There were many men who helped us in our work and among them all, the man who helped us most, by advice and counsel, by stalwart, loyal friendship, and by ardent championship of all that was good against all that was evil, was Jacob A. Andrews and myself were quite incapable of managing it on any other. In other words, such a body as the police force of New York can be wisely and, properly administered only upon a non-partisan basis, and both Mr.
The prevention of blackmail and corruption, the repression of crime and violence, the safeguarding of life and property, securing honest elections, and rewarding efficient and punishing inefficient police service, are not, and cannot properly be made, questions of party difference. Andrews and I worked in absolute harmony on every important question of policy which arose. He was a Democrat and I a Republican, and there were questions of national politics on which we disagreed widely but such questions could not enter into the administration of the New York police, if that administration was to be both honest and efficient and as a matter of fact, during my two years’ service, Mr. With me was associated as treasurer of the board Mr. The police board consisted of four members all four of the new men were appointed by Mayor Strong, the reform mayor, who had taken office in January. In May, 1895, I was made president of the newly appointed police board, whose duty it was to cut out the chief source of civic corruption in New York by cleansing the police department. From top to bottom the New York police force was utterly demoralized by the gangrene of such a system, where venality and blackmail went hand in hand with the basest forms of low ward politics, and where the policeman, the ward politician, the liquor seller, and the criminal alternately preyed on one another and helped one another to prey on the general public. This was chiefly carried on at the expense of gamblers, liquor sellers, and keepers of disorderly houses but every form of vice and crime contributed more or less, and a great many respectable people who were ignorant or timid were blackmailed under pretense of forbidding or allowing them to violate obscure ordinances, and the like.
The money was reimbursed to those who paid it by an elaborate system of blackmail. There was a well-recognized tariff of charges, ranging from two or three hundred dollars for appointment as a patrol-man, to twelve or fifteen thousand dollars for promotion to the position of captain. Except in rare instances, where prominent politicians made demands which could not be refused, both promotions and appointments to- wards the close of Tammany rule were almost solely for money, and the prices were discussed with cynical frankness. No man not intimately acquainted with both the lower and the humbler sides of New York life-for there is a wide distinction between the two-can realize how far this corruption extended. The chief centre of corruption was the police department. But the corruption had become so wide-spread as seriously to impair the work of administration, and to bring us back within appreciable distance of the days of Tweed. There were a few honorable and high-minded Tammany officials, and there were a few bureaus which were conducted with some measure of efficiency, although dishonestly.
In reality it would be difficult to overestimate the utter rottenness of many branches of the city administration. A few well-meaning persons have at times tried to show that this corruption was not actually so very great. The tidal wave, which was running high against the Democratic party, was undoubtedly very influential in bringing about the anti-Tammany victory but the chief factor in producing the result was the widespread anger and disgust felt by decent citizens at the corruption which under the sway of Tammany had honey-combed every department of the city government, but especially the police force. Under the last head must be included a great many men who in national politics habitually act with one or the other of the two great parties, but who feel that in municipal politics good citizens should act independently. In New York, in the fall of 1894, Tammany Hall was overthrown by a coalition composed partly of the regular Republicans, partly of anti-Tammany Democrats, and partly of Independents.
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