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FIGHTING THE SPOILS HUNTERS AND RASCALS

good records with Spaniards-in fact, every nationality is represented almost but the Chinese, and I find the men as a class willing to give faithful service. When men find the official in charge of them consistent, always keeping his word to the letter, they will soon begin following the example set before them. Treat a man squarely and you will get square treatment in return. That is human nature and sound

doctrine, whether in the police or in any other department."

Being an honest man and determined to do his duty fearlessly and without favor, Mr. Roosevelt was not caught in the many traps set for him. All attempts to ensnare him were failures and soon appeared so ridiculous that he became the best "let alone" official in the city government.

Jacob Riis says that "Jobs innumerable were put up to discredit the President of the Board and inveigle him into awkward positions. Probably he never knew of one-tenth of them. Mr. Roosevelt walked through them with perfect unconcern, kicking aside the snares that were set so elaborately to catch him. The politicians who saw him walk apparently blindly into a trap and beheld him emerge with damage to the trap only, could not understand it. They concluded it was his luck. It was not. It was his sense. He told me once after such a time that it was a matter of conviction with him that no frank and honest man could be in the long run entangled by the snares of plotters, whatever appearances might for the moment indicate. So he walked unharmed in it all."

But the new Police President had no path of roses to walk in. Corruption was deeply planted and it was not easy to uproot it. The system of blackmail by police and officials was hard to overcome. It was the enforcement of the Sunday liquor law, in particular, that gave trouble to the Commission. There were plenty of arrests, indeed, for its violation, but these were of people who had no political pull or refused to pay the police for shut eyes. This system of blackmail existed in the case of all illegal pursuits, which could be carried on unseen by the police if the necessary money were forthcoming, but to which refusal to pay brought sudden retribution.

Dishonesty at elections was another of the prevailing forms of vice. Honesty at the ballot box had almost ceased to exist, and it

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The cause of his leaving the Commission was a summons from his native city, which wanted him for President of its Board of Police Commissioners. This strongly appealed to him. It was bringing him back upon his old battlefield. It was a field which he knew inch by inch. And it was one in which there was strenuous work to be done. The rottenness of party politics had deeply invaded this department and it sadly needed an earthquake shaking up. He went into it with the earnest vim with which he was soon after to go into the Spanish War.

"I thought the storm center was in New York," he said, "and so I came there. It is a great piece of practical work. I like to take hold of work that has been done by a Tammany leader and do it as well, only by approaching it from the opposite direction. The thing that attracted me to it was that it was to be done in the hurly-burly, for I don't like cloister life."

A reform administration, that of Mayor Strong, was then in power, and soldiers of reform were needed to lead the ranks. The new Commissioner stirred up the town. The regulation reformers did not know whether to applaud or curse. Many declared that his rigid enforcement of the Excise law enabled Tammany to return to power by capturing the votes of liquor men who had temporarily joined the reformers. In reply Roosevelt said he had sworn to enforce all the laws and he would not compromise his conscience. Besides, he held that the best way to get a bad law repealed was to rigidly enforce it. The "Arabian Nights" features of Mr. Roosevelt's police administration, his sudden appearance in unexpected places, his unheralded personal tours of inspection about the city after dark, catching many a policeman napping—all this and several volumes more are a part of history. Roosevelt made fame and friends during his police régime, and all classes admitted that he was an honest man. He said once, at the close of a meeting, that he believed a majority of policemen were good men. He believed in giving every applicant a chance to show what he could do and treating him honestly and fairly, regardless of

his nationality, politics, religion or "pull."

"We have every country represented on the police force,” he said. "Hebrews working harmoniously with Irishmen; Germans making

needed strenuous labor on the part of the Commission to overcome this, as in the case of various other vicious practices.

All we can say here is that during the two years of Mr. Roosevelt's presidency the Police Commission did much toward clearing the atmosphere. The number of arrests and convictions for misdemeanor largely increased, the citizens had better protection than they had had for years, and the reign of corruption largely ceased. Mr. Roosevelt had the faculty for organization strongly developed. Honor and reward came to the men who did their duty, discredit or dismissal to those who shirked it. A police force should be a military force, and this is what Roosevelt made of the men under him. He was not the chief of police, but when he came into police headquarters, his quick nervous stride and alert eyes affected every policeman in sight as though he had felt an electric shock. There was an involuntary straightening up, both physical and mental. Disorder and bad administration prevailed before he entered the Board. When he left it New York had an admirably trained and effective military force of bluecoated public protectors, men who had won the esteem of respectable citizens and whose honesty was beyond question.

There is a story of his dealing with strikers who had trouble with the police which reminds us of that of the Western sheriff. It is thus told by Jacob Riis:

"Roosevelt saw that the trouble was in their not understanding one another, and he asked the labor leaders to meet him at Clarendon Hall to talk it over. Together we trudged through a blinding snowstorm to the meeting. This was at the beginning of things, when the town had not yet got the bearings of the man. The strike leaders thought they had to do with an ambitious politician and they tried bluster. They would do so and so unless the police were compliant; and they watched to get him placed. They had not long to wait. Roosevelt called a halt, short and sharp.

'Gentlemen,' he said, 'we want to understand one another. That was my object in coming here. Remember, please, that he who counsels violence does the cause of labor the poorest service. Also, he loses his case. Understand distinctly that order will be kept. The police will keep it. Now, gentlemen!'

"There was a moment's amazed suspense, and then the hall rang with their cheers. They had him placed then, for they knew a man when they saw him. And he he went home proud and happy, for his trust in his fellow-man was justified.”

Such was the type of Theodore Roosevelt's work as Police Commissioner. When he had finished the force was the cleanest New York ever has known, loot and blackmail had been crushed out of existence, and for the first time for years decency in the police service prevailed. He appointed men solely on their merits and without regard to politics or religion, insisted on their doing their duty, and new ideas as to the true mission of the police came into existence. Roosevelt had no vague theories to work up to. He knew that while reform might be furthered, human nature could not be changed, and that no one man could do away with all the evil that prevailed. But he threw a searchlight on crime and many foul blots were swept away. Though he did not accomplish all he sought to do, he left behind him a cleaner Gotham than its people had seen for years, and the Roosevelt reign will not soon be forgotten in the history of police service in New York.

IN

CHAPTER VI

Naval Secretary and Rough Rider

N 1897 the scent of war was in the air. The barbarities of Spanish rule in Cuba were becoming too flagrant for our country to long endure, and it was growing evident to many that the United States might soon have to take a hand in the game. It was at this interval of growing indignation at Spanish methods that another President found occasion to avail himself of Mr. Roosevelt's services. His efficiency in the police service of New York had become the talk of the country, and President McKinley found it desirable to offer him. the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy, feeling sure that he was the man for the place.

The new American navy was then in the making, and needed a man of energetic character and efficient methods to give it the shaking up it needed in the event of a war. It was important to make it ready for any emergency, and Roosevelt was amply fitted for the work. While occupying the minor post of assistant, his hand was soon felt in every detail of naval affairs, and for a time he was virtually at the head of the department.

The most important work he did was to collect ammunition and to insist on the naval gunners being well practiced in marksmanship. He was not long in his new post before he felt sure that war was coming and that it was his duty to see that the ships were prepared for it. Another thing he did was to fill every foreign coaling station with an ample supply of fuel. It was this that enabled Dewey to make his prompt movement from Hongkong to Manila. We have testimony to his acuteness in the words of Senator Cushman K. Davis, then head of the Committee on Foreign Relations:

"If it had not been for Roosevelt Dewey would not have been able to strike the blow that he dealt at Manila. Roosevelt's forethought, energy and promptness made it possible."