sanity, and the chances are fair that he would be found insane and committed to an asylum, perhaps for life. The decision of the policeman as to whether to charge him with violation of an ordinance or insanity might be the turning of the lane in that man's life, changing absolutely his whole future. Whenever a policeman makes an arrest he starts the whole inexorable machine of law going. When the policeman says, "My friend, you are under ar- rest," he pushes a button that starts the machinery. He opens the signal box, calls the station house, reports the arrest. The chauffeur of the patrol wagon puts out his pipe, cranks his engine, clangs his bell, rumbles out of the garage, rings his way up the street to the box where the officer and the dazed prisoner are waiting. Into the Black Maria he steps, down the street he whirls, into the station house he goes. There he goes before the high rail and gives to a gruff lieutenant his name, address, occupation, and various other facts. Into a cell then, and he hears the ominous click of the lock as the doorman shuts him in. After a few hours' waiting the patrol wagon again gets into action and he goes to court. Here he is turned over to an entirely new machine and is taken in charge by the court officers. He stays in some sort of detention pen until his turn is reached ; probably OIK- or two shyster lawyers sym- 42 Policeman and Public pathize with him and, for a sufficient emolument, tell him how easy it will be for them to clear him. Sud- denly he is haled before the judge and finds himself confronted again by the same policeman who took him into custody. The policeman's story is told ; he tells his story. The judge holds him for trial before a higher court. Behind the bars again, to stay there perhaps for months perhaps more than a year, unless he man- ages to find someone who will go bail for him so that he can be free pending trial. Then the appearance before another judge, the impaneling of a jury, the consultations with his own lawyer, the impatience when he feels that his case is not being handled as well as it should be; the intricate legal machinery with judge, stenographer, court officers, jury, spec- tators. And then the trial ends, and the jury may disagree and he have to go through the whole thing again, or he may be joyfully acquitted, or he may be found guilty and sentenced to go up the river for months or years. All this machinery, all this drab sequence of events, was started, or was not started, according to the decision of the policeman on the post as to whether or not he should make the arrest. If he makes the arrest, the whole operation must follow. It is as inevitable as is the roast beef when the steer first puts his nose inside the high gates of the packing-house; The Policeman as Judge 43 or as is the little motor car when the bar of steel first is swung into place in the big factory. The policeman on post is in all truth the court of first instance; he is a de facto judge just as truly as any ermined magistrate, and a wise policeman can be guide, philosopher and friend as he carries onhis daily, hourly court. In some districts where foreign- born abound, a trusted inspector or captain makes the difference to whole neighborhoods between happi- ness and despair. The people bring him all their troubles, and he is wise and patient, settling out of court, without arrests, without cost or any loss of self-respect to the people, many a case that comes to him, in which a less humane officer would mechani- cally make an arrest. Yet he is strong and fearless in acting promptly, if action is needed ; he protects these people new to our shores, not merely from their own ignorance of our ways, but also from being preyed on by others. Uprightness in the policeman must be absolutely required just as much as in any other judge. It is vital that he should have the virtues which we require in judges. For there is no way of avoiding the situa- tion: the policeman is judge whether he will or no; whether you will or no. The moment he is given his shield, sworn into office, and sent out to fulfill the duties of that office, he thereby automatically becomes charged with judicial duty. We must ask ourselves, 44 Policeman and Public then: "Is he a righteous judge, a wise, patient, high- minded judge, with the single purpose of doing his sworn duty as well as he can?" For that must be his sole purpose ; and it is so with many a policeman. We sometimes are tempted to believe otherwise to conclude that most policemen are unreliable be- cause we read or hear of the unworthy conduct of individual officers. It is just as unfair to judge the whole police body by the conduct of a few men as to judge the Army by the misconduct of separate individuals in it; or to conclude that all college stu- dents live fast, loose lives because we happen to know of a particular student who has been expelled for not taking his opportunities seriously enough. Most policemen, like most sailors, or clerks, or postmen, or engineers, or any other class of men, are respectable and well meaning. Their duties are peculiarly difficult, however, and important, and the public should support them. One essential element of public support is adequate pay. It cannot be expected in the long run that a large body of men will do work beyond what is paid for. Only if the policeman's salary is commensurate with the character of work that he performs is the public in a position to insist upon conduct and results that meet the requirements. Another essential is that the public shall have respect for the profession of policing, and show_this The Policeman as Judge 45 respect by its attitude toward individual officers when they measure up to the_gt-*\P^ Mr/ ^- Just censure is wholesome, but indiscriminate faultfinding does little good. The public should demand and expect con- scientious, honest work from the police, should not tolerate anything else, and should treat cases of dis- honesty severely, yes, but as exceptions and not as samples of the character of all the colleagues of the offender. Just as it would be ruinous to our whole judicial system if our judges were anything but single- minded, so is it ruinous and poisonous to our police system to have other considerations than plain duty and the proper performance of it affect the conduct of policemen. Suppose a judge could be relied upon to do his duty only if no interested friend reaches his ear, if no political consideration enters in, if no bribe is offered. Such things are conceivable, for human nature remains human nature, but every effort is made to prevent it, to protect the judiciary, to remove temptation from it, to throw around it a tra- dition of integrity, of single purpose, to distinguish it by a morale that will maintain the absolute integ- rity of the bench. Judges are respected, the com- munity believes in them, and by its belief buoys them up to the level of that belief. The result of this is that an unrighteous judge is visited with undiluted public scorn, for the very reason that the bench in 46 Policeman and Public general is respected so highly that a single member who falls below the standard is known to be a glaring exception, and an especially reprehensible one, be- cause he sins against such a bright, clear light. In like manner, the public, realizing the judicial element in police work, must insist upon the highest standards of police conduct ; must safeguard the pro- fession, removing temptations, dignifying the work, giving proper reward, and, above all, showing the respect to members of police forces that is due to men who perform duties of this character. Ill The People's Advocate BESIDES being in this way a judge, a policeman is also, in a very strong sense, a sort of people's advocate, on permanent retainer to represent the public interests against private intrusion on their rights. This is an aspect of police duty which is not commonly seen, and which police forces themselves probably realize only vaguely, if at all. To make this clear, let us take the example of a house owner who fails to clear his sidewalk of snow and ice within the period specified by city ordinance. The policeman represents the public, and it is his duty to force this private individual, the house owner, to clear his sidewalk so that the public shall not fall down and break arms and legs on its slippery surface. The police are retained by the public to do just such things as this in its interest; they are the part of the public to whom this special work is assigned. The officer on post goes walking up the street, notices the snow, and ruminates somewhat as follows : "Well, what do you think of that old man Hender- son hasn't got his snow cleared off! It's up to me. 48 Policeman and Public Guess I ought to serve a summons on him by rights. He's always slow getting his snow off, and last month, was it, that old lady fell down and hurt herself so bad? Well, I guess I'll let it go this time. He's a good friend of mine; gives me a couple of Havanas every once in a while, and their kitchen and coffee are awful good on a cold night. Guess I'll let it go this time." Mr. Common Citizen comes along. But the officer whom he, as a member of the public, has hired to make walking along the street safe for him, has failed to perform that duty because the private interest represented by Mr. Henderson had done more for the officer than the public interests, which had never given him cigars or hot coffee and never had shown approval in any way when he did good work. Mr. Citizen therefore falls down and breaks a leg, or perhaps two. Or suppose that Mrs. Common Citizen has hired a taxicab and told the chauffeur to drive her to the ferry, explaining to him tersely that she is afraid there isn't much time because she had to see the cook before she left and couldn't do this before since the nurse had made a mistake and got the baby's milk wrong and she had to do it all over again and it is so annoying to have things go wrong! So the taxicab driver, once started, was trying to make the best time he could. Soon, however, he came to a block in the The People's Advocate 49 street, at a place where traffic ran into a neck-of-the- bottle because over half the street was being used for the storage of construction materials and the making of cement by a builder who was putting up a large office building there. It helps not to have Mrs. Citizen fret and be- moan her hard luck inside the taxi; it helps not to have the chauffeur curse his hard luck, seeing his tip shrink in proportion as the minutes tick away. What is the trouble? Why is Mrs. Citizen held up at this bottle-neck? The trouble is that the police officer whom the /chauffeur and Mrs. Citizen, both members of the pub- I lie, hired to protect their rights against private I intrusion on them, has failed to require the builder I to use no more than the one-third of the street which Ihisjermit gives him the right to. No one, except the policeman, would know, or have any special busi- ness to know just how much of the street the authori- ties had given the builder the right to use. The policeman knows, however. It is his duty to allow no one to use the streets in this way without examin- ing his permit ; and then it is his further duty to require the builder to limit his operations in accord- ance with the express terms of the permit. If he is allowed to use one-third of the street between certain points, the policeman, in the interest of the public, must confine him to that particular one-third. 50 Policeman and Public But the builder would be saved a lot of expense and enabled to get his work done more quickly if he could use a little more of the street. He is a pretty good fellow, and when the policeman comes to exam- ine the permit he talks with him in a friendly way, passes out cigars, and possibly something else; he repeats the pleasant dose on future occasions. Why should the policeman bother to keep that friend builder within the narrow limits of one-third of the street? What difference does it make anyway? Traffic held up? Yes, but the public doesn't seem to mind particularly, and if it does mind it doesn't blame the policeman. It just sort of complains against things in general, hard luck, and so on. It never has shown any indication of realizing that it, the public, is entitled to the use of a full two-thirds of that street at that place, and if it doesn't get such use, of knowing that the particular policeman on that particular post is responsible, and has shamefully neglected the duty he owes to his employer. Such a thought as that, true though it is, probably never entered the minds of either policeman or public, either employed or employer. Let us, again, follow Miss Common Citizen, on her way to school, as she passes through a street which seems to be always dirty and dusty. She is annoyed by the dust which, on windy days, whirls up in her face and hair, and she says to herself time and again : The People's Advocate 51 "What a horrid, dirty city and what a horrid place a city is anyway; they can't seem to keep things clean. I wish I could always live in the country !" But here, too, a large part of the trouble is that Miss Common Citizen, as a member of the public, is not properly represented by the policeman whom she hires to be her advocate and see to it that private interests do not infringe on the public interests. The policeman whose post is along this street has never enforced the ordinance requiring people to sweep the dirt from their sidewalks before eight in the morn- ing, or whatever time the Street Cleaning Depart- ment goes around for its first cleaning. The result is that sidewalks are attended to after the street has been cleaned instead of before it, so when Miss Citi- zen walks down on her way to school, sidewalks are still being swept in front of some houses and have just been swept in front of some others, the dust being brushed temporarily into the street, free to blow back on the sidewalk, or up in the air, accord- ing as the elements move it. Xow, all this dust should have been swept into the street an hour or two before, so that when the street-cleaning people came along they would have garnered it and taken it away where it could never have blown into the young face of Miss Common Citizen or any of her sister members of the great public. The public employs the policeman, but it is an 52 Policeman and Public unexpressive employer, and it doesn't seem to know the difference between good work and bad. Any mem- ber of the public would know the difference in two seconds between good and bad work on the part of his cook, or between good and bad work in almost any other way that work is done for him personally, but in cases where work is done for him, not as an indi- vidual, but as a member of the public, he does not seem to know, and perhaps has not any very good way of knowing whether the work is satisfactory or not. Not knowing, he does not seem to care. That is, he does not act as if he cared. So the policeman, not having his good work appreciated, and not fall- ing into trouble if he neglects the interests of his employer, very readily drops into the habit, prob- ably entirely without realizing it, of neglecting his real employer, the public, in the interest of the very people whom he should proceed against, the various private interests. For the private interests are human. They take note of the policeman's efforts when he helps them, and show their appreciation in a very pleasant manner. It is always satisfactory to work for those who appreciate what you do. This means a great deal in police work. If things are to go right the policeman must serve only the city the public ; he must not serve one individual against another, nor must he serve an individual against the public. Yet it is hard, it is against The People's Advocate 53 human nature for an individual, the policeman in this case, to refuse good fellowship and cigars, perhaps also incurring personal enmity at the same time, and to do this for the sake of an impersonal, unhuman group that establishes no personal relationship with him ; that fails to make it hot for him if he neglects his duty; that seems on the whole not to realize just what his duty is. If the policeman always did what he should, and in the interest of his client the public, always restrained individuals who were overstepping their rights and therefore making things inconven- ient or worse for certain members of the public, he would gain no gratitude, no reward, from his em- ployer, and he would make accumulating enemies of those whom he restrained, even though the restraint were courteous and considerate. The public does not seem to feel collectively. When one sees a police- man taking into custody a person who has offended against the law, one is rather more apt, as an indi- vidual, to feel sympathy for the other individual, than as a member of the public to note with satisfac- tion the faithful work of the public's employee in enforcing the law against an offending private citizen. The policeman is just a plain, ordinary human being like the rest of us; the same traits mark him that mark us. He has to make his way in the trou- bled world just as all the rest of us do. Good friends are assets to any man to the policeman no less than ,54 Policeman and Public to others. He can gather friends to his bosom by doing favors, personal favors, at the public expense. It all seems so natural. The ideal of service of the public is far away from the actual life of patrolling a post; and policemen may never gain the habit or even the conception of full service to an employer so cold,- so inarticulate and unappreciative ; for close at the officer's side, blurring his view of the public are friendly and grateful ones who ask for favors, and show themselves such bountiful fountains of appre- ciation. This is where the police administration should come in. It directly represents the public, and its function is to maintain in the force the spirit of ser- vice to the public, and devotion to the public inter- ests. If individual officers yield to the temptation to be derelict in performing their duty, the fault is with the aim and the discipline of the administration. In the broader sense, the head of a police force is that member of the public who happens to be chosen to secure for it such a conscientious performance of duty by the policemen of the city as shall ensure the proper guarding of the public interests against the depredations of those who would infringe on them for their own personal advantage. IV Methods of Law Enforcement X offlnpr rf thp law _ gfln^nf^enforce laws effectively unless he uses the best methods. One would not consider a surgeon capable of performing an appendectomy simply because he knew that this meant j-emoving the appendix. The surgeon is not capable until he has learned, not merely the anatomy of the parts ? but also the use of his tools, the tech- nique and best practice. In the same manner, jye should not expect that a policeman would be successj- ful in solving a murder case, for example, unless he knew something more than that "Homicide is the killing of one human being by the act, procurement or omission of another." He might also know that to "kill by the act" means to assault, shoot, or stab; to "kill by procurement" means to cause one person to kill another ; and to "kill by omission" means fail- ure to provide ordinary measures for the safety of others, .such as the failure of a builder to furnish safe temporary structures for his workmen to stand on, with the result that a workman falls and is killed. Knowledge of the law would point out to the 56 Policeman and Public policeman what his duty is. but would not in itself help him much toward performing it in any but very simple cases. Like the surgeon the policeman must be taught method. In murder cases, for instance, thorough methods of procedure, worked out by practical men, will go far toward bringing the guilty man to the bar of justice. The tools used in New York in mur- der cases, packed in a bag, are ready at all times to be taken instantly to the scene of the crime. A murder kit contains the following articles: Complete fingerprint outfit Searchlight Steel tape measure Paper Envelopes Sealing wax Twine Tags Small box of tools Soap and towel Stenographer's notebook Rubber gloves Bottle of antiseptic wash Saw Screwdriver File 57 Pincers Scissors Jimmy A stenographer and a photographer are likewise always on duty to accompany the detectives. These are the tools of the detective, the murder specialist. The ordinary policeman on post must also use the right method in murder cases. Upon arriving at the scene of the crime he must go about his work in a regular way so that he shall miss no chance to discover even the faintest clue to the criminal. The New York Department's instructions to officers are as follows : "The duty of the member of the force first arriving at the scene of a crime is to try to accomplish the three most necessary police duties : arrest the per- petrator; secure and safeguard evidence; get wit- nesses. Pending the arrival of the detectives, these duties devolve upon the uniformed man and he must do his work without detracting from the possibility of further investigation by the detectives. "Clear the room of all persons not in authority or without business there, and until the arrival of the detectives admit no one except the attending physi- cian, members of the Police Department, of the Dis- trict Attorney's office, of the Coroner's office, or of the Fire Department if explosives have been used. "Allow no one to touch or move anything in the 58 Policeman and Public room, particularly the weapon, and do not touch anything yourself. This is important, for it will enable the Department's photographer to picture the body and the contents of the room in their original positions. No steps should be taken which would destroy or obscure evidence, and thus make the case more difficult for the detectives when they take hold of it. At the same time, however, the patrolman, being first on the scene, when the scent is fresh, may have opportunities to arrest the perpe- trator or get important evidence which might be entirely lost by the time the detectives get there, and he must not neglect that opportunity. "Get the names and addresses of all witnesses pos- sible. Separate them and listen to any statements they may make. Question them to ascertain which are the most important ones. "Speak to no outsiders about the crime. "The doctor should be requested not to destroy marks of evidence. For instance, if it is necessary for the physician to cut away the clothing in the region of