CHAPTER III.

PROMOTION BY PULL AND PROMOTION BY PURCHASE.

The New York Police Department as it existed in 1894 was like the Scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel. It was like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness. Hardly a single thing that was proved to exist could have existed if the laws, rules and regulations had been faithfully enforced. Therefore until the searchlight of the Lexow inquiry was turned on, it was the correct thing to deny that the abuses, the corruption, the blackmail had any existence. On paper the New York police was the finest in the world. It was the most perfectly equipped, and it was armed with authority as great as that of any autocrat. What then could possibly be wrong?

The answer of the Lexow Committee, after hearing the evidence, was short and succinct. Their answer to the question, What is wrong in the Police Department? might be summed up in one word--Everything. From the crown of the head down to the sole of the feet, the department was proved to be one mass of putrefying sores. There was no health in it, and it was worst of all at the top.

The Lexow Report says:--

The conclusion which has impressed itself upon your Committee is that the disorganising elements at work in the Police Department are such that operate from the higher officials down, rather than from the patrolmen up.--Vol. i., p. 29.

But the origin of the mischief was found to exist not in the department at all, but outside the department. The first thing that was wrong was that the police were practically run by Tammany Hall politicians in the interest of their party, and that the real governing power in the force lay outside of it. Two of the Police Commissioners in whose hands the control of the force was nominally lodged were leaders in their own districts for Tammany Hall, and their sense of their obligations to their party far outweighed their obligations to the law or to the city. As one of the witnesses put it bluntly:--

So long as our municipal departments are run by Boss Croker, they will be regarded as adjuncts of a political organisation, and will be used to perpetuate its power. A police commission controlled by such influence is incapable of rendering justice.--Vol. i., p. 114.

From an English point of view what New York needed most was a City Council, with some effective control over the affairs of the city. The shadowy unreality known as the Board of Aldermen cuts no figure in the inquiry into the forces which actually governed New York. Tammany Hall, the executive committee of Tammany Hall, came much nearer to the ideal of a Municipal Assembly than the Board of Aldermen. It was to Tammany Hall, and not to the Board of Aldermen, that the Police Commissioners appealed when they wanted to enforce their authority over the men under their own orders. This came out very plainly in Commissioner Martin’s evidence. He found that his subordinates were taking so active a hand in politics, joining political clubs and the like, that he wished to check it. He went, not to the Board of Aldermen, but to Tammany Hall. He was asked:--

Q. Why did you go there?

A. I took occasion to speak in Tammany Hall about it, because there I could reach people from different assembly districts; I have spoken to representatives of the different districts about it in my office.

Q. And you went to Tammany Hall to engage their co-operation in securing greater efficiency of the police force in New York city?

A. To aid in making it efficient; yes, sir.

Q. Was that because there was no other place to go to?

A. There was no other place to go to that would be as effective as that.--Vol. i., p. 443.

No wonder the Committee reports:--

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

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

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

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

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

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

A. I will tell you; when a man comes to me and wants to get an appointment or transfer, or anything like that, I never stop to consider who is in the place he wants to go to, but my object is to get him there; necessarily, somebody has got to get out of the way, and here it happened to be Sergeant Schryer....

If I can get a friend of mine on the force, or get him a promotion or position on the force, I always try to do it.

Q. And without inquiring, whether or not the man who is going to suffer by the removal, who was to suffer?

A. That was none of my business; it was sufficient for me to know the man they appointed to that place was competent and worthy of it, was a friend or party organisation.

By Senator O’Connor: A political leader or a man holding a high position here in the city, regardless entirely of the merits of the man whom he seeks to remove, when requested by one of his friends--political friends--to secure his position, that leader does everything in his power to bring about that result?

A. For his friend.

By Mr. Goff: Now, we have it that both parties do it?

A. Certainly.

Q. Only that the Republican leaders do not have a pull?

A. Well, Republican leaders are not in the majority; New York city is more a Democratic city.--Vol. ii., pp. 1,283-4.

Mr. Roesch confessed with frank brutality the principle upon which all the politicians acted in relation to the patronage to which they believed they were entitled. To make room for their friend, to secure a place on the city pay-rolls for a political comrade, was ample justification for insisting upon the removal of any officer who might happen to be in the way. Let no one imagine that this was an exceptional case. Commissioner Martin admitted frankly that from eighty-five to ninety per cent. of all the appointments which he had made when he was chairman of the Police Board were endorsed, in the first instance, by the district leader of Tammany Hall for the district in which the applicant resided.