a wound, he should be requested to cut around the rent in the garment and not through it. "When the detectives arrive, furnish them with any information you may have gathered and advance any suggestions you have for the solution of the case. "The one great obstacle in the past to smooth Methods of Law Enforcement 59 police work on such cases has been the lack of sym- pathy between the uniformed force and the detec- tives, but this is fast being eradicated. Some uniformed men have been loath to assist the detec- tives by giving information because they have been made to feel by some detectives that a sharp line of demarkation exists. On the other hand, some patrolmen through envy feel that the detectives are butting in and stealing their cases and on this account withhold information. "As a result of this lack of co-operation, the arrest of the perpetrator, the securing and safeguarding of evidence and the procuring of witnesses is often not properly accomplished. Every member of the Department should remember that the biggest thing of all is to accomplish these three functions and that it can only be well done by team work. If one branch of the service is a success it reflects credit on the entire force, but if it is a failure it reflects only discredit on all." The policeman, to give another example, must be trained with scrupulous care in the technical methods of handling physical evidence, for many a case has been spoiled because some step has been neglected which was essential to prove that the article submitted in court as evidence was the same article found under certain conditions at the scene of the crime. A case happened where three 60 Policeman and Public thieves were arrested, charged with robbing coin boxes belonging to the Telephone Company. The thieves tried to break away, and in their effort to escape one of them threw away a bunch of keys. These were picked up by the officer, taken to the station house, and turned over to the lieutenant in charge. At the trial the introduction of the keys as evi- dence would have materially strengthened the case of the prosecution. It was impossible, however, to use them as evidence, since it could not be legally established that the keys picked up on the street and subsequently handed to the desk lieutenant were the same keys as those introduced in evidence. The officer had failed to observe the necessary procedure. He should have shown the keys to his commanding officer, telling him the circumstances under which he had obtained possession of them, and then, in the presence of the commanding officer, should have placed them in an envelope, sealed it, and written upon it his name and the date. The commanding officer should have signed his name also. In court, when the keys were to be offered in evidence, the officer whose name appeared on the envelope should have broken the seal and opened the envelope upon the witness stand ; after the hearing was closed he should again have sealed the keys up in the same way and signed his name. Methods of Law Enforcement 61 Officers must be taught that tags tied to articles are not sufficient means of identification, for no wit- ness ean prove to the satisfaction of a court, even if the opposing lawyer is not particularly clever or insistent, that the tag is now tied to exactly the same article upon which he put it in the first place. If the piece of evidence is too bulky to be placed in an envelope, it should be tagged, but in addition to this the officer should place upon it some unremovable mark of identification, noting this mark in his memo- randum book, and showing it to his commanding officer. The policeman, too, must be instructed thoroughly in the technique of fingerprints, for one careless or thoughtless act may destroy a bit of evidence without which the case cannot be solved. If a police- man, for instance, finds a revolver beside a dead body, he should either leave it untouched until the arrival of the detectives with the necessary materials for discovering fingerprints, or handle it in such a way as surely not to smudge any prints that may be on it, noting scrupulously the exact position of the revolver and returning it to that position exactly, when he has finished whatever he found necessary to do with it. 62 Policeman and Public There is another aspect of methods of law enforce- ment that is far-reaching and of great import. The head of a police department is sworn to enforce the laws, and this means all the laws; he has no discretion in this. He cannot "administra- tively legislate," and such would be the case if he had, or assumed, the right to instruct his men to refrain from enforcing some particular laws, for such instructions would amount to annulling these laws. The police head may, however, and certainly should, prescribe methods of enforcement, so that the results aimed at shall be best attained, the spirit of the law best fulfilled. He would fail in his sworn duty to enforce all the laws unless he used his best judgment and gave careful instruction as to method. Nothing could be more important than that wise methods of law enforcement should be practised among the numerous foreign populations that are such striking characteristics of our large American cities. In New York there are some police precincts where those of foreign birth or foreign parentage number ninety per cent of the inhabitants. Many of them do not speak English, they live together in smaller or larger groups and keep to themselves, so that practically they have formed little settlements from the old country right here in our midst, and are sufficient to themselves. Their manners and customs are in many ways different from ours. They Methods of Law Enforcement 63 are well disposed, law-abiding, well meaning. They have come to this country full of hope, full of eager- ness, with the intention of doing the right thing, but our speech and our ways are strange to them, and they know nothing of our enacted law. In try- ing honestly to do what they believe is right, they not infrequently violate our laws, especially our local ordinances. A great deal depends upon the methods used by the policeman among this population. If the foreigner who is not conscious of having committed any offense, is treated harshly and arbitrarily by the policeman because of some omission on his part, the effect on him may be far more significant than one would dream. To many an immigrant the policeman is the whole United States Government; he is the only manifestation of government seen by the new arrival, who is not familiar with our constitution or our in- volved methods of ruling ourselves. All he knows is that it is a free country, that the people rule, and that the big man in blue is the one he must look to. The Board of Aldermen, Mayor, Judges, Governor, Legislature, Supreme Court, Secretary of War, President all for him are embodied in that uni- formed policeman. If the policeman is kind and patient, if he tries to help the foreigner learn the ways of the new land, tries to assist him when he is in trouble, helps him to find a job, shows him where 64 Policeman and Public the children should go to school, directs him to the nearest health clinic, and, in case he breaks a law or two, explains to him just what he should and should not do and gives him another chance, the new arrival can not help absorbing the idea that the country he has come to is a benevolent country, that America is the land of his ideals, and he is ready to love it and serve it and fight for it. On the other hand, if the policeman is unfeeling, if he gives a surly answer to shrinking inquiries; if, the moment the immigrant unwittingly violates an ordinance, he is taken into custody, haled before a judge and perhaps fined a dollar or two, all for some offense which he has no knowledge of, and after an unfriendly, hostile procedure by unfeeling men what puzzled disap- pointment must be in this immigrant's heart ! He instinctive!}' knows he has done no real harm. What sort of government is it that deals out this kind of treatment for what was at the worst a trifling and unintentional offense? He is resentful. His chagrin is bitter at finding in the. land of promise about the same kind of officialdom that he hoped he had for- ever left behind him, and when people come along preaching resistance to Government, down with Gov- ernment, he lends a ready ear. The soil of his mind has been prepared to welcome and nourish that iniquitous seed. The power of the policeman for good or for evil Methods of Law Enforcement 65 is great; one cannot but wonder whether harsh and unsympathetic performance of duty among strangers may not work more potently to breed discontent and anarchy than all the exhortations, and invocations, and denunciations of soap-box corner orators. In this aspect of his duties the policeman is an educator, just as truly as is the president of one of our large universities. To illustrate ; on August 26, 1914, General Order No. 48 was issued to the Police Department of New York. It was entitled: "Keeping the Streets Clean" . and the introduction was as follows: "In order to accomplish the best results, the Police Department must work in close co-operation with the Health and Street Cleaning Departments. You will therefore give to officials of these two departments all proper assistance in carrying out their duties. "When you find violations of the ordinances rela- tive to keeping the streets clean, speak to the offender and try by warning and advice to cause him to cor- rect the conditions. "You will be doing the best kind of police work if you can correct violations and keep them corrected without making arrests. "The object is to keep the streets clean and health- ful, and this result can be obtained only by constant attention." 66 Policeman and Public In this order were enumerated some of the prin- cipal instances of street littering, and officers were told what kind of police action to take in order to cure the conditions. The end of the order read as follows : "Members of the force observing am* of the above violations will take such action as will correct the condition, but will not serve summons or make sum- mary arrests unless directed to do so by Commanding Officer." The conventional police method in matters of this kind 'was either to look the other way, or if any action had to be taken, to make an arrest or serve a summons. A patrolman, reproached by a superior officer for the unhealthful, untidy conditions of his post, could pretty well excuse himself if he could point to a record of having made a certain number of arrests or served a certain number of summonses. "I have done the best I could ; what can you expect with such people?" There was no responsibility put upon the police for bettering the conditions, for obtaining the results sought for in the ordinance, for bringing about by their work a wholesome, cleanly condition. All ordinances looked alike to the old-fashioned police- man. If any one was violated he automatically served a summons if he did anything, and that ended his full performance of duty. Methods of Law Enforcement 67 The newer method forbids the policeman to make an arrest or to serve a summons except with the express approval of his commanding officer; and it requires him so to educate the people on his post that they will gradually acquire the habit of compliance with the ordinances, thereby keeping the street clean and healthful. The only weapon which the police- man used before that of taking into custody or summoning to court is denied him ; yet, without this weapon, he is required to accomplish far more than formerly, in that he must achieve the purpose of the ordinance, and cannot simply rest secure, having shed all responsibility by the serving of certain papers. He becomes a teacher of cleanliness, an educator of good habits ; he accomplishes the desired purpose, and does this without exciting resentment, and without causing inconvenience. He plays the part rather of helpful friend and guide than of avenging, implacable autocrat. Another situation that frequently calls for police attention, and that so often is accompanied by public disorder is a strike or industrial disturbance of any kind. In this matter, as in most others, much of the difficulty from the police point of view fades away under the light of clear understanding. If both sides to such a dispute are made to understand exactly 68 Policeman and Public what their rights are and where these rights stop, and if they are convinced that the police can be relied on to enforce order, most of the usual troubles will never happen. The police can maintain order only if they are strong, and absolutely fair ; if they see to it that both sides understand what they may and may not legally do, and prevent both from acting illegally, especially from hiring gunmen to promote their own interests. Most of the disorder in connection with industrial disputes comes with the employment of private "detectives" by one side or the other. If the police do their duty, then there is no need of private guards, so if either side employs them the assumption is justifiable that violation of law is intended. Naturally, if the police are not able to. maintain order, or can be bribed by either side, then it is hard to blame people for looking out for their own interests as well as they can. In order to clarify this situation, Circular Order No. 19 was issued to the New York Force on June 9, 1917, given wide circulation in the newspapers, and sent to the parties concerned when industrial disputes arose. "Circular No. 19. STRIKES. "The duties of the Police Department in connec- tion with strikes and industrial disturbances are, in Methods of Law Enforcement 69 the last analysis, as on all other occasions, to protect Life and Property, and to maintain the Public Peace. "The particular steps to be taken and the number and distribution of the Force employed must, as a general rule, be left to the sound discretion and judg- ment of Commanding Officers. There are, however, certain broad rules and well-established principles of Law which govern cases of this kind, with which all should be familiar. "Unless otherwise advised by the Courts or Com- manding Officers, it is to be assumed that the purposes of a peaceful strike are legal. "Since such affairs are often accompanied by much bitterness and hard feeling on both sides, it is impera- tive that the Law be administered with the utmost impartiality. "In so far as this Department is concerned, one or more employes may refuse to work, and one or more employers may refuse to hire any particular person, or persons, for such reasons as may seem to them best, or for no reason at all. The employes who have gone on strike may gather in front of one or any number of the places where they were formerly employed and address, within certain limits, such argument as they may desire to their fellow-workmen who are still employed, urging them to go on strike. Similar arguments may be addressed to those who they may have reason to believe are considering tak- 70 Policeman and Public ing their former positions of employment either per- manently or temporarily as strike-breakers. The strikers or their s} r mpathizers may, also, advise prospective customers of the fact that they are on strike and the nature of their grievances be they real or supposed. The words used, in all such cases, however, must not be of such a nature as to incite to violence or offend public decency. "While both sides to such a controversy have the right of assembly, no violence or even physical con- tact between opposing factions shall be permitted. "The right of the strikers to conduct peaceful picketing has been upheld by the Courts, but the num- bers so employed must not be so great as to interfere with the free passage of vehicles or pedestrians, nor by their very number to constitute an intimidation. The number of pickets that may be lawfully per- mitted depends upon the circumstances of the case, such as the width of the street and the sidewalk, the number of employes who are working, the number and size of the exits to the building, the size of the building, and the number of neutral persons using the sidewalk or thoroughfare in question. "Members of the Police Department have no proper official interest in the merits of the contro- versy, and their action is not to be affected thereby. "In the handling of strikes, as in most other Police work, the best measures are those of a preventive Methods of Law Enforcement 71 nature. Much trouble can be avoided if the Com- manding Officer will at the beginning of any strike, advise both sides as to their respective rights and duties. They should be strongly warned against the dangers resulting from the employment of known thugs or other persons apt to cause disorder. The apprehension and punishment of those who violate the law is the function of the Police Department, the District Attorney's office and the Courts, and cannot properly or lawfully be undertaken by private citizens." During the summer of 1916 there was a prolonged traction strike in New York City which went on for weeks, was "settled," and then went on for weeks again. It was said to be the largest transportation strike in numbers of men affected that has ever taken place in the United States, with the single exception of the strike of the American Railway Union some twenty-five years ago, in which there was gross disorder, and large numbers of men were injured and killed. During this New York strike there was no serious disorder, not a person was killed, and there were practically no bad injuries. What had been the position of the police force? The question whether cars were run was no concern of theirs. The question who won the strike, likewise could not interest them. Their duty, and their sole duty, was to maintain order, to protect life and 72 Policeman and Public property, to ensure to all concerned the companies, the workers, the public the enjoyment of their full legal rights. Early in the strike the question was raised whether policemen should be assigned to ride on trolley cars. The police authorities stated that policemen would not be so assigned for the purpose of enabling the company to operate its cars, but if, in order to main- tain order, to protect the public, it should prove necessary to assign officers to cars, this would be done, and as many officers would be assigned to ride on each car as might be needed to preserve the peace and protect the public. The question came up also whether pickets should be allowed to accost old employees of the company who had not left its service or new ones who had been hired to take the place of strikers. The police answered that there was no law to prevent one man from talking to another on the street, no matter how near it might be to a car barn or other company building. Groups, even, might gather so long as they did not block the streets and thereby infringe upon the rights of other citizens, and so long as they did nothing that might tend to a breach of the peace. If such groups, however, even though consisting of only two or three men, became disorderly the police would take action. On the other hand, strikers were not permitted to talk to car crews, since if the attention of motorman or conduc- 73 tor were diverted in this way from his work of operat- ing the car it would not be safe for the public, either for that part of it that might be bold enough to ride in the car, or those in the street, whether afoot or in vehicles. This police method of handling strikes, then, con- sisted simply in clearing away misunderstandings from the minds of all affected, and then, without favor, patiently, strongly, enforcing the law. Very similar methods were used by the police in connection with Free Speech and Free Assembly, with reference to which so much confusion has ob- tained, and so much disorder and hard feeling have been engendered in different parts of the country. During the spring of 1914 there was a great deal of unrest in New York. Bands of people out of work paraded through the streets and went to restaurants and churches, not asking for food, but demanding it as their right. Anarchistic meetings were held every Saturday afternoon in Union Square, growing steadily in numbers, in fervor of speech, and in men- ace of violence. On the afternoon of the first Satur- day in April it was clear that things were rapidly coming to a head: the police had made a number of arrests, there had been forcible resistance to officers, and police brawn had been used with resulting bruises 74 Policeman and Public and bloodshed. The feeling was excited, defiant, and bitter. The threats were not disguised that since the police had "shown their hand," had started this trouble, had acted like agents of the capitalists, had refused to permit the inalienable right of free speech crowds would come next Saturday prepared to maintain by force the rights that the police had sought to take away from them by force. Bombs would answer clubs and revolvers. During the week that ensued the police administra- tion was changed, and the method of handling these meetings was radically altered. It was made clear to all the detectives who were going to be on duty the following Saturday, and to all the superior offi- cers of the uniformed force, exactly what they were to do and how they were to do it. It was pointed out that the crowd would undoubtedly be most pro- vocative; that many in it would try to make them- selves martyrs and desired nothing more ardently than to have the police assault them ; that they would tempt the police to take what would seem to be the initiative. It was explained to the police that their great effort should be to prevent trouble. If trouble should arise they were to suppress it, and to use whatever force might be necessary for suppression. But their aim was to be to prevent it from arising. In order to avoid any appearance of inviting trouble, only a few policemen in uniform would be in evidence ; Methods of Law Enforcement 75 there would be no show of a small police army ready for trouble. Within immediately available distance, however, would be policemen enough to bottle up Union Square in a couple of minutes. One hundred detectives had been chosen, who were to be dressed like any other men who might be in the crowd. They were to be scattered around singly, on the watch for signs of violence so that they could nip any attempt in the bud. Beyond this, however, they were charged with the duty of radiating good nature, of trying to maintain an atmosphere of quiet and calm. For a smile is just as infectious as a sneer. The change of method was almost unbelievably successful. There was no disorder ; the crowd was very large but very well behaved, and at the end of the meeting when everything was over and many had gone home, three cheers were proposed and given for the police and for the old Chief Inspector, Max Schmittberger, who had been in personal charge. A fow weeks after this meeting there was another one, much smaller than that in Union Square, where events happened to shape themselves in such a way that unskillful methods of policing might have brought about a good deal of disorder, whereas the skillful way in which the single policeman on duty handled the situation completely averted it. Noon- day meetings were being held at Bowling Green Park. Some of these had been rather stormy, but no action 76 Policeman and Public had been taken to stop them, since they were within the law. Unless it grows so large or gathers in such a location as seriously to interfere with traffic, on sidewalk or in street, or unless there is incitement to violence, a meeting is lawful, and the police are not merely to permit it but to see that it is not interfered with. On the day in question a good-sized crowd was being exhorted by an earnest young woman. The day was warm, the sun was shining, one of those grateful first days of spring which so gladden our hearts after a persistent, dreary winter. The sky was blue, the breeze gentle ; the men in the crowd were contented and good-natured. They had finished their lunch and were listening rather curiously and toler- antly to the orator, most of them placidly smoking. She was declaring that about everything connected with government was wrong; that rulers were slaves of capitalists ; that workers were slaves of rulers ; that the whole situation was intolerable and -should not be permitted ; that, in fact, most everything was wrong, and the only real way to right it was to listen to her, she would point out the way, then the people could rise in their might, smite their rulers, and run things. The crowd kept on calmly puffing at cigars and complacently enjoying the comfortable after-lunch feeling and the auspicious spring noon. A newcomer walking down Broadway joined the Methods of Law Enforcement 77 crowd. Possibly he had had no lunch, or too much, for he seemed to take seriously the words of the speaker which were making no impression upon the others. He blurted out in a loud voice that if she didn't stop saying things like that he would make her! She answered tartly, for that was just the opportunity she wanted, a chance to start things, she hadn't been able to work the crowd up at all until now. The man was irritated by her reply, made a movement toward her, and announced that he would show her "what was what." At once the atmosphere changed. Men straight- ened up, took their hands out of their pockets, puffed cigars faster. Faces began to tighten. People moved in closer. The complacency of a few moments before had gone. Tenseness was replacing it. The policeman assigned to cover that meeting was standing on one side of the crowd; he too had been enjoying the weather and the warmth. He was com- fortably braced on legs spread apart at exactly the angle which would give him the best support and call for the least effort, swinging his night stick idly back and forth and giving no heed to the meeting, for, as an individual, he was not interested in the doctrine that was being expounded, and, as an officer of the law, nothing was happening which demanded his attention. With the change created by the coming 78 Policeman and Public of the outraged citizen, -however, a new condition developed. Stepping up to the objector the officer touched him on the shoulder and said pleasantly, "Come, my friend, you'll have to cut this out." "Cut nothing out ! Do you hear what she's saying, officer? Why don't you stop her? If you don't, I will!" "Now see here," the policeman soothingly an- swered, "this here is her show. She isn't violating any law and as long as she don't I'm going to protect her in her meeting. If you want to hold a meeting, go over to the other side of the street there and I'll protect you too." This closed the incident. The objector walked off, the group of listeners went their several ways, smil- ing and amused, and the orator disappeared. Even if the policeman knows the laws and is skill- ful in his manner of enforcing them, he will not be effective as a member of a large force unless the organization methods are soundly planned and administered. An unorganized policeman would be of little value. Each man must know just what part of the job he is expected to do, how he is expected to do it, and where his duty fits in with the whole big organization. Methods of Law Enforcement 79 An impossible situation would be created if ten thousand officers of the law were simply sent out into the street and told that they were to enforce all the laws. What would be the result? Some localities would be overpoliced, some underpoliced, depending upon the distances from the different station houses. But this distinction would soon vanish, for in a very short time every policeman would be sitting comfortably in court, having apprehended a spitter, or a tardy sweeper of sidewalks, or an unlicensed dog owner, or a walker on park grass, or a too- youthful newsboy, or a sausage seller at ten-five a.m. on a Sunday morning, or a fruit dealer who sold an overripe apple, or a citizen who carried a lighted cigar (in his hand only) on the subway stairs, or perchance a poor overdriven mother who had filled her ash can up to within three inches of the top. It would be a fine crop of "criminals" in court; a grand sweeping up of petty offenders in a few sec- tions of the city. Their offenses had been apparent from the very fact that they were slight and usually thoughtless. At the same time that the police made a clean sweep of the streets near the station houses of these potty offenders, they swept the streets clean of them- selves also, leaving a clear field for operations by major offenders, whose offenses, for the reason that 80 Policeman and Public they are very much more serious, are therefore more deliberate, hidden, and not apparent to the casual policeman. The traditional small boy would be arrested, while the hold-up man could do as he pleased. It is an administrative falsehood to state that a police officer can go out and enforce all the laws impartially. As between offenders there must of course be no partiality ; rich or poor, black or white, all must look alike to the officer of the law. As between offenses, however, there must be distinct partiality. The patrolman must be partial to the woman with the full ash can, for her offense was slight, but he must give no quarter to the burglar. And if he is not partial to the small offender he thereby, whether he knows it or not, is partial to the big offender, because if he takes himself and the owner of the unmuzzled dog off the street, he thereby offers free opportunity to the felon. There are only a given number of policemen in any city. They must be used with skilled, conscientious judgment in the service of the public. They must be assigned to the various quarters of the city by such methods, and in such numbers as shall insure to each district its fair quota. They must also be assigned in squads, small or large according to the needs, with the duty of specializing in certain par- ticular crimes or in certain special localities where Methods of Law Enforcement 81 crime is becoming rampant. These men cannot fulfill the purpose for which they are assigned if they allow themselves to be diverted from the quarry on whose scent they have been started, in order to turn aside after some victim who is comparatively far less dangerous to the public. The organization must be for the sake of the work ; often we find it rigged the other way, the work being made subordinate, and being neglected unless it hap- pens to be covered by the particular methods of pro- cedure that have been ordained. The distribution of duties must cover all the work to be done, at the same time avoiding the clash of one man's job with another's. Responsibility must be definitely placed, by clear and specific orders, and adequate discretion and power should go with it. Each officer must be respected and supported in his task; his superior must not cut under him, must not give directions over his head. If he fails to perform his duty properly he can be removed, but so long as he is retained in his position he should be recognized as responsible, his subordinates should be dealt with only through him, they should not be changed except with his consent; he should be called to account for their faults and be given credit for their merits. He should be made to feel that his position is his as long as he fills it capably, and that success in it will lead to something higher. And the whole arrangement 82 Policeman and Public and administration of things should be such as will bring out the men's best efforts, giving them pride in their profession and their own particular niche in it, and bringing home to them the great truth that there is no satisfaction more profound and permanent than that of difficult duty ably done. Esprit de Corps THERE are many influences in police life which insidiously, yet continually, operate to lower the tone and sully the standards of the men. Some of these influences which have a surprisingly potent effect, might seem insignificant to a superficial view. Some of them, particularly, have to do with the con- tact between police and public and ought therefore to be better understood. To illustrate, consider what might seem a small matter the question of politeness. It is a pleasing and comforting thing to have a polite police force; it means a great deal to the public. It means a great deal also to the force, for persistent politeness breeds a pleasant spirit within. We are very ready to complain when we find a discourteous policeman. We feel that even though perhaps we cannot expect policemen to be possessed of wide education and profound learning, yet we can demand at least that they shall be reasonably cour- teous. When a citizen is spoken to gruffly or rudely by a 84 Policeman and Public traffic officer, he is properly indignant, and is right in feeling that the officer has no business to speak that way. This is true, and the indignation is justi- fied, but should it not be remembered also that very likely the last few drivers the policeman had to speak to were surly individuals, who would not have thought he meant what he said unless he had used some crude, strong brand of emphasis? The traffic man is ex- pected not only to enforce the regulations upon the roughest, most reckless specimens who may be driv- ing along the street, and enforce them strongly and effectively, but he is expected also, very likely within the next few seconds, tenderly and courteously to help a feeble, timid old lady across the street. It is asking a good deal of human nature always to adjust itself to such changes quickly and with unruffled equanimity of temper. In very many cases the public does not help the policeman much; people often show little under- standing and frequently they seem to expect special consideration. One day a new plan was being tried out in Times Square in the hope that people afoot would submit to being regulated a bit in the interest of their own personal safety. On one corner an officer had been stationed to keep pedestrians from trying to cross while the traffic was still in motion ; for the tendency of Americans is to take chances among moving vehicles, in the calm confidence that Esprit de Corps 85 the crossing will be made safely, somehow; it irks them to wait behind the restraining arm of the police- man. The traffic had just started up and the officer held out his arm to stop a woman who was stepping unconcernedly out among the moving wheels : "Just one moment, lady ; it isn't safe to go across now." The lady was indignant : "I choose to cross now. If it isn't safe stop those motors long enough for me to go." "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I must ask you to wait until that officer out there stops this north and south traffic." Shortly after this, the traffic stopped; the officer lowered his arm and, smiling with relief, said : "Now, lady, it is all right." "Huh, anybody can go across now!" she retorted, and swept on her way. It happened that a few days after this the Police Commissioner received through the mail a five-cent piece, which had been sent by another woman living in Connecticut, asking that it be returned to the kind policeman in Times Square (describing the man) who had helped her so much and had loaned her carfare the day before when she ran out of money in New York. We are right in expecting courtesy, but we are often wrong in allowing ourselves to be impatient 86 Policeman and Public when individual policemen err. We must remember that the very job we hire the policeman to perform brings him in close contact with the worst elements in the community. He has to deal with chronic drunk- ards, moral perverts, yeggmen, sneak thieves, drug fiends, crazy men; we hire him to do just that, to protect us from peril of unprincipled outlaws and irresponsible mental defectives. He must know all about such persons and about their ways, or he can- not keep them from assaulting and robbing and gen- erally bothering us. This sort of contact doesn't especially help to develop, in the policeman, gentle- ness in thought and speech; in fact, it can hardly help having a contaminating, lowering effect upon him. He sees sordid sides of life that most people do not realize the existence of, and he has to do his work, month in and month out, without much respite, among these conditions. It behooves good citizens, therefore, to be patient, if they see in an individual policeman some of the unpleasant effects of his association with the very people he is hired to keep in order. If the public will unfailingly treat the policeman with the polite- ness which it expects from him, some of the bad effects of his contact with the dreary, outcast sides of life will be neutralized. This cannot be too strongly emphasized, and its value in nourishing the self- respect and the respectful conduct of our officials is Esprit de Corps 87 very appreciable. It will be a better policeman in every way that has his intercourse with the under world mitigated by a natural, friendly relationship with those whose vital interests he is guarding. So while the public should persist in demanding politeness from its policemen, it should also take into account the way their tasks must try their tempers and mar their manners and make allowances. Policemen are brave. There is a departmental instinct of courage. This spirit is maintained by the morale of the men, by the traditions of the job. A man joining the force quickly catches the feeling that it is no place for a coward; that life would not be worth living if he should acquire a reputation for cowardice. In a sense he dares not be afraid. This is a subtle influence which must be jealously guarded, for it is vital to success in police work. The policeman is exposed to danger in ways that are not commonly realized. It is danger of a differ- ent kind, for instance, from that which the soldier faces. Troops on the battle line run terrific risk from the enemy in front of them ; they are shot at with rifle and machine gun; they are smothered with poisonous gases; artillery, light and heavy, pounds their position. It seems impossible that human beings could exist through such tornadoes of attack. 88 Policeman and Public The soldier, however, knows his enemy, knows how he fights, usually knows about when an attack is coming; he is ready for it, and armed to resist it. The policeman, on the other hand, does not know who may be his enemy, and he must not be too quick to conclude that anyone is hostile, for he is liable to severe penalties if he uses force when it is not abso- lutely necessary, in self-defense, or to make an arrest. He is a peace officer and would make himself absurd if he appeared warlike, or if he took too many pre- cautions; yet often dangerous criminals and even assassins do not reveal their hideous purpose until too late to thwart it. One spring morning, for instance, a bicycle police- man was patrolling his post in the northwestern part of Manhattan Borough. It was very early; no one was about in that part of the city except a few milk- men. The policeman had for some months been under treatment for heart trouble, and after explain- ing his case to the Police Commissioner, had been transferred from motorcycle duty, with its risks and the excitement of chasing motor speeders, to this quiet residential quarter, where there was seldom trouble and seldom excitement. It was his third day in the precinct. As he came slowly down the avenue he noticed an automobile stationary at the curb ahead. On draw- ing nearer he thought that the license number was Esprit de Corps 89 that of a lost car which his platoon had been notified to watch out for, when they went on duty at mid- night. A young man and a girl were standing beside it, about to get aboard. "Just a moment, sir," he called out, "I want to take a look at that car." The only answer was a shot. He was hit in the shoulder and knocked down. While down, he pulled his own gun and fired, but the thief had shot him again, in the hip, had jumped into the car and started up the avenue at high speed. The policeman tried, but could not follow. He lingered in the hospital a few weeks, full of courage, full of gratitude to those who tried to help him. Then he died. A noble life had been spent in the effort to recover a stolen motor car. This sort of danger the police officer is exposed to on every hour of duty. He cannot accost citizens, pistol in hand; he takes a chance, and too often has to pay the penalty. How can he tell that the harm- 1< >>-looking ana j mic man who is approaching him apparently to ask a question is a drug lunatic, a "charged up dope," as the vernacular has it? How can he know that in another minute he will be fight- ing for his life with a creature superlnnnanly strong and superhumanly cunning? Even when they know what sort of men they have to deal with the bravest and handiest officers might easily be nervous and 90 Policeman and Public uncertain of themselves with dope fiends, for there is no telling what their moods may be, and their powers often seem unnatural. + It sometimes seems to policemen that the public takes it all for granted, that no one knows or cares what risks they run. Yet, without the purest quality of physical courage, a police force could not fulfill its purpose, and the public should realize this, and be quick to foster the spirit by recognizing its exist- ence in the force, and by showing that, although bravery is taken for granted in policemen, it is also applauded and generously rewarded. With the tradition of courage in police forces has been developed the coordinate tradition of standing together. This also is a glorious tradition, and is essential to successful work. It fosters team play; it engenders mutual helpfulness ; it adds to an indi- vidual the strength of all his comrades who may be within hearing distance ; it gives to each policeman a sense of confidence which at times on lonesome posts he might not otherwise feel, for every man knows that if he blows his whistle or raps on the pavement with his night stick, any brother officer within hearing will come running to his aid. Though out of sight, he knows that blue-coated helpers are within hearing and that they will come at the call of danger. ^- It is difficult for civilians fully to grasp what it means to be on a post by oneself, armed with night Esprit de Corps 91 stick and revolver, and to realize that single-handed one must cope with any trouble that comes along, even with a group of criminals who would not stop at murder to carry out their purpose. The policeman is alone during most of his official life, and he could not begin to do his duty were it not that his profes- sion compels courage and that the brand of com- radeship between him and his brother officers is of such a high, helpful character. Unfortunately we find in police forces, that whereas the dangers and the lonesomeness of the work develop clean physical courage and an unflinching spirit of standing together, yet something has a thoroughly bad effect upon the moral courage of the men. It is not fair to assert, as has been done, that moral courage in police forces is as definitely absent as physical courage is strikingly present; we must not blink at the fact, however, that the moral tone of many American police forces is low. The way in which policemen could always prove an alibi when they got into trouble has been rather a joke. There were sure to be brother officers who would swear they were somewhere else, doing some- thing else. It makes a serious situation when police officers can not be believed in court. In many cases a trial resolves itself simply into the word of the officer against that of the defendant. If the judge 92 Policeman and Public or jury feels that the sworn testimony of the officer of the law cannot be believed, justice may become only skilled guesswork. The policeman must be reliable, must speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The public should never be satisfied until the character of the men and the effect of the leadership are such that the individual police- man can be believed when he testifies. A few years ago a deputy commissioner in New York on a trip of inspection found asleep in bed, with most of his clothes off, the lieutenant who should have been in full uniform on duty behind the desk. This lieutenant was brought to trial. The deputy commissioner testified that upon failing to find any lieutenant at the desk he had gone upstairs to the room assigned to lieutenants, which was dark, the gas not being lighted. The lieutenant was in bed asleep. This testimony was corroborated by that of another lieutenant, who was accompanying the deputy commissioner. The defendant took the stand, was solemnly sworn to tell the truth, and testified that whereas he was not behind the desk and was upstairs in his bedroom, yet the gas was lighted, he was not asleep, was not lying in bed, but was sitting on the edge of the bed, bathing his feet in hot water, as he had been in- structed to do in the hope of warding off an incipient cold! Esprit de Corps 93 In speaking about policemen's untruthfulness, a veteran policeman made the remark: "Why, we had to lie. Nothing else was safe. It was a case of