Under such a system promotion by merit was practically non-existent. On this point Commissioner Martin was equally frank. He was questioned very closely as to whether he had ever promoted an officer simply for merit. After thinking a bit, he said he thought he could name one or two cases. Then said Mr. Goff:--

So far as your recollection goes, with the exception of two instances, so long as you have been police commissioner, you have not recommended for appointment, promotion or transfer a single man, except one, who was backed by political influence?

A. I do not recollect of any others. I think there are others of them.--Vol. vi., p. 448.

But if a district leader of the type of Roesch was able to nominate officers to the police, what becomes of the law by which all officers were to be appointed by open competition in an examination conducted according to Civil Service rules? The answer to this question is twofold. In the first case, a certain margin was allowed to the Commissioners. They were not bound always to appoint the candidates who came out on top. If they were tolerably near the top, it was held to be sufficient. The second answer is much more extraordinary. It was proved before the Committee that by connivance with a police clerk it was quite possible for candidates to be returned as having passed their examinations who had never been in the examination-hall, and who never had written a single answer to any of the questions! This was done by personation. A competent person entered himself in the name of the candidate, filled in his examination papers, and passed in his name. By this means there was no difficulty in driving a coach and four through the Civil Service rules. The persons who obtained a position on the force by this means were known as the pupils of those who passed their examinations in their study, and were blackmailed accordingly.

John Schlie, examined by Mr. Moss, described how one of the personators went gathering in his fees:--

I went down one day with Dave Brant to the police headquarters. We met an officer; the next thing I know I saw two 10-dollar bills slipped in his hand: he said, “That is good;” I said, “How did you get that?” He said, “That is one of my students;” I said, “What do you mean?” he said, “I passed for them people;” he said, “That is good;” so we went and had a drink and walked a couple of blocks; he commenced scratching his head, and he said, “I guess I have another student;” he goes down there and gets 15 dollars more.--Vol. ii., p. 1,474.

Of course, it was impossible thus to cheat the Civil Service examinations without the connivance of some of the officials, and this connivance had to be paid for at a price. Thus the natural process, promotion by pull, led up to promotion by purchase. The evidence on this point was overwhelming. It appeared that in a very great number of cases--so many indeed as practically to establish the rule--candidates who wished to be appointed to the force had to pay 300 dollars to a go-between, who negotiated the matter with the police authorities. How much money stuck to the fingers of the go-between, and how much was passed on to those in authority, does not clearly appear, but there is no doubt that the sum of 300 dollars was demanded, and paid, as a preliminary before the candidate could assume the uniform of policeman.

This practice once begun, it rapidly extended. As the initial cost was 300 dollars, each step in promotion cost a larger sum. To be made a sergeant cost 1,600 dols., while the price of a captaincy was 15,000 dollars! The police who had purchased their promotion in this fashion naturally felt that they had a vested interest in their posts. In the British army a similar system of purchase grew up, but it was one which was regulated by law and sanctioned by custom, whereas in the case of the New York police the whole system was under the ban of the law. The Lexow Committee remarked in their report upon this subject:--

The policeman who pays for his appointment commences his career with the commission of a crime, and it is not strange that the demoralisation thus engendered should follow him in his further career. The captain who pays a fortune for his appointment finds himself compelled to recoup in order to return the moneys loaned to him by his friends by resorting to the practices which have been disclosed in the record before us. It seems incredible that men who are otherwise law-abiding and efficient should stoop to the perpetration of the monstrous and debasing practices revealed by this record, unless influenced by a system existing as the result of the conditions hereinbefore alluded to. Nor is it strange that, in the contemplation of these practices by superior officers, inferior members of the force should have become demoralised, until the contamination has spread throughout the entire department.--Vol. i., pp. 49, 50.

It may be asked how was it that, while the evil was still in its infancy, and the force as a whole was not yet tainted through and through, its honest members did not expose the corruption which was being established in their midst? The answer is that the evil began at the top and spread downwards. Hence, it was impossible for the private constable to make a stand without exposing himself to a severe punishment for daring to be more virtuous than his superiors. The following extract from Gideon Granger’s evidence will show how this pressure from above operated upon those below:--

A. I did not come to court because of the threats that were made by Mr. McClave and Mr. Nicoll, and I knew the power that a police commissioner has got, to use every bit of the department against anybody, to accomplish their own ends, and, in fact, he has boasted of that.