self- protection ; if anything went wrong we were always made the goat. We were never believed anyway, so the only thing to do was to make out the best story we could. The bosses expected us to lie. They would have had paralysis if we didn't." There can be no question about the improvement in the tone of police forces in the past few years, just as there can be no question as to the improve- ment of the tone of public life in America. The evil tradition persists in police forces, however, for the profession makes men cautious and suspicious, and they are apt to follow the old methods unless they are confident it is safe to be truthful. Example as well as experience corrupts them. Even nowadays policemen may see lawyers in good standing at the bar, carefully framing perjured vidence. They also see judges listening to the whispers of influential friends of the accused and guiding their judicial conduct accordingly. They have the personal experience of being offered bribes to be false to their sworn duty. All this miserable business has been a larger part of their lives than it is of the lives of perhaps any other class of men in the community, and its tendency is to make flabby the moral fibre; to blur the distinctions 94 Policeman and Public between right and wrong; to make them believe that unworthy conduct, low motives, grossly utilitarian principles, stealing and cheating under the protec- tion of counsel, are far more common in the world than other people believe them to be. Truth-telling is a basic quality. Police forces can- not render proper service to a city unless they are sound in this fundamental. One point about this, to which the public is not apt to give full weight, is the fact that, though sin- ning, the untruthful policeman is also sinned against, for often the conditions under which he works make truth-telling dangerous. There has been a notable improvement in this in New York; the men have learned that they could rely on the good faith and fairness of the administration, with the result that when the disciplinary trial day came round, instead of having an unbroken succession of "Not guilty" pleas, from guilty as well as innocent, with a room- ful of defending lawyers, the calendar would be run through with some ninety per cent of pleas of guilty, the defendant policeman, unrepresented by counsel, simply stating the facts and whatever excuses he might have, in confidence that he would be justly treated by the deputy commissioner sitting in judg- ment. The bravery of policemen is so genuine and splen- did, and their support of each other, no matter how Esprit de Corps 95 menacing the physical danger, so inspiring, that one cannot but feel that these perversions of the spirit are unnatural, forced growths, which must inevitably be sloughed off as intolerable and inconsistent, leav- ing a body of men, brave as lions, true to each other, and true to the highest standards of honor. VI Reward and Punishment THE great aim of policemen, like most people, is to get ahead in the world. They want pro- gressively better pay; they want promotion. Now, promotion in a police force, as in any other body of human beings, should come to those who have shown themselves most deserving of it and best qualified to fill the higher positions. When the head of a police department appoints a new captain, for instance, he should pick the one man among the lieutenants who, by his work, has shown himself the most likely to make a good captain. The qualities most needed in a commanding officer are integrity, loyalty, the power of leadership, initiative, aggressiveness, cour- age, and it is natural to expect that men would be promoted from lower to higher grades in accordance with the degree of these indispensable qualities which in the performance of duty they have shown themselves to possess. In forces where promotion is made according to civil service systems nothing of this is true. A man attains promotion without any reference to the Reward and Punishment 97 quality of his day-by-day work. It makes no differ- ence whether the patrolman on post in front of your house is always on duty, never yielding, no matter how rough or bleak the weather, to the temptation of going inside for a few minutes, always alert for suspicious characters, always polite and kindly with women and children, always watchful to help people across the street so that they shall not run any risk of being knocked down by motor cars, always ready to answer questions, that patrolman, in spite of the very high grade of work he does week after week, month after month, year after year, stands no better chance for promotion because of this work than a brother officer who may be only two or three blocks away, who ducks into a hospitable kitchen as soon as he can after the sergeant has gone by, who never bothers about helping people, who lets things run their own course, who turns the other way or around the corner if it looks as though he might be called upon to take some kind of action, who does, in short^ just as little police work as he can possibly do and yet keep out of trouble. The first of these two men, anyone will say, is the man who should be promoted ; the second should certainly not be promoted and should probably be dismissed. Yet the second, by study and he may have more time for study than the other man, by stealing it from duty may pass a better examination ; may have 98 Policeman and Public what is, according to the civil service system, counted as an advantage, a few extra years of service; may have stopped a runaway one day with witnesses pres- ent and received a departmental reward, and may easily land on the list a hundred places higher than the other. For the civil service method usually takes into consideration only three things : seniority ; record as shown by fines received as departmental discipline and by awards received for deeds of courage ; success at passing a written examination. Seniority gives a higher rating to the man who has been longer on the job. The theory of this must be that if one man has been patrolman for ten years and the other for only five, the ten-year man would make a better sergeant than the other. There seems to be not the slightest warrant for this conclusion. If anything, the man who has been longer in the grade, who has failed to get promotion in spite of more chances, is less fit for promotion than the younger man. Many a young, active, capable man fails of promotion simply because he has not plodded along the pavement as long as someone else. The man's record, if it were really a record of his actual performance of duty and reflected the kind of work he had been doing, should be a dominant factor in determining promotion. If his record showed what kind of policeman he was, whether con- scientious, loyal, honest, aggressive, courteous, or Reward and Punishment 99 not then it would be a real record. However, the record shows nothing of this. Until within the past few years in New York nothing has counted in favor of a man except duly attested deeds of bravery. In other words, the only way a man could get good marks on his record was by stopping a runaway, saving a drowning man, rescuing someone from a fire, and being able to prove that he had done so. Bravery is the commonest quality in the force. A deed of bravery is done by a policeman, not because he is braver than other policemen, but because he happened to have the opportunity. There is not a man who would not take risks of being hurt badly for the sake of making a rescue. It is a matter far more of lucky opportunity than of distinguishing physical courage. It is in a way an accidental ele- ment in a man's record, showing that some men had chances that others did not, rather than that some men were braver than others. A few years ago in addition to this the Civil Ser- vice Commission in New York City was persuaded to give recognition to commendable deeds of police service which did not necessarily involve physical courage. As a result of this change a detective could receive commendation if after weeks of resourceful, tireless work he ran down a master criminal; or a patrolman might receive an award if, after careful thought, he made a suggestion to the 100 Policeman and Public Police Commissioner which was new and which would help the efficiency of the force ; or a policeman might be helped in his chances for promotion if, while on responsible duty, he remained steadfast, proof against bribe, proof against the wiles of those who sought to remove him from his post, firm in perform- ing his duty exactly as it should be performed. This has been a move in the right direction. It is far, however, from even beginning to meet the evil situa- tion, for the system is not comprehensive, it is largely a matter of opportunity, and there is no certainty that proper recognition will be given to a man who just steadily and unwaveringly does his regular duty to the best of his ability, without having any particular things occur which stand out and can bring particular commendation. It might happen that the reputation such a man would acquire in the neighborhood would even lessen his chance of being called upon to quell trouble, since his name as a fearless, capable officer would tend to prevent such things from happening on his post. The only things that blacken a man's record are the number of days' pay he has been fined as the result of appearing on charges before the trial deputy commissioner. These penalties should cer- tainly be given consideration. They are, however, merely one factor in the record, though in many cases they become a disqualifying one. A fine of thirty Reward and Punishment 101 days' pay would probably mean that the unfortu- nate man could not get promotion, at any rate for years, yet the fine may have been unjust or, although just, unduly severe; or in spite of the fine, assuming that it was wholly deserved, that patrolman may nevertheless, on account of his other qualifications, be excellent timber for promotion. At best, fines on a man's record are casual, are in large measure acci- dental. As a method of grading, they are not com- prehensive, since they cannot impartially and by the same standard affect every man on the force. They fail glaringly to separate the sheep from the goats. For besides searching out and smirching the record of many a man who yet merits advancement, they fail to search out and record large numbers of those who are unfit to be promoted and perhaps even to stay on the force. If a policeman can avoid being brought up on charges and fined, it is no matter how poor his work is. His superiors may know he shirks, his comrades may be fully cognizant of his loafing, don't-care methods, the neighborhood may suspect both his integrity and his competence, yet if he can steer his slipshod course so as to avoid fines, his official record is just as unsullied as that of the most conscientious patrolman on the force. This method of record keeping, therefore, and the system of using such a record as part of the civil service test for promotion mean, practically, that 102 Policeman and Public excellence or mediocrity of police work does not affect priority of promotion. How can the public expect that policemen will show a persistent devotion to duty when such per- sistence profits them not at all except as they are spoken to with approval by the still small voice? How can the public blame a policeman for being lazy and neglectful, for shirking duty, for stealing as much time from his job as he can if, as is the case, such conduct does not interfere with his getting the reward of promotion? Is he not almost justified in feeling that, in a way, the stamp of official approval is placed on such conduct, inasmuch as it is not made a hindrance to the goal of his ambition? The third element in the civil service test is a writ- ten examination, which is given, not by the police authorities, but by a special commission. Such an examination is useful, stimulates study, and, although there is always a large element of luck in examina- tions, can show much of the comparative knowledge of laws, regulations, procedure, etc., on the part of the different candidates. As far as it goes it is a valuable criterion. If the written examination could be considered in connection with real records of the men's regular performance of duty it would be of distinct rating value. As it is, however, the examina- tion puts a premium on the student policeman over the practical policeman ; further, unless conducted in Reward and Punishment 103 an elaborately scrupulous way by incorruptible examiners it makes the way easy to bribery, and taints the whole system. This is the way a policeman is graded. This is the only method of attaining his great ambition. For promotion brings with it not merely the distinc- tion of higher rank and the welcome larger pay check, but also the certainty of a larger pension upon retirement. And promotion seems to come, not to the man who has shown his courage, his stal- wart honesty, his strong initiative, his power to handle men, and his zeal in doing his whole duty, but to the man who has been longer on the job, who, though shirking and shiftless at his daily work, managed to avoid departmental discipline, and who, by the help of hired professional tutors, wrote a juvtty good examination. The public, therefore,\ must not complain if few of its police servants prove I to be of the earnest, hard-working, resourceful type, for it fails to hold out effective inducement to them. The situation is as if the general manager of a large industry were to gather together his thousands of workers and address them as follows : "Fellow Citizens : I have called you here this after- noon to make clear to you just what it is that this company expects of you, and to explain to you how you should conduct yourselves in order to have the 104 Policeman and Public best chance of getting more salary and more responsible positions. "Watch the clock carefully and don't begin a moment before the hour or keep on a moment after. Do your work well enough to avoid complaint, but don't put any more thought or time on it than is necessary simply to keep you out of trouble. "If you have any extra time, and you will have it as soon as you learn how little you can do and still 'get by,' take a nap or gossip with the other men around you. "Keep out of trouble ; I can't impress this on you too strongly. And you are just as likely to get in trouble by trying to do too much as you are if you do too little, and perhaps a little more so. "Always have a good excuse ready and usually you will find it works. If you don't know any good ones, ask one of the older hands here and he will give you some cracker- jack excuses that have stood the test of time. "When we promote people here we don't pay any attention to the kind of work they have done, or how regular and faithful they have been on the job; in fact, we wash our hands of the whole business ; we don't want to be bothered with it. We don't think it makes any difference whether we promote the best men among you or the worst. "So some outsiders come in who don't know much Reward and Punishment 105 of anything about our work here, it is true, but they will give you an examination and it will be a pretty good one. They will also find out how long you have been here and whether you got in one or two special kinds of trouble that the older hands will explain to you how to keep out of, and they will ask also whether you have saved anyone's life or done any- thing of that kind that people have talked about; then they will go off and after three or four or five months will send us in a list. "We will take the men in order from the top of the list, no matter what we know about them; no matter whether we know some of those high up are no good and some of those low down are the best in the con- cern. It is a funny sort of system, isn't it, but it goes !" A good deal has been said, with reference to the administration of police forces, to the effect that the head of the force has not power enough over the men. He should have, it is often contended, greater powers of discipline, easier ways of getting rid of men who are not fit to be policemen, yet who cannot legally be discharged through the existing methods. Not much emphasis has been laid on the other side of the question, upon the lack of power of the Police Com- missioner to reward men for good work. There must be discipline. The Commissioner must have power to take proper disciplinary measures 106 Policeman and Public against those members of the force who have been dishonest or who have shirked. Of far greater impor- tance is it, however, that he should have the power to reward the men who have done good work, that he should be able to make it clear to all that the good things of the job, the things they all want, are things they can attain by performing their duty conscien- tiously. If a Police Commissioner had some approach to an adequate power of reward he would not need to bother about his power to punish. You will have but mediocre performance of duty in any organiza- tion if you withhold reward and are free only with punishment. If you reverse the tables, however, and are liberal with reward you will find that there will be comparatively little occasion for punishment. In forces where good work is regularly recognized and rewarded it is thereby encouraged to such an extent that it becomes the characteristic of the force, and a morale is developed which animates every member to do the kind of work that has brought praise and substantial recognition from superiors and the com- munity. No really fine results were ever achieved by men whose only incentive was fear of punishment ; and it can probably be said categorically that credit- able work will always be done in an organization where it is prevailingly recognized and generously rewarded. Police forces suffer from the stagnation of lack of incentive. The men see no reward for Reward and Punishment 107 effort. The only surprise that the public is justified in expressing is that the quality of the work is as high as it is, considering the absence of inducement. How should this reward be given? What change should be made in the civil service system of promo- tion? For admission to the force probably no one would contend that the system should be changed. It is undoubtedly about as good a method as any other for picking out qualified candidates, for the men come from all walks of life, and seemingly from every profession, trade, and job there is. No com- parative record could be obtained, nor could the judgment of employers fairly be used to distinguish between one man and another, since there might be a thousand different employers for a thousand applicants, and as many varying standards as employers. Promotion, however, is different. Candidates for promotion have all worked on the force, they have all been doing police duty, they have all had the chance to show whether they are good at it or not. It is possible to find out whether they have been faithful policemen or unfaithful, whether they have been honest or dishonest, loyal or disloyal, workers or shirkers, polite and helpful or surly and selfish. This should be ascertained, by some sound method, and should govern promotion. Two plans are commonly mentioned as alterna- 108 Policeman and Public tives to the civil service system of promotion, one giving the power of promotion to the Police Com- missioner, the other devising a real record which is a reflection of the men's daily work instead of a compilation of a few elements in that work. Much thought and effort has been devoted to try- ing to devise such a system of record-keeping, but as yet with only moderately successful results. The way has not been found to make records which shall accurately make allowances for differences in duty. How can we make a comparative record, for instance, of the work of men in busy, crowded districts, with that in thinly settled, country regions? Continued, skilled effort along these lines, however, cannot fail to bring about better methods of rating, and each improvement, no matter how slight, is well worth while, for it is direct encouragement to conscientious performance of duty. The objection is raised to the other of these plans that it might work well under a competent adminis- tration, but would be risky with a political or other- wise undesirable head of the force. The objection is undoubtedly valid to a certain extent. The plan should not be rejected, however, without carefully considering whether good administration is not attained only by taking certain risks,. If we are so apprehensive as to the character of the men who may lead our police forces that we dare not invest the Reward and Punishment 109 office with the power which it should have if they could be trusted to wield it, then we must realize that in curbing the powers for evil of an evil man, we may be hopelessly shackling the powers for good of a worthy man. May it not be wiser to clothe the office with such wide powers that there shall be no doubt as to who deserves the credit in case the work is well done, or as to who is responsible, and solely responsible, in case the standard of performance falls in any way low? After the head of a large police force had been in office for a few years he should be able with very few mistakes to pick the men whose work had distin- guished them beyond their fellows. His judgment COUK be checked and his motives scrutinized, if deemed necessary, by having the civil service author- ities examine his nominees, and reject them or certify to their fitness. This is the practice in some cities and seems to work very well. As soon as it dawned upon the force that such men were being picked for promotion you would see your police force develop in a surprising way, for every ambitious man on it, with a sigh of relief, would settle down to work. The lifelefcsness of the job, the "what's the use" attitude, would disappear, and the moral courage of the men would be stiffened and emboldened. VII Grafting MANY stories have been told about police graft, so many that one is led to conclude that almost all policemen are gentle grafters when they get the chance. This is not the fact, for two reasons: in the first place, the majority of policemen are just as honest as the majority of other people, and would not reach down for the dishonest dollar any more than other people would; secondly, most policemen do not have any more golden opportuni- ties for graft than anyone else. This grafting is just a case of having wares for sale, the wares being privileges to violate some law. Most policemen covering their posts, walking up and down with no trouble in sight, have no opportunity to sell permission to break a law because no one comes along who especially wants to break one. In the good old days, however, when the public and the press were not so particular about the conduct of public officials, and didn't know so much about it, detectives, whose duties confined them to no mere barren post, but covered the city, were in a position to sell per- Grafting 111 mission to operate. And, the story has it, profes- sional thieves, the real top-notchers, would not prac- tise in a city unless they could first quiet their nerves by coming to an understanding with the police. Even nowadays, citizens should be suspicious of the honesty of their force if they find that an increasing number of professional thieves are at work in their town. This is especially true of crooks who play for high stakes, like wire-tappers and other con- fidence men and swindlers. The usual form of graft consists in the payment of money directly, though sometimes with marvelous indirection, to officers of the law by individuals who wish to break some law and be immune from punish- ment or by individuals who have already broken a law and wish to make it right with the policeman so as to avoid arrest. The policeman, as we have seen, is judge in the court of first instance. He has the power, if he is ready to risk being found out, to refrain from arresting a lawbreaker, provided the lawbreaker makes it worth his while so to refrain. Everyone has heard of the "deadline." This fate- ful boundary in New York was supposed to be Ful- ton Street. No thieves were tolerated south of it. Inquiry was made a few years ago as to whether any such line still existed. The answer was that it cer- tainly did, that it was at least equally as clearly defined as in the old days. 112 Policeman and Public "Where is it now. It used to be downtown some- where, Fulton Street, didn't it? Where is it now?" The answer was, the city limits. Really it could not be otherwise, for things have progressed since the old days. What did the old deadline mean? If thieves must not steal below Fulton Street, how about the rest of the city? And if the police "allowed" thieving in some parts of the city, there must have been something in it for them. The story has often been told of the man who had his watch stolen one Monday morning on Brooklyn Bridge. He reported the theft to the nearest station house, stating that the case number of the watch was, let us say, 12345 and the movement number 67890 ; that it had been picked from his waistcoat pocket on the bridge. He was certain of this because he had meant to time himself across the bridge, and remembered taking out his watch and noting the time at the Brooklyn end; when he felt for it on reaching the New York side it was gone. He called at the police station the following day and also on Wednesday, but the portly lieutenant at the desk seemed to take only a desultory interest and he gave up hope of recovery through him, for he had heard of the police process of tiring out com- plainants till they complained no more. He then remembered that he knew a politician, and he had heard stories about the uncanny power they wield Grafting 113 in public affairs and in influencing the conduct of public servants. He betook himself therefore to his acquaintance, and was by him conducted to police headquarters and introduced to the high officer who had command of the Detective Bureau. He told the story again, and the politician observed that he hoped the inspector would do what he could for his friend. "I sure will," was the reply. "You come in here tomorrow morning at this time and I will have your watch. Here, Bill," he called out to a detective in the next room, "come in here." Bill came in. "Bill, this gentleman lost his watch on Brooklyn Bridge last Monday morning. Some dip must have lifted it. Case number, 1234-5; movement, 67890. Get it, and have it here tomorrow morning at this time." Impressed with this business-like method of carry- ing on police work, and with the confidence the inspector showed in his ability to recover the watch, the gentleman, according to instructions, called at headquarters the following morning. The chief shook hands with him and sent for Bill, who came in looking a bit indignant and rather sheepish. "Well, where's the watch?" said the chief. "Chief, there's sure some mistake about that. I've made 'cm show me every watch stolen on Brooklyn 114 Policeman and Public Bridge that morning, and that number wasn't among 'em." This is practically partnership in crime between police and thieves. It produces team play of the mutual benefit order, the party of the first part shielding and protecting, while the party of the sec- ond part operates and divides. And when in a par- ticular case the hue and cry comes so close that a victim, or booty, has to be thrown to the dogs, an exhibition is given of "detective" work of the highest order, the specific thief in question being forced by the other partners, of both parts, to submit to arrest and to disgorge the plunder all for the quieting of the dangerously aroused pack, usually so meek, and for the ultimate profit of the partnership. This is mostly, we hope, ancient history, but such a system could easily and quickly arise at any time, unless police affairs receive proper publicity, and police heads are ready to answer questions and ^ub- mit attested facts and figures. The two necessary elements to the partnership always exist, police and crooks ; they need nothing but public indifference in order to fuse and prosper. The public hires the policeman to enforce the law ; the crook hires him not to. Public opinion is so strong and undivided with reference to crimes burglary, pocket-picking, assault and robbery, white slavery, etc., that it would be too risky for police- Grafting 115 men to permit people systematically to commit them. It is different, however, with the laws regulating our manners and customs, the laws, as it is sometimes phrased, against vice in distinction from crime. If a man steals or swindles or murders he is not merely breaking a law but is offending against strong and unanimous public opinion. When caught, if the evi- dence is clear that he stole the watch or robbed the paymaster he will be convicted, sentenced, and put behind the bars. If, on the other hand, a saloon keeper sells a drink to a man five minutes after the legal closing hour on Saturday night, he has not offended against undi- vided public opinion like the thief or the robber. Stealing is always wrong no matter what the hour or day or season of year. Assault and robbery, blackmail, kidnapping, are crimes whenever, however, by whomsoever committed, and the public insists that all its enforcers of law and order shall proceed strongly against individuals guilty of such crimes, to punish and make examples of them. There can be no inherent distinction, however, between selling a drink five minutes before a certain hour arbitrarily fixed as closing time, and selling an exactly similar drink five minutes afterwards. Such an offense is of a quite different character from burglary or rape, for instance. Many good people believe that no liquor should be sold to anyone at 116 Policeman and Public any time, or be drunk by anyone at am r time ; others who may be equally good believe that whatever re- strictions are put upon the sale of liquor should be purely regulatory in character with the purpose, not of prohibiting, but of controlling in such wise as to avoid what seem to them the only evils of the traffic. Still other good people believe that we ought not to be too fussy about the whole business, that our laws are well enough, but that we must not be puritanical or inconsiderate in enforcing them; we must show ourselves to be men of the world and must have a heart for other people's feelings if we don't want to drink, well and good, probably everyone would be better off without it, but if the other fellow does want to drink, what business is it of ours, so long as he does not become offensive or harmful in any way? Somehow, to give another instance, there does not seem to be any fundamental, deep-seated principle involved which makes it right for an actor on the stage on Sunday to give a recitation, but wrong for the same actor to illustrate his song, or enliven it, by dancing. Yet the law says that while one is law- ful, the other is a crime ; that the person who com- mits it should be apprehended, tried, found guilty, and sentenced; that the managers of the theatre should have their license taken away from them. The public does not seem to have the same idea of the matter ; does not seem to feel the same resent- Grafting 117 ment against the actor whose crime is dancing on Sunday for the delectation of the spectators, as it does toward the burglar who breaks in and steals. The problem presented by these regulatory laws is one which plagues police forces in all our Ameri- can cities and often builds up reefs upon which police administrations are totally wrecked, although they may have been effective in keeping down crime, pre- serving the peace, making life and property safe. We seem to have the habit in this country of pass- ing laws in all seriousness that we really do not intend to have enforced as they are written ; we rely upon it that they shall be tempered and tamed a bit by the humanity and practical worldly common sense of those upon whom is placed the duty of enforcement. It often seems that the majority of us take a certain righteous satisfaction in supporting regulatory measures which are eminently respectable and high- minded; and having lent support to such worthy measures, and through our representatives in legis- latures secured their enactment into law, we feel that we have done a good job for the common weal : we have forbidden vice; we have kept the Sabbath un- polluted ; and then, as individuals, we feel that hav- ing done our whole, commendable share in this way we are quite justified in taking an exception or two in our own personal cases. So, if we want to go to a show Sunday afternoon we pick out the most inter- 118 Policeman and Public esting program that is advertised, in spite of the fact that the added interest in this particular thea- tre of our choice is attained by violation of the laws whose enactment we approved. And, if we are going home late on Saturday night and the hour somehow slips along so that it becomes Sunday morning, and we are thirsty, we feel that no one will be any the worse if we drop in through the side door of a hos- pitable saloon and enjoy a grateful drink. We have a queer attitude toward some of our laws. We make them often without much or any thought as to how they are going to fit the actual needs and wishes and aspirations of the people whose lives and customs they are going to rule ; we print them on the pages of our statute books, and then put the books upon the shelves and let books and law and all re- membrance of law become thickly covered with the placid dust of oblivion. They are still laws, and our police and prosecuting attorneys are sworn to enforce them, yet there they are, snugly sleeping, happily hidden by accumulating dusty layers. We don't seem to have periodical house-cleanings, shaking the dust off our law tomes and looking over these laws, each and all of them, to see whether we still approve them and whether we still want to be governed by them, and still wish to give authority to police and prosecutors to hale us to court if we violate them. We just keep on passing them, and trusting to the Grafting 119 good sense, and knowledge of public opinion, on the part of our officials not to bother us with laws which, though still law, are yet not law. It is a great and dangerous and burdensome power that this attitude of the public bestows upon police authorities. The policeman's job would be robbed of most of its worries and difficulties if every law were the actual expression of the public opinion of the day, so that the policeman could know definitely that his whole duty was to enforce it as written, and that in doing so he would be supported by juries and judges, so that if he brought in the evidence they would do the rest. But that is not our way, and there are not many signs on the horizon that we are going to adopt it soon. We muddle along, and if our police fail to show what we call good sense, if they are too strict in doing what we have made them swear they will do, then we shake our heads with disgust and say we want no more of this puritanical method of enforcing laws. If, on the other hand, the police, taking us at our previous word, look the other way, and enforce the laws "liberally," that is, fail to enforce them, and if things become a little bit free and easy, grow- ing freer and easier, and still more so then some morning we, the public, blink our eyes, slowly wake up, and say to ourselves, "Well ! what do you think of that? The way these police neglect their duty is 120 Policeman and Public a scandal ; there can be no explanation of it except incompetence and graft, and it's so raw I guess it's both !" The heads of police forces are entitled to know what the public wants. The laws do not show this. It is hard to tell just what laws mean, anyway, until they have been interpreted two or three times by high courts, and even then they mean nothing unless juries and judges carry them out as they are written and interpreted. At times these sumptuary laws of ours do not seem to be enforced by police, by prose- cuting attorneys, by juries, by judges, as they appar- ently were meant to be. And from some dominating points of view it looks as if, among all these different enforcers, the police should be held least responsible if they fail. In the first place, they are not so learned as the others they are just policemen; secondly, they have, besides this, a great big job and a weighty responsibility: they must preserve the peace, they must keep your property secure, they must protect your life and the lives of your wife and daughter. There are only a certain number of them and they have to cover the whole city, and look out for house- breakers, robbers, thieves of all kinds, as well as for the man who dances at a Sunday show, or encourages pinochle in a friendly back room. They can't devote too large a percentage of their strength to enforcing some of these laws without at the same time reducing Grafting 121 the percentage on others. In New York there are approximately ten thousand saloons and ten thousand policemen. If a policeman were stationed at the door of every saloon on Sunday, the saloons would probably do very little violating of the law, but what a happy day for sneak thieves and pickpockets ! Even, however, if a larger number of men were assigned the sole duty of looking after violators of the regulatory laws, what would be the result? It is reported that after an intelligent plain- clothes policeman had told a grand jury clearly and convincingly just at what time and in what respect a certain saloon keeper had violated the excise law, u juror put this question to him: "Officer, I guess what you say is all right, but why did you pinch this man and not any one of the gin-mill keepers on the other three corners?" An indictment was not found, either because the grand jury did not believe the policeman, or because, though they believed him, they did not care to en- force that law, or they suspected that this particu- lar saloon keeper had been arrested because he, per- haps, had refused to pay the police what they demanded for protection. A member of the bar of New York State who served for over ten years in charge of the Indict- ment Bureau of the prosecuting attorney of one of the largest counties in the state, is quoted as having 122 Policeman and Public said that during the ten years he had charge of this bureau, between one thousand and eleven hundred cases of excise violation were submitted to the grand jury. Each one of these cases he carefully exam- ined personally before submission, and was convinced that in every one the evidence was indisputable and the case clear; there were, in other words, a thou- sand or more proved violators of the excise law. These cases went to the grand jury. Those that did not fall by the wayside in the grand jury cham- ber were passed along and heard before a judge and a petit jury. Of the one thousand and more good and true cases which were submitted to the grand jury, the number that went through the gamut of grand and petit juries and judges and resulted in convictions was three. What does a record like this say to the command- ing officer of a police force? It can say nothing else except : "You have no busi- ness, Mr. Commissioner, to waste the time of your men in getting evidence in case after case of viola- tion of regulatory laws when you know that public opinion does not support you, and you know it not because of what you guess as to the state of public opinion you know it because public opinion has ex- pressed itself definitely in matters of law enforce- ment through the mouths of its spokesmen, grand and petit juries. Grafting 123 "When you take case after case of Sunday viola- tors to court, and public opinion, speaking through juries, tells you that your evidence is good but that they don't choose to convict, it is the same as serving notice on you that you are to use your forces other- wise, to keep down crime, and that you are not to waste the time and effort of your men, and the pub- lic money needed to secure evidence in order to bring these kinds of cases to the bar of justice simply to have them thrown out. "The public wants you to concentrate your atten- tion on keeping life and property safe. "The public is pretty well satisfied with the condi- tion of the public morals, and as long as the saloons are no worse than they are, and the women on the street are no more importunate than now, and the Sunday shows are no more improper than they have been, you stop wasting your men, the servants of the public, and the funds at your disposal, the money of the public stop wasting them on efforts which will accomplish nothing, for you are running your head into the blank wall of disapproving public opinion. "Put your men to work where their masters, the public, want them, that is, at preventing and de- tecting crime." And what is the poor, harried police chief to do? It boots him not to sigh and wish that he could find 124 Policeman and Public someone who would give him clear instructions. He can't find any such person or any such august body. There is a sinister side to this, which has a most baleful effect upon the members of the force, for in these regulatory laws are nourished the roots of police graft. The policeman concludes that the pub- lic does not expect him to enforce to the letter all the sumptuary laws. He knows thereby that he is not taking much risk if he allows violations. He is, therefore, most sorely tempted to permit such viola- tions in the cases of those who make it worth his while. If there are four saloons on his post, and if three of them make a contribution to him every Sun- day morning, he is prone to let matters take their agreeable course with reference to these contributors, but to make things a little hot for the fourth, who may be reserving his Sunday morning contribution for another and even more worthy purpose. This gives the policeman, on the one hand, the weapon against non-contributors of the threat of arraignment in court; and, on the other hand, it permits him safely and without appreciable risk to refrain from enforcing the law in such particular cases as his good judgment dictates. It is from this sort of situation that practically all police graft grows. If all our laws were living forces, if we meant what we said when we told police forces to go out and enforce them, if we backed up Grafting 125 police forces with the rest of the law-enforcing ma- chinery, and corrected situations as they became in- tolerable through laws that were growing old and blue, not by telling a policeman in effect to refrain from doing his duty, but by amending or abolishing our laws so that they should always reflect the exist- ing standards and desires of the public then we should rescue these fine bodies of men from the intol- erable situation into which we have put them, and which, for those of them that have the duty of en- forcing our regulatory laws, constitutes such a temptation to dishonest}'. Why should we wonder at the growth of lawless- ness in a community when the community itself has so little respect personally for laws which it col- lectively enacts? It often seems a travesty to call our enactments law, they are so totally different from natural laws. The law of gravitation, for in- stance, is a statement of fact. Wise men discovered that bodies in space are attracted toward each other. They stated this fact and called it, for convenience, a law. In somewhat similar manner should not man- made laws be statements of the public's desires ; and should not, theoretically, the whole legal system be continuously adjusting, and readjusting itself so that it continues to be, like natural law, an actual, true statement of public standards? Good, puzzled people often become impatient with 126 Policeman and Public reform administrations because violations of regula- tory laws seem to continue under them. They fully expected that when the dishonest machine govern- ment was thrown out there would be an end to this sort of thing. They say : "We know you are honest ; we believe you mean well; but we can't see how it is that you permit the law to be violated in this way. "We know that if the police send out the word the saloons will close. It has been done before, so it can be done now. "Why don't you do it ? It is so simple. Why, we have often read in the newspapers that the gamblers close up on getting a tip from the police, or that every saloon in the city was tight closed on Sunday because of a police tip. Why don't you give this tip?" No wonder they are puzzled. The members of the reform administration of which such great things are expected would welcome, even more than the puzzled good citizens, the power to give that tip and have it followed. The trouble is that with the entrance of a reform administration comes the sever- ance of the tie between police and lawbreaker which caused the "tip" from one to the other to be received as the advice of one interested partner to the other. The tip never lasts long enough to have the slightest effect toward changing the situation of law enforce- Grafting 127 ment; if it resulted in their shutting down, the offenders would soon discard the partner who passed out such unprofitable tips. They do heed, however, and gratefully, the tip of the partner who knows that something has happened of such a character that it is to their mutual best interest if the violator refrain from violating for a day or two, or possibly three long enough for the storm to blow over, for the public to calm down or have its attention di- verted to something else. The supposedly all-power- ful tip, in the first place, cannot work at all except as a temporary measure of seeking cover; and, secondly, it cannot operate unless it passes between those who "understand" each other and have a common interest. One cannot but feel in the face of such conditions that the policeman who yields to these temptations and takes graft is really not much more than a pawn in the game. Great as is the blame that attaches to him, and despicable as is a public official who lowers himself to accept bribes, yet the public in condemn- ing, and properly condemning a crooked policeman should realize that he has had a job where the temp- tation is greater than that in most other jobs, and where he has been permitted for years to go ahead with his work, without any insistence on the part of the public that his methods should be open and above- board. 