Q. Mr. McClave?

A. Yes, sir; endless power he has boasted of.

Q. What has he said in his boasting?

A. He said police commissioners had more power than the President of the United States had; repeatedly said that.--Vol. i., p. 1,142.

In considering the action of the police, we ought in justice to remember that they were living in a city the whole administration of which was infected by this money canker.

Mr. William M. Ivins, private secretary to Mayor Grace, by whom he was appointed City Chamberlain, estimated that in his time “assessments”--that is, money paid by candidates to “guarantee the result” of their elections--averaged £40,000 per annum. He wrote:--

“The existing system amounts to an almost complete exclusion from official public life of all men who are not enabled to pay, if not a sum equal to the entire salary of the office they seek, at least a very large percentage of it. The poor man, or the moderately well-to-do man, is thus at once cut off from all political ambition, because the only key to success is wealth or machine power. The ablest lawyer at our Bar could not secure a nomination for a judgeship unless he were able to pay an assessment of from 10,000 dollars to 20,000 dollars (£2,000 to £4,000); while a mere political lawyer, if he have the means of paying his assessment and stands well with the party leaders, can without great difficulty secure a nomination, and even an election, to an office for which he has no peculiar qualifications.”

It would therefore be unjust to judge the police without making due allowance for the condition of their environment.

One of the most interesting witnesses who came before the Committee was Captain Creedon. It was in his case that the facts concerning the purchase of promotion were brought out most clearly.

Creedon was an Irishman, with a distinguished record and a high character. He joined the police force in 1864, and was made sergeant after fifteen years in the ranks. He remained sergeant for thirteen years, when he was promoted to a captaincy. Before he entered the police he had served with great gallantry in the Union army. He served with his regiment in no fewer than twenty-three engagements. He entered as a private, rose to be a sergeant, and his name was down for a first lieutenancy when he left the army. His record on the police for thirty years’ service was extremely good, hardly anything being entered to his discredit. Such entries as were to be found related only to breaches of the technical rules of the force, and in no way implied any moral guilt.

Captain Creedon was put in the witness-box, and asked how much he had paid to be made a captain. He denied he had paid anything. As the facts were perfectly well known, the Committee was much startled by Captain Creedon’s perjury. But after adjournment had given time for reflection, the worthy Captain came to the stand and explained that he had denied everything because he was an Irish revolutionist, and that he had such a dread and terror of being regarded as an informer, that he preferred to perjure himself rather than incur that disgrace. He was willing to sacrifice himself and risk going to gaol for perjury rather than in any way implicate any of his friends in the improper and illegal transactions in which he had been engaged.

It was carefully explained to him that he was not in Ireland, and that nothing he could possibly say on the stand could expose him to the imputation of being an informer. Having received this assurance, Captain Creedon opened his mouth and spoke.

The story he had to tell was very simple. Three times he had gone up for examination for a captaincy before the Civil Service Board. He had passed creditably every time, but notwithstanding this, he seemed no nearer to securing an appointment. His friends kept on telling him that he was simply wasting his time going up for examination after examination. He had much better stay at home unless he made up his mind to do one thing. He steadily turned a deaf ear to their representations, until at last four years after his first application, seeing that no one was promoted without bribing their superiors, he consented to fall in with the general practice. As soon as he did this, the way was made plain before him. Mr. Reppenhagen, the representative of the New York Democracy in his district, was indicated as the man to approach Police Commissioner Voorhis. Mr. Reppenhagen saw the Commissioner, and reported to the Captain that the place could be had for 12,000 dollars. Creedon had not at that time 12,000 dollars to invest in the purchase of a captaincy, but on talking it over with his friends, they agreed to make up a purse, so as to enable him to acquire the position which he coveted. While they were raising the money, Reppenhagen reappeared, and announced that a certain sergeant named Weigand had offered 12,000 dollars for the captaincy, and that if Creedon wished to secure it, it would cost him 15,000 dollars. Creedon’s friends were men of mettle, and they agreed to raise the full sum. Creedon gave the subscribers notes acknowledging their subscriptions as a loan, which he afterwards repaid. The money was raised, and deposited in a bank. A Mr. Martin then appears on the scene as the confidential man of the Police Commissioner, smelling round after the 15,000 dollars as a rat noses round a cheese. For some reason or other there was a hitch in the appointment, and Creedon’s friends and Reppenhagen passed some days in horrible suspense as to whether or not, in spite of the money being “put up,” the appointment might go to Sergeant Weigand, while Martin was equally alarmed lest the 15,000 dollars should slip through his fingers.