128 Policeman and Public The policeman who has the duty of enforcing vice laws faces one of the hardest situations which could confront a self-respecting man. In his honest en- deavor to enforce its laws he deserves the under- standing and the support of the public. Mystery should not be permitted, nothing should be kept secret by the police except what is necessary for obtaining success in individual cases. Accurate records should be kept by methods which will picture facts, and no "smoke screens" should be tolerated. A favorite screening method used by dishonest policemen is to try to create such an impression of energy and rectitude in certain ways that the atten- tion of all shall be diverted, leaving the field in other directions safely open to busy and profitable effort. It has happened in police forces in this country that high officers who have had among other duties those of enforcing the laws controlling vice have been con- spicuous attendants at church, frequent speakers at meetings of church clubs, total abstainers and earnest workers for abstinence among their sub- ordinates ; they have also been terrors to certain classes of evildoers, those whom it would be too hazardous to sell protection to. Yet these same high police officials were all the time concealing activ- ities which were nothing less than cunning, crooked and contemptible graft. By making some of their men publicly take the Grafting 129 pledge, and by ostentatiously chasing some un- profitable gangsters from the neighborhood they gain for themselves a reputation which they can draw on as needed to cover up their protection to pur- veyors of vice. This is true especially, of course, of the higher officials, the ones who have the authority, and the power to afford protection. The notorious "System," when it exists, works from these men both up and down. When the times are benign and trade flourishes, it goes up to other branches of the city government. It works best when police magistrates, and higher judges if pos- sible, will listen and do their part on occasions "of stress, by letting off some vicious person whom the police were obliged by force of circumstances to arrest against their will. And in such halcyon days of finished organization, the System can count also on the brotherly cooperation of district attorneys, sheriffs, and other useful city officials. lit ides reaching above, to these men higher up, the System works down also, through the lower ranks of the force. It requires the active coopera- tion of such officers as are directly charged with en- forcing the laws which are to be broken for pay, and the passive cooperation of about the whole force. This passive partnership in graft means merely, but absolutely, that Silence must be maintained, that no policeman must open his mouth about the criminal 130 Policeman and Public doings of his brother officers. These men get no financial return, but woe betide them if they open their mouths, if they do what they have sworn they will do : enforce the law, apprehend lawbreakers. If the criminal happens to wear the uniform, he is immune. A "squealer" is a marked man, life on the force would be made miserable for him, if he could endure it at all ; by far the easiest way is to observe the brotherhood of silence, and let the grafters graft. Thus is the fine, wholesome body of the force tainted throughout with the poison generated by the betrayal of their trust by the few active beneficiaries of the evil, greedy, traitorous System. It is a vicious, malignant growth, despicable and dangerous because of the way it spreads its corrupting venom. This spread is essential to its life ; it could not exist without this compulsion of silence. And if the ma- chinery runs well, the profits are so great that it stops at nothing to compel compliance. From time to time one reads in the public prints of some sort of official humiliation visited on a policeman of good reputation. This is a danger signal to the public, just as an S O S call is to ships at sea. It should be at once heeded, and the whole situation be thoroughly looked into. What investigators often encounter on a quest like this is the "nothing to say" attitude, usually accompanied by the allegation that the in- formation asked for cannot be given, as its publica- Grafting 131 tion would work against the public interest. Such an allegation is simply a second and confirmatory danger signal. There is practically no police in- formation that cannot, and should not, in the public interest, be given to respectable citizens who have the interest to ask for it. It is the easiest thing in the world for a System to get started if there's a market for vice in a city, but it is far harder than it used to be for it to develop satisfactorily to its members. Public life has higher standards, and newspapers are searching in their methods. Policemen sometimes try to excuse graft as being simply in the nature of tips, and we have all heard the distinction between honest and dishonest graft. They also try to excuse it as being simply a sort of business custom, just as characteristic of business men, bankers and brokers, as it is of policemen. Yet the humiliation is deep and real. A police officer of the highest rank once told a friend at a time when the reputation of the force was low that he never appeared in uniform any more than he could help, for people always turned the other way and avoided him. Policemen have said that when they went away with their families for the summer vacation they tried to conceal the fact that they were policemen. But police forces are sound at the core, and the great majority of the men on any given force are 132 Policeman and Public undoubtedly honest, anyway. On the other hand, the viciousness of police graft cannot be over- estimated, and the danger of it to the public is far greater than is commonly realized, for graft, dis- honesty, low standards from any cause, low practices of any kind, are ruinous to police morale. We need not count on getting the high grade of protective service the community needs unless we take such measures as may be necessary to make and keep our police forces honest. The morale must be high, and it cannot be high in a body of men where there is even a small cancer of dishonesty gnawing its way into the sound, wholesome body of the force and corrupt- ing it both by gradually eating its way further and becoming a larger and larger part of it, and by pour- ing its contaminating poison into the circulation of the body, thereby paralyzing more and more of its natural functions. In the old palmy days when there were no new- fangled notions about this sort of thing, the police force was simply part of the political machine. Other parts were judges, prosecuting attorneys, race- track men, gamblers, operators of houses of ill-fame, saloon keepers, and all others who expected to earn an honest living by violating the law. The clamor in a particular case would have to be very loud and long sustained for a member of the machine to be arrested by his colleague, the policeman, or prose- Grafting 133 cuted with any vigor by his colleague, the public attorney. If things came to the worst and the case were driven to judgment, he could rely upon a favor- able charge to the jury, and if the jury proved re- calcitrant, upon certainly as light a sentence as could be imposed. It was a powerful machine; it poisoned everything it came in contact with; it throttled with its grip of vice all that was good and true and sound and strong in the community which might stand between it and its plunder. Probably there is not much of this sort of thing in its undiluted form in this country nowadays. It was a system so profitable to its managers, however, that it accepts defeat bitterly, and fights to retain all it can, contesting a losing battle with stubbornness and wile. In one of our largest cities, the story is told of a talk some years ago between the police head and a political machine leader. The former had conceived the idea that he could run the force himself, without the usual political guidance. He was a strong man, and was getting along rather well, so well that the leader was worried. So he called to see him. The proposition he put was roughly this. The police would do far more for him than they would for their chief. The chief, therefore, would get the best re- sults if he ran things through the leader, who was ready to undertake the job. If certain places really 134 Policeman and Public had to be cleaned out, he would see that the police cleaned them ; if there "got to be" too much "holler" about anything he would have it attended to. So the chief needn't bother, and wouldn't have any trouble. All he need do was make promotions and transfers as specified by the leader, and otherwise keep his hands off! VIII Influence THE preceding chapter has spoken of the way corrupt politics can absorb the police as part of its powerful machine, making it an agency for the protection and furtherance of vice. There are other ways in which politics can affect the police, which are not corrupt, which are far removed and totally dif- ferent in character from the practices just described, but which sap the power of any force. :In some cities, where civil service laws do not ipply, appointments to the police department are ooked upon simply as places for the workers in the victorious party. An officer is an officer just as ong as his party is in power and he serves it faith- fully enough to deserve the plum. A few years ago an investigator was traveling through the United States, for the purpose of look- ing over the police forces in the larger cities and writing a book about them. In the course of his journeyings he stepped into the office of the chief in a city of some 500,000 inhabitants, more or less. 136 Policeman and Public He presented his letters* of introduction and was cordially greeted. "Chief, I should like the privilege of learning some- thing about your problems and methods here." "Yes," answered the chief, "I see. You want to write a book about police, and you'd like to look this department over to see how it sizes up with the others. Have I got you?" "Exactly." "Well, I'll be glad to let you have a look around. I'm just as well satisfied you didn't come before, though, because I've been reorganizing the force. I'm just through, and there isn't a damn Republican left on it today !" The police and politics don't mix well. Each has a bad effect on the other, sometimes very bad, even when there is no taint of graft. People generally feel this in theory, but they seldom know just how politics mingles with police affairs and just what the evil effect is. A police force must have a single aim : to maintain order, preserve the peace, protect life and property, keep down crime. Any influence that tends to divert it from using its whole energy to this end is evil, and unconsciously works to disturb the peace, to break down law and order, to make our lives and property less safe. It is a hard fight, this fight police ^forces are waging day and night, winter and summer, hot Influence 137 or cold, wet or dry, against the forces of disorder, the outlaws, the ruffians who would hold us up in the street and filch from us our wages, the swindlers who would take our savings from us, the burglars who would break into our houses and steal ; it is unceasing warfare, for a police force is never off duty. No con- sideration must enter in except success at this task. Policemen must feel, must know from experience, that they are expected to do nothing except the job of policing the city as well as it can be policed, that they are not to play favorites, that they have nothing to fear as long as they just do their duty. The moment a policeman doubts this and begins to wonder whether he is meant to do his full duty, or perhaps the powers above might be better pleased if he refrained from taking measures against certain friends of certain people the moment this happens the power of the forces of law and order is weakened. If the policeman is sure, on the other hand, that he is expected to "obey the orders that have been officially given him, that he will be supported if he tries to do his best, no matter whether he restrains friertli of -the authorities or not, that he will be supported eVen if he makes a mistake, so long as it is an honest mistake if he knows that this is the situation, he will be likely to shut his mind to any other thought, to any other aim than that of trying to do his work well. And when he wants to be 138 Policeman and Public assigned to some other duty, to be transferred to a precinct nearer his home, he will ask his commanding officer to do this for him, stating his reasons and standing upon his record of performance of duty. On the other hand, if policemen know that trans- fers go by favor, and are accomplished by the intercession of friends of influence rather than by straightforward, hard work at the job, a man instead of standing on his own record would go to his district leader and ask that he do him the favor of securing the desired transfer. The district leader, glad to have a chance to do a favor for a voter, goes to see the police chief and asks him to transfer Patrolman Hayes from the 24th to the 124th pre- cinct. Now there may be no reason from the point of view of the distribution of the force why Hayes should not be in the 124th just as well as in the 24th, yet if the chief transfers the policeman at the behest of the politician, that policeman knows that the way he got what he wanted was not by having a record of faithful work, of loyal service to the public, but by having an influential friend. He knows that the way to get influential friends is to do favors for them, and most of the favors that are in his power to do are tacit permissions to break the law. Under this kind of regime no one can blame the men if they devote their major effort to the acquisi- tion of friends, and relegate duty to the second place. Influence 139 Policemen are practical men, their work makes them so. They exert themselves in whatever line of en- deavor brings them what they desire. In this they are a good deal like the rest of us. This is what might be called the innocent way in which politics can enfeeble a police force, for there is nothing wrong in the motive of the politician, and he is far from being alone in trying to be the means of having favors done for policemen. Policemen are comfortable friends to have, and all sorts and condi- tions of men from about all the different walks of life come from time to time to those in authority over a police force and ask favors for some particular man. It makes no difference whether he is politician or minister of the gospel, the principle is the same and the effect is the same. In a way, as between politicians and other friends of policemen, the politicians are more reasonable and easier to convince, for a politician is bound to do what he can for the voters in his district and he wants them to feel that if favors can be got from public officials he is the one to get them. If a con- stituent wants a favor from the tenement house de- partment, or the fire department, or the health de- partment, he is the one to get it. It is the same with the police department; if a blue-coated constituent wants a transfer, the politician wants to be able to get it for him if anyone can get it. In case, however, 140 Policeman and Public no one else can accomplish it, the politician is per- fectly satisfied to be refused, as his constituent would not be likely to leave him for a rival who can do no more than he can. As soon as men in politics are convinced that a police administration is not playing politics at all, that it will make not a single exception in favor of any politician, then all are satisfied and probably rather relieved, for they are saved the task of trying to get favors from one department at least. Not many years ago one of the most prominent figures in the public life of a great state wrote to the head of the police force asking that a patrolman be transferred, from one precinct to another, and adding that he would consider it a personal favor. The police head wrote back a courteous letter explaining that he could not make the transfer, since in all such matters he had made it a rule to deal only with the members of the force themselves, and if such a trans- fer could properly be made without unfavorably affecting the efficiency of the force, without being unfair to other men, it undoubtedly would be made, provided the man requesting it had a good record. It must be done, however, as the result of the man's own request, on the basis of his record, and not from the request of anyone outside the force. That ended this particular episode that is, it ended the police side of it. Later it appeared, how- Influence 141 ever, that the politician had been so much impressed by the singularity of the letter that he had had it framed and hung on the wall of his office, as an adver- tisement of the writer's extraordinary theory of administration. A year or so after this, however, the writers of these two letters both happened to be speakers at a large public dinner. The man who had made the request for the transfer spoke first and to the sur- prise of the other started to tell this story. He had not been very well pleased, he admitted, at the re- fusal of his simple, trifling request. He had felt that considering their personal and other relations he was entitled to have this favor granted. As the months went on, however, he gradually became con- vinced, he told the gathering, that the head of the force was "on the level" ; that he was trying to run his job on a novel theory, asking nothing of the men except honest and earnest performance of duty, and doing things for the men themselves at their own request, if they were doing good police work, which he would not for a moment consider doing at the request of outsiders. He had come to the con- clusion, the speaker went on, that this was probably a pretty good method of administration and he was glad to see it being tried out. As far as his request for the transfer went, he was perfectly willing to have that refused as long as he could feel certain that 142 Policeman and Public similar requests from his rivals were also refused. If no one was going to get anything, he didn't mind ; but if anyone succeeded he wanted to get a little more than anyone else ! IX Police Leadership THE policeman's task is too important to the community to permit the existence of such risks of contamination by dishonesty, and by poisonous political influence. The material is good. We take pains to select capable men; we train them, swear them in, start them out to do their duty, and then neglect them. It is like buying a motor car and giving it no care, or building a smooth road, and en- tirely forgetting the upkeep. Policemen's instincts are sound; the mistakes they make are not often those of the heart. Three or four years ago one of the other city departments in New York was making a study of the dependent poor, and in the course of this sent a man around the streets made up as a beggar to see what his experi- ences would be. He came of course in continual con- tact with the police, but he was not arrested, and only one officer out of the twenty-five or thirty with whom he came in touch went so far as to speak roughly to him. One even advised him to go down the avenue four or five blocks and then over one 144 Policeman and Public block to the west, for he said, "This is not a good corner" ; there would be a good many more people and he would have a better chance below ! Two policemen came perilously near finding him a job. He escaped one by slipping out of a side, door; and the other he avoided by pleading that his apparently broken arm was still in such a weak and painful condition that he could not take up any work yet. But his tragic experience was with the most friendly policeman. He had figured that he should probably not get much of anything to eat for some time, so just before starting out he ate his fill. It was less than an hour after this that he accosted a policeman in the neighborhood of a large restau- rant around Times Square with his usual remark: "Say, boss, can you help a fellow out? I've just got in town with no money and a busted arm. Can you tell me where I can get a meal and a chance to work?" The policeman, a burly officer, looked him over and said: "Well, son, I don't know about the job part of it. It might be pretty hard to get you a job with a bum wing, but you bet your life I'll get that empty belly of yours filled up !" So he took him into the kitchen of one of Broad- way's favorite restaurants, told the story to the steward, and said he wanted to see the stranger eat a real two-man meal. The steward, whether out of Police Leadership 14.5 sympathy for an unfortunate fellow mortal in dis- tress or to do a favor where it might come in handy later, provided the meal, and it was a meal worthy of the restaurant. The poor overfed beggar had to make away with that meal too, in spite of his already bursting condition, for the policeman stood over him glowing with satisfaction. Policemen are traditionally ready to help people in trouble; they eagerly took up the scheme in New York of holding Christmas trees in station houses for some of the unfortunate children of the neighbor- hood who otherwise would have had only a sorry Christmas ; they earnestly administered the fund which was raised in New York during the hard winter of 1915-16 for the relief of unemployed, and it was found that members of the force themselves subscribed two-thirds of the total. They are gener- ous and they are ready to do their bit. New York policemen subscribed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Liberty Loans, of their own money, out of their own pay ; this was not money which they had raised by solicitation from someone else. They so much of human nature that they can't help growing kindly toward it, for it isn't only the pro- fessional criminal they see and grow to know, it is the down-and-out generally, the unfortunate brother or sister in trouble, for more and more people in any sort of trouble are prone to go to the policeman, as 146 Policeman and Public their confidence in the integrity and single purpose of a police force grows. A patrolman who had a post some years ago on Cherry Hill, in the heart of the lower East Side of New York, used to watch with sad eyes the stream of pale-faced women going to work at half past four in the morning to scrub floors. He said he could not help passing a kind word as they went by him, weary in body and spirit; yet it was a mistake to do this, for "A friendly word to one of those women just as day was breaking meant a tearful woman coming and pouring out her troubles to me at 7 p.m. ; and I had to help her out, she was having such tough luck, I had to give her some change, and I wasn't any too flush, with a couple of kids of my own at home with appe- tites like horses and growing out of all their clothes." A body of fine men like this are entitled to a high order of leadership which shall understand them, care for them, fight for their rights, and guard them from the private interests which are ready to break them down. In some cities the heads of the police force are apt to change with a shift of the party in power, and even more often, according to the exigencies and urgencies of the political situation. This matter of changing leadership is another of the evils our political system foists on police forces. Police- men's work is difficult and puzzling enough to entitle Police Leadership 147 them to steady standards, and to honest, definite orders. Given these, year after year, they will have a fair chance to learn their job in practice, and by much repetition march on with reasonably rapid im- provement to better things. Their work suffers cruelly, however, if standards shift, so that they become uncertain as to just what is expected of them. This superimposes on the in- herent difficulty of the job the additional problem of their leader's aims and purposes. The men develop a habit of caution, and a reluctance to take definite action unless it is forced upon them. If administrations change frequently, bringing changes in policy, in methods, in the character of the work expected, the men form the habit of never giving a thought to plain, straight police duty but only of trying to find out by direct or devious channels what the new administration wants, and how it wants it done. When commissioners are mere birds of pas- sage, as they have been at times in some cities, and when they fly so fast and remain on the perilous perch for so short a time that their species can hardly be determined, is it any wonder that the men mark time, lie low, do nothing that can be avoided, until they find out just where they stand and what is expected ? The remark has been made that under some ad- ministrations policemen would listen indifferently to 148 Policeman and Public the printed, published orders as they were being read, and then would become alert for the "whispered" word which followed and by which they were to guide themselves. The story is told of a conversation between a civilian and a motorcycle policeman a year or so ago. The assignment of this motorcycle policeman w'as to enforce the rules of the road, and his duties varied from the serious ones of apprehending chauffeurs speeding along at forty or fifty miles an hour, or recklessly driving through streets where children were playing, to the less vital ones of serving sum- monses on drivers of cars whose exhaust pipes were smoking. In the course of the conversation, the civilian asked the policeman, "How do you like your job nowadays ?" "Well," the policeman answered, "it's all right, I guess." "Any different from what it used to be before?" "You bet it is," was the answer. "Nowadays if a friend of the boss is arrested we don't get word from headquarters to change the complaint from speeding to smoking." In American cities there is no special course of training for officers of higher grades. They have Police Leadership 149 all been patrolmen, have all risen from the ranks, and they are given no special preparation for the duty of the higher rank. All they know of it is what they have observed from below. A patrolman who is promoted to sergeant, for instance, has never had training in the duties of the sergeant, as distinguished from those of patrolmen. He has never been taught how to get the best out of men under his command, how to lead, to control, to in- spire. He knows nothing of the higher job except what he has observed while, as patrolman, he came in more or less frequent contact with sergeants, and the principal thing he learned about the sergeant was how to avoid him. To higher officers on police forces this is a handi- cap which is little understood. When we think of the methods taken by armies to train officers, with the four-year course at West Point, and now in war time with Officers' Training Camps, we cannot help won- dering why it is that people are content to trust their safety to the care of police commanding officers who have had no training other than that given to patrolmen. We cannot wonder under these conditions that they fail to take a commander's view of their job; that the whole force has a tendency to coalesce; that the distinctions between different grades tend to disappear; that the mutual respect 150 Policeman and Public due from superior to subordinate, as well as from subordinate to superior, is lacking. Rank is not in any way a matter of invidious dis- tinction. A patrolman's work is just as honorable as that of captain ; and the captain, if he is worthy of his rank, will respect the patrolman in his work just as he expects the patrolman to respect him. But if the captain is unable, or hesitates, or does not know how to accept the responsibility and do the work of his higher grade, he cannot get good results from his subordinates. The tendency of it all is to hamstring the effectiveness of the organization by providing it with leaders in name only. An explanation was being made to the captain of a precinct a few years ago as to just exactly what was expected of a captain; just where he fitted in to the work of the whole organization; just what duties he must perform in order to do his part toward having the whole police machine work smoothly and effectively; how his job differed from that of his superior, the inspector, on the one hand, and his subordinate, the lieutenant, on the other. It was pointed out to him, first, that he must know his pre- cinct thoroughly and intimately must know it better than any other person in the city. Secondly, he must so administer his work and direct his men as to keep down crime and make his precinct not only safe, but wholesome, and a pleasant place for people Police Leadership 151 to live or work in. That meant he must study condi- tions keenly ; must study the crimes that were being committed, investigating them thoroughly and trying to work out methods to prevent them; and keep his force steadily and skillfully at work. Thirdly, he must look after the discipline, welfare and comfort of his men. He could not expect them to work for him unless he worked for them. The way they could work for him was by carrying out his orders faithfully and trying to do what he made it clear to them he wanted done ; the way he could work for them was to keep the station house clean as a hospital, to be fair and play no favorites, to en- courage them to come to him with their troubles, to help them and fight for them as he would for his own son, to direct them wisely and ably. When the need for extra duty came, and in some kind of emergency they had to work for long, continuous hours, he would see that they were fed, that they got chances to sleep, that they were exposed to no danger that was not necessary. Fourthly, he was to administer Hie station house with economy, to keep his records accurately and right up to date, to make required reports promptly and comprehensively. The captain was asked if he understood. "Yes, Commissioner, I think I understand, and it is a real job you are giving me a job that none of us ever had or thought of before." 152 Policeman and Public- He was asked what had been his previous concep- tion of the job of captain, the police officer in com- mand of a precinct with perhaps one or two hundred policemen under him, and with the responsibility in his hands for the safety of the people in that part of the city. "Well, to tell the truth, my idea of the job was to 'get by,' to keep out of trouble, and let no one get anything 'on me' that was about it." And this must be the inevitable conception of duty of a responsible officer in almost any organization if his superiors do not make clear to him just what they want, if they fail to require him to keep up to the standard, and fail to support him when he runs into difficulties in trying to do what they expect. Where the organization is not clean-cut and the officers in the different grades do not understand just what is the duty of that particular grade and what is the best way to be successful at it, they are sure to degenerate into using methods that are most damaging to the spirit of the force. Such officers often know no way to enforce discipline except by persecuting a man or "bawling him out" shrieking at him in the presence of others so loudly and with such roughness as to humiliate him. The effect of this sort of thing upon both is about as bad as it could be, yet too much blame could not properly be laid on policemen for this ; their superiors had never Police Leadership 153 taken the pains to try to show them anything better; when they held low rank higher officers had treated them in this way, so when they in turn became higher officers they treated the men under them likewise. A commanding officer should work according to two very simple principles : first, he should treat his men fairly ; secondly, he should require them to do the work. No commanding officer can be successful unless the men feel that he is square and that he has their interest at heart, yet often a square man will fail as a commander unless he is able also to exact from his men a high-grade performance of duty. The mushy leader never succeeded either in accom- plishing his work or in achieving popularity. The cheap efforts of some commanders of men to gain popularity by being easy on them, by overlooking derelictions, is successful only in gaining a reputation of being "soft" and negligible. Popularity comes to commanders in other ways; it comes to the man who shows that he can command, can inspire and require his men to do their duty; yet who deals squarely, tukt-s a genuine personal interest in them, and fights for their rights. Men will be cheerful under any amount of exacting hours of work and privation if they know that "the old man" is on the job too, staying awake nights to look out for them, for with such a leader they know the hardships they have to undergo are unavoidable. 154 Policeman and Public A two-fisted man and most policemen are such does not mind hardship or hard work or hard luck if it is necessary for the good of the cause; he does mind it, even a slight amount of it, if he feels that it is unnecessary and could have been avoided if his chief had been a little less lazy and selfish, or a little more competent. Men will dare any danger under a commander who they are sure knows his job, for if the order comes to do a dangerous bit of work they know that there is no other way. "The boss," they know of old, though brave as a lion and stopping at nothing to get the result, is also cautious and resourceful and can be depended on to adopt the method most likely to succeed, and safest for his men. The only limit to the achievements of men led like this is the limit of human possibility. A superior officer must notice the work of his men : if it is below par he should instruct and explain patiently before jumping to the conclusion that the fault is with the man's will; and if it is well done he should express approval. He must be forever train- ing and developing his forces, explaining better methods to them, giving them clear and definite orders, holding up to them high ideals of perform- ance of duty. The lowest job must be dignified, the highest officer must make the lowest feel that his task is important, worth holding and doing well. Police Leadership 155 Everything else will be unavailing unless he sets a good personal example. A few years ago a private citizen was being "shown the town" in one of our large Western cities. Among other points of inter- est he was taken to a saloon in the Red Light Dis- trict which had notoriety throughout the country as being kept by a man powerful in both political and criminal circles. As the visitor stepped up to the bar to take a drink of good-fellowship he noticed that there were two patrolmen in full uniform con- tentedly partaking of the glass that inebriates. Turning to his guide he asked, "How in the world do these men dare to take a chance like this, drinking in a saloon in full uniform in sight of everyone, and the sergeants around?" "Oh," the guide said, "they're not taking any chances ; the cops have enough *on' every sergeant in the city so that no sergeant could afford to get after them." What can be done in American police forces to improve the quality of leadership among the higher officers? One great difficulty has already been touched on in the discussion in a previous chap- ter of methods of promotion. In spite of the burden of such a system, however, a good deal can be accomplished by training; and fairness to the officers, as well as the interest of the city, demands that 156 Policeman and Public policemen promoted to higher duty be given instruc- tion to fit them to meet the added responsibility. This can be done by police Training Schools, and a properly equipped and administered school is per- haps the most indispensable single feature of the police force of a large city. Such a school has two main functions : to train raw recruits so as to fit them for service as patrol- men, and to train officers. Recruits cannot be turned out trained as they should be, mentally and physically, in less than three months, and at least twice as much time as this could well be devoted to them. For they must be taught the laws, and the ways to enforce them. They must also be given a most rigorous course of physical training, and be taught how to fight, to defend them- selves, to handle prisoners who resist so as to subdue them without battering them with clubs. One day a prisoner on being arraigned before the police magistrate complained of the way he was handled by the young policeman who arrested him. "He wound his arm in round my elbow, your Honor, and if I made any move except walking straight along, it'd half kill me." "I see," said the judge; "did he hurt you as long as you walked along quietly?" "No, sir." Police Leadership 157 "Had you resisted when you were placed under arrest?" "Well, I didn't like to have the cop take me in !" "Officer," asked the judge, turning to the police- man, "tell me about this." "Well, sir, your Honor, sir, this is the first arrest I've made, sir, and the croo the defendant, I mean, started to run on me, and talked ugly, so I just put one of the grips on him I'd been taught in Training School, and he came along all right. I didn't want to have to hit him, sir." Besides mental and physical training, recruits must develop morale, and learn their obligations, their powers, and the limitations of their powers. For a well-taught and well-trained policeman may be only a menace on the street if he has not also learned self-restraint and noblesse oblige. Wherever police training schools exist they are used, with greater or less success, to train raw recruits, but it is seldom that they are made also to serve the at least equally important purpose of teaching officers. No policeman should be promoted without being given such instruction and training as is necessary to fit him to do the work of his new higher rank. Regular courses can be given in the training school to prepare candidates for promotion to each of the successive higher grades, and no one should be per- 158 Policeman and Public mitted to enter a new grade until he has qualified in the school and shown that he can reasonably be expected to perform his duties capably. This is one part of the assistance a police train- ing school can give to higher officers. The other is to provide continual freshening-up courses, so that every sergeant, lieutenant, etc., can put in a fort- night a year in further training to keep him up to date and prevent him from falling into perfunctory ruts. One of the most important things these officers should be taught is a rudimentary proficiency in military drill, so that when they are called on to handle groups of men they shall be able to do so with confidence, and with a fair chance of being able to get the group where they want it to be, and in the formation that will best meet the needs of the situa- tion. Police officers are wofully weak at this, and no wonder, for they have practically no practice, most of their duties calling for contact with indi- vidual patrolmen on post, and not in groups. It is therefore all the more necessary to provide practice in drill, for when policemen have to work in forma- tion there is apt to be emergency work on hand where mistakes are costly ; in handling crowds, for instance, clumsy work by commanding officers may in a few minutes change an orderly assemblage into a mob. It is vital to successful work, and an obligation to Police Leadership 159 the men, that they be given the most careful kind of training in self-defense. Policemen must be armed, trained, and kept in training. It will be found in some places that officers are taken on the force and turned out on the street to go about their duty armed with loaded revolvers, and yet with no training in the care or use of the weapon. This was the situa- tion in New York only a few years ago. The result of it was that if an officer took a shot at anyone on the street, about the only safe individual within the range of his gun was the criminal he was shooting at. The policeman is entitled to a thorough course of training in revolver shooting, starting with methods of sighting the revolver, and of squeezing the trigger, and not ending until he is proficient at snap-shooting without sighting. It is only fair also that before being sent out on the street to perform duty, he should be put into first-class physical condition, should be taught to box and to wrestle, should have mastered a few simple jiu jitsu tricks which will enable him to handle a fighting prisoner without clubbing or mauling him. And then the policeman should be encouraged to keep himself fit. The cour- age of the men will be made more sturdy and instinc- tive if they have confidence in their own powers, in their marksmanship, their ability to use their hands and bodies, and if they keep themselves in sound physical condition, hard and supple. 160 Policeman and Public It is really a grave question whether policemen should be allowed to carry revolvers at all unless they qualify periodically, showing that they still know how to handle the weapon and can shoot straight enough not to be a menace in the street. It is a fairly dangerous thing to arm an officer with as de- structive a weapon as a six-shooter and give him a certain amount of authority to use it, when he is completely incompetent to use it properly, and cannot even hit near the bull's-eye of a stationary target in a quiet pistol range, to say nothing of a moving, escaping felon in a crowded, excited street. It is a question further as to whether a police ad- ministration is not responsible, at least morally, for any harm that may be done with a revolver by an officer who has not been properly trained to handle and fire it. Unless he is trained and has passed satisfactory tests the administration knows, and should probably be held responsible for acting on the knowledge, that he is an unsafe man to be allowed to use a revolver. It is certainly unwise to give police power to any- one who has not been thoroughly trained and tested, and found to be qualified to exercise it wisely, with restraint, yet strongly when the occasion calls for force. It is unfair to the public as well as to the individual officer. For the public can hardly help suffering repeatedly at the hands of ignorant officers Police Leadership 161 who do not know clearly what their duties are and what are the limitations of their duties, who have not been made to realize their responsibility, and been taught how to act so as to measure up to the important demands made upon them. The police- man is entitled to thorough, able training which does not stop the moment he goes on the street but con- tinues during his police life. If he acts harshly or cruelly or ignorantly, it is no one's fault except that of the public and the police administration, unless everything that could reasonably be done to fit him to perform his job well was done for him before the .shield was pinned on his breast and he WHS called to his post for duty. The well-trained, capable, confident man is the man most likely to accomplish his purpose without reporting to extreme measures, and proficiency is what lends confidence. If an officer knows the law, knows the methods of enforcing it, knows just what part he plays in the organization, is well trained to use his body, his club and his revolver, he is apt to look formidable, and the chances are strong that he will enforce order and prevent trouble on his post Dimply by being there. The officer who does not give the appearance of being able to handle himself and others is the very man who will be likely to be called upon to meet trouble. X The Public's Part IN some cities the police force is a close corpora- tion, run by itself for its own sake, the chief coming from its own ranks, just going on the same way year after year, doing the same old things in the same old way. It resents interference, or being called on for unusual work; it "knows it all." "Leave us alone," is the attitude; "we know how to do the police job; if outsiders will only keep their hands off and stop meddling we shall be all right." It is a thing apart from the life and the needs of the community. What would the citizen of many an American city see if he looked closely at his police force? The individual policemen he would find to be rather portly, slow moving, their gait showing fallen arches. They have healthy red faces, are rather shiftless in the way they carry themselves, are not overcourteous, not overintelligent. The organization, he will find, "just growed" from the single village constable, gradually increasing until it became a city police force. It may be under The Public's Part 163 civil service, or not. If so, then it is likely to be stagnating from the premium the civil service system of promotion places upon mediocrity. If not, it is probably a sort of political club. Such organiza- tion is like a string of beads : there is no subordina- tion and subdivision of authority. Everyone and everything is directly responsible to the chief. He for his part, through no fault of his own, has had no experience in organization which would fit him to plan out the work so as to make it easiest for his men and most useful for the city. His whole con- ception of his job is probably pounding the beat, keeping traditional records, keeping out of trouble. The conception the force would have of its duties could also be pretty well summed up in this phrase "pounding the beat." It does not know just why it "pounds," but this is what has always been done; and then, if someone comes along who needs to be arrest t-d, the officer is there to do it. There is no readjustment of beats to conditions, no conception of the need of a quick and responsive touch with the (hanging nreds of the community. Now, instead of that, what ought an American citi/en to see? The individual policeman should be alert, active, intelligent, flat-fronted, instead of flat-footed. As the arches of his feet are up, so should his aspect be, his eyes, his mien, his aim. The organization he should find fitted to the duties 164 Policeman and Public it has to perform, just as an army or a big business organization is arranged so as to meet and conquer any difficulties that arise. In the army, for instance, when a new element in warfare appears, such as the use of poisonous gas, what happens? At once the organization is read- justed to deal with this new factor. Chemists study the question scientifically to invent not only defen- sive measures but also other gases and effective methods of attack. Masks are provided, with all the infinite care and skill that are necessary to make them work right. In the first place, the inventor has to devise a kind of mask that will keep the man in the front trenches alive and in fighting form when the gases come rolling over on him. These have then to be turned out in very large quantities, and the greatest care has to be taken in manufacture to make certain that they have no defects either from care- less workmanship or from sabotage, for one pinhole may cost the life of the hapless soldier who puts on that particular mask. The troops then have to be trained exactly how to use the mask, and they must practise until they acquire the necessary speed in adjusting it firmly, for one second's slowness in the proper adjusting and fastening of the mask may make the difference between life and death. And while the inventor is creating the mask, and the manu- facturer is making it, and the army commander is The Public's Part 165 training his men to use it, all the time some other division in the organization must be looking ahead, trying to anticipate possible new varieties of gas that may perhaps need new kinds of masks for protection. In the same way a police department may be up against an entirely new situation, or an old situation so developed and changed as to be practically new. The dope habit as we see it today, for instance, is of comparatively recent origin, and the dope fiend is a new kind of criminal, doubly dangerous because of the work that he may do while under the stimulus of the drug, and the lengths to which he will go to pro- vide himself with drugs to satisfy the craving of his tortured frame. How would a police force of the old conventional type meet that situation? Un- doubtedly if a policeman placidly pacing the pave- ment happened to have a drug fiend come on his beat and commit a crime there, he would take him into custody, beat him into submission if he resisted, hale him to court and charge him with the crime. If found guilty, the offender would be sent to jail. This would be the conventional method, the sole order of pro- cedure that would be followed where the organiza- tion is not adaptable, where the conception of duty is simply to go ahead as usual, and if this does not meet the needs of the citizens hard luck on the citi/ens ! 166 Policeman and Public / An emergency like this, however, must be met by a police force just as vigorously and intelligently as the army meets a new war method. The whole question of drugs must be studied. Endeavor must be made to find the sources of supply, and the most skillful detective work be used in order to apprehend and thwart illicit traders. Victims of the drug, mere users of it, must be treated not as criminals but as patients, and the police force, working in co- operation with other departments in the city, must provide means for treating the cases. The adequacy of the laws must be considered and such legislation as is necessary be advocated so as to prevent the deadly drug from falling into the hands of any except repu- table doctors. The policeman therefore cannot rest with simply arresting any drug fiend he happens to run across. He must study the question, must get at the causes, must devise the best means of remov- ing the causes, and then must fight until this is accomplished. And finally, the citizen carefully examining his police force should see a body of men animated by the spirit of service, and undertaking the duty not merely of going through a mechanical performance of routine, but of doing whatever they can, in old ways or in new, to make the city a safer, a more wholesome, and a happier place for people to live in. The influence of an informed public opinion in The Public's Part 167 raising police work to this high standard has not been potent. Public opinion manifests itself, if at all, in spasms of indignation againsi particular mani- festations of police negligence, or blundering, or dishonesty. The public does not show sustained interest, and the effect of this is that police forces have acquired the habit of taking in sail when the hurricane of public resentment rises and weathering the storm, knowing that it will blow itself out in a short time and the waters will again become smooth, and safe for indifferent or piratical sailors. It is of course difficult for the public to tell whether police work is being well done or not; this is one of the most puzzling features of the situation. In a factory it is another story ; the efficiency of the head of a department can be very accurately measured. If the work of his department, for instance, is manu- facturing rivets, record can be kept of the num- ber the department produces weekly, and the cost of production per rivet. If he is able to maintain or increase the production of first-quality articles at no greater or a little less expense of production, he is doing his work well. If he falls below in num- bers or mounts higher in expense he is not doing well. Policing a city, however, is very different from running a factory. It is difficult to tell whether the policeman is doing good work or not because the 168 Policeman and Public results of his good work are not clearly apparent, as are the results in manufacturing. There might be, for instance, three burglaries in a certain police precinct during a week, yet it would be hard for the public to decide whether the work of the police was atrocious in allowing so many burglaries or, on the other hand, commendable in keeping the number so low. And you cannot judge by burglaries only: there are all sorts of crime to be prevented, all sorts of regulations to be enforced, of conditions to be maintained. Even with the most careful records it is difficult to gauge the effectiveness of the men in charge, since one factor may offset another, and the nature of the work is such that it does not easily lend itself to statistical representation. Usually, however, we shall be right in concluding that the work is not as well done as it might be. Very little work is. And we shall not go far wrong if we conclude that the work would be better if the public took a continuing interest in it, inform- ing itself as well as possible of the results ; and making it worth while for the policeman to try to do better. The public is entitled to be furnished with com- plete and accurate police records. These probably exist now in only a very few American cities, for the helpfulness of facts, the usefulness of exact informa- The Public's Part 169 tion as to what is being done, has not yet been gen- erally understood by the police mind. In New York a few years ago a system of report- ing crimes was instituted. No record worth the name had been kept of crimes that had been com- mitted ; the only record was of arrests. Apparently it had been more convenient to keep track only of those cases where results were achieved. A system was introduced whereby every crime reported to the police was recorded, so that the officers responsible should know, not merely how many people were being arrested for certain crimes in a precinct, but how many crimes were being committed in that precinct. This, after all, is what we are most interested in. When this system was well under way, and crime was shown to be too prevalent in certain precincts tin- question was taken up with the captains as to what could be done to reduce it. Almost invariably a gratifying reduction ensued, and the head of the force took considerable satisfaction in the efficacy of his measures. As time went on, however, the results seemed almost too good to be true. Inquiry was made, and the sad conclusion was reached that the reduction was one on paper only. Often, very likely in perfectly good faith, when a captain was told that there was too much crime in his precinct, that the figures showed it, he simply thought it was up to him to have the 170 Policeman and Public figures show something different. Complaint had never been made before as to the prevalence of crime no one had paid any attention to such an irrele- vant feature of police work; it was not conditions that were wrong, then, it was this plaguey, incon- venient report that a new theoretical administration had got out. If the report had not shown things wrong, things would not have been wrong, and it was far easier to improve the report than improve con- ditions. So a judicious number of complaints of crime were simply not entered on the book. The crimes had occurred all right; people had been robbed ; houses had been broken into ; citizens had been held up in the street, but this had never caused any trouble for the captain before, and it wouldn't now if it were just kept off the books. Two things were done to remedy this conception of report making. In the first place it was made clear to commanding officers that the administration had just one purpose, to keep down crime; that these reports were required only so that everyone, captain as well as commissioner, might know exactly what was happening in his precinct, and might thereby be guided to take remedial measures, but no captain was going to get in trouble so long as it was clear that he was honestly trying to do the best work he knew how. In the second place, a new system of records was devised with careful checks so that it The Public's Part 171 would be difficult and risky for anyone to return in- complete or inaccurate figures. The extraordinary result was that whereas crime had been steadily "reduced" throughout the fall and early winter while the system of "canning com- plaints" had flourished, and although to the closest observer there was no apparent difference in crime conditions when the New Year was ushered in, yet the number of crimes officially reported in the city for the last week of December, when the old comfort- able custom of non-recording existed, was about one- half the number reported for the following week, the first in January, under the new system with its effective checks. The lullaby of falsified figures was never more strikingly illustrated; it seemed a shame to wake everyone up by rudely insisting on facts! Indeed, the commissioner was seriously advised by a friendly officer not to have the facts recorded ; "for," he said, "if there should one of those investi- gations of the department come along, they would bo mighty inconvenient!" There is no mystery about police work, although much mystery has been thrown about it. There is no reason why figures of crime should not be avail- able to anyone who is interested. There is, of course, sound reason why facts should not be published which would interfere with the success of specific work, but these facts are few and practically are confined to 172 Policeman and Public information as to the progress of special cases in which the offender would have a better chance of eluding justice if he could find out just what the police knew. Inefficiency and negligence are hard to conceal if results have to be furnished. The best cover to con- ceal poor work is the thick veil of mystery the insistence that there is something about police work that must be kept shrouded in secretiveness or the work will suffer. The truth is, that if clouded in secrecy it is pretty sure to be badly done. All our cities will be safer and our police forces will be better workers if the closed book is opened up, if the light is let in and the public sees. This can be done, for it has been done, and with gratifying results. Probably everyone believes that policemen should be honest, and agrees that everything possible should be done to keep them honest. Yet individuals who would enthusiastically endorse this are prone some- times, under pressure, to act in ways which directly tempt policemen to dishonesty. A friend of a police commissioner once called him up over the telephone and in a voice a little excited told him that he had been arrested. "Hard luck," was the answer. "What had you been doing? Running too fast?" "Why, yes," he said. "How did you know that? That is, the policeman said I was going too fast." The Public's Part 173 "Well, how fast was it?" "The policeman said thirty-five miles an hour," he answered. "How fast were you going?" "Well, I might have been going twenty." "Twenty-five?" "Possibly." "Thirty?" "No, I don't think so." "Did you look at your speedometer?" asked the commissioner. "No, but I know pretty well how fast I was going ; I have driven so much." "Well, I am sorry for your sake you got caught. Better luck next time." To which he replied : "Wait a minute ! I have been arrested that is, served with a summons to appear in court tomorrow. Can't you do something?" "Well, of course, I'll do anything I can for you, but just what do you think I could do?" He hesitated and stammered about thinking the head of the police force could do something for an old friend who had been arrested by one of his own cops. "Now, see here," the commissioner answered, "I know you mean all right, and I would do anything in the world that was possible, but in plain English the only conceivable thing I could do to help you 174 Policeman and Public would be to tell the policeman who served the sum- mons on you to go to court tomorrow morning and commit perjury in your favor by my direction, swearing that you did not go thirty-five miles an hour, as he knows you did, but that you went only twenty miles an hour, which he knows is a falsehood. Besides directing him to commit the crime of perjury, I should be forcing him to stultify himself and ex- pose himself to most embarrassing questions from the court as to why in the world he had arrested you anyway if you weren't going any faster than that." "Why why of course I don't want anything like that ; I would not think of it for a minute. You know I wouldn't. I just thought perhaps you could do something. Good-bye. I'll face the music." When the actual situation was placed before him he naturally was unwilling to have any such thing done in his favor. He at once saw the enormity of it. But if it had been described less nakedly; if the answer given him had been simply, "Why, yes, old boy, I may be able to help you out. I'll see what I can do. Good luck !" then he would have gone to court with a light heart ; and when the policeman testified that, although he had thought the speed was thirty-five miles an hour, he had since realized that his speedometer had been shaken and therefore he could not absolutely testify with certainty, the friend would have taken his acquittal with a light The Public's Part 175 heart and a friendly handshake to the policeman who had perjured himself, and walked off well pleased with himself and grateful to his friend. Such things are ugly, however, whether they are called by their proper ugly names or not. The pub- lic forgets the Golden Rule when it tempts police- men to do a dishonest thing. Without going into the comparative ethical ratings of tempter and tempted, it is plain that the tempter does a dishon- orable deed and contributes his bit, which may be far larger than he would dream, toward breaking the morale of the very police force that he and other members of the public retain to uphold law and righteousness. Probably the great trouble is that people do not realize, perhaps because they do not choose to, just what they are doing. It may be a good deal like the situation with reference to the regulatory laws, where the public believes in certain restrictions, yet individuals arc quite ready to evade these restrictions for their own personal conven- ience. From crooks and purveyors of vice one can- not expect any sort of self-denying conduct for the sake of maintaining the morale of the police force; if, however, in a year there were not one single case of an average citizen's tempting a policeman to do something unworthy, the change from the usual course of events would be considerable, and the help- 176 Policeman and Public ful influence on the force far greater than might be supposed. A police force is very sensitive and responsive to public opinion. If it gets a feeling that it has a bad name and that, no matter what happens, the public thinks ill of it, it will be apt to accept the public estimate. And it is true not only of police forces, but of groups of human beings under all conditions, and also of individuals. If the public seems to have the idea that policemen are all grafters, are all loafers, are all fat, impotent supporters of lamp-posts that public will probably be fairly successful in moulding its police force according to its conception. But the public can be just as powerful in raising the morale of its force as in battering it down. If citizens are ready to believe well of the force ; if they realize that the despicable deeds of individual police- men may be isolated instances of wrongdoing and may be perhaps comparatively few when one con- siders the total number of the force ; if they are slow to condemn, waiting for facts before sitting in judg- ment; and if they are ready generously to recognize good work, that public will week by week, by the impalpable influence of its good opinion, raise the tone and effectiveness of its force. The public should be just as ready to recognize and approve good police work as it is to condemn bad work. Unfortunately it is apt to hear more of the The Public's Part 177 bad deeds than of the good ones ; the story of the grafting policeman, hitching up as it does in some way with the vague, mysterious, misrepresented underworld, always makes good reading. Plain, honest, steady performance of duty is only dull read- ing, and, one is thankful to say, not news. The duty of the public toward its police force is, then: to provide it with sound leadership; to keep informed as to how the work is being done ; to insist that the policeman's welfare physical, mental, moral is well looked after; to demand from the force a high grade of performance of duty; to de- spise and condemn dishonest or any other unworthy conduct in a policeman or one who tempts him ; but to be quick, cordial, and generous in perceiving good police work and in giving it whole-hearted approba- tion. With this sort of public attitude our police forces would be regenerated ; the service rendered to the community would rise higher and higher; the policemen, besides doing their work better along the old, tried, conventional paths, would reach out to new methods, would find and carry into operation means to prevent crime and to save those that are tempted to commit crime ; so that besides apprehending crimi- nals they would go a step farther and prevent crime, and then again another long, splendid step farther and prevent people from becoming criminals. There are no hidden, gruesome, forbidding prac- 178 Policeman and Public tices necessary for the performance of superior police work. In the old days of evil understanding with criminals, such things existed ; but now when the duty of the policeman is conceived as not being to compromise and chaffer with the criminal as to where and how he may and may not work, but is clearly and flatly to keep down crime in every way, the profession is an open, honorable one. The pub- lic should know what is going on. It has a right to know in detail what its guardians are doing in order that it may intelligently conclude as to whether they should be discharged, or slapped on the back with approval and have their pay raised. And the pojice on *hfir part need the understand- ing of the pnhlif T'hffry are thrown inevitably into close association with the seamy side of life; they are hired to control it. They need, therefore, to become acquainted with the great, wholesome public. They need the spirit which they will gather from it to carry them through the trying, tempting days when they are wrestling with the outlaw. 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