The Record contains the following entries:--

John W. Reppenhagen examined by Mr. Goff: Do you remember saying to Martin further, that as long as Creedon’s friends had put up more money than Weigand was reported to have put up, that it would play the devil in the organisation in that district if Creedon was not appointed?

A. I might have said that.--Vol. v., p. 5,010.

Q. Don’t you remember when you said that to Martin, that Martin said in word and in substance as follows: “I will go right down and I will see Voorhis, who is too damned hoggish about this thing.” Do you remember those words?

A. I don’t remember the words.

Q. When he was in that condition of excitement, and when he struck the bar several times with his clenched fist, didn’t he say those words, “That Voorhis wanted everything, almost the earth; he was hoggish, and he would go right down to New York and talk right up to him, and tell him he must do the right thing?”

A. In substance he said that--yes.--Vol. v., p. 5,014-5.

Reppenhagen was evidently in a state of great uneasiness about securing the patronage for which the money had been raised by Creedon’s friends. By way of enforcing his representations, he reminded Mr. Martin pointedly that the only chance he had of fingering any of the money was to see that Creedon’s appointment went through, otherwise he would not make a cent. Thus pressed, Martin went off to see Voorhis. When he next saw Reppenhagen he assured him that it was all right, and that Voorhis had pledged his word to appoint Creedon the next Board Day. Even after this there was a hitch. It was reported that Weigand was going to be appointed after all. Reppenhagen then found it necessary to take hold of the affair with a strong hand.

“John,” said he to Martin, “you had better go down yourself, and stay by the Commissioner until the appointment is made.” Thus adjured, John went down, vowing that he would not leave the Commissioner until he had appointed Creedon. Then at last Creedon was duly appointed.

After this another hitch arose as to the difficulty of paying over the money. Then it was Mr. Martin’s turn to be uneasy. He said he thought he had been bilked, and that the money would never be turned over. Creedon’s friends, however, were men of affairs, and knew the kind of gentry they were dealing with. They had refused to hand over the money until the Captain was duly appointed. But now that Creedon was a captain at last they released the money. When Reppenhagen handed over the fifteen thousand dollars to Martin, that functionary handed him back five thousand dollars for himself. How much of the ten thousand dollars went to Commissioner Voorhis or how much of it stuck to Martin’s fingers the record does not show. Here, however, was clear and unmistakable evidence as to the systematic manner in which promotions were arranged for and carried through between the Commissioners on the one hand and the candidates on the other.

There is a sequel to this story, which is so exquisitely absurd that it seems more like _opera bouffe_ than a chapter from recent history. While the Committee was still engaged in ferreting out how the money was paid which secured Captain Creedon his captaincy, a startling rumour reached the Committee that the Police Board had suspended Captain Creedon from duty on account of his having obtained his captaincy by corrupt means. A bombshell falling in the court could hardly have created greater consternation.

To begin with, the Committee was a privileged body. All its proceedings were privileged. For any outside authority to act upon the testimony which it had taken without the direct authorisation of the Committee would be a contempt of the Senate. Further, the evidence given by Captain Creedon was tendered on the assurance of the Committee that no action could be taken upon it by any outside authority. They had promised him protection and immunity from persecution and prosecution, and for the Police Board to use his own admissions against him, which were privileged communications, the making of which secured him protection from any action based upon such admissions, was an indictable offence at the common law. But what made things worse was that, when the Captain left the stand, he had been addressed in eulogistic terms by counsel. This was not without cause. His candour in owning up and admitting everything had enabled the Committee to penetrate into the depths of the mystery of promotion by purchase. Mr. Goff had concluded his little speech by declaring that, “In view of everything; in view of your splendid service to your country, and your good service on the Police Department, it is the unanimous expression of the Committee that the public interests would not be served were you to be disturbed in your present position as police captain” (p. 4,982).

Within an hour of this emphatic and public certificate of commendation, the Police Board met and suspended Captain Creedon from duty. Not a single captain or police officer of all the black regiment of clubbers and blackmailers, whose infamy had been proved before the Committee, and who had been indicted before the Grand Jury, had been removed from duty. Only when this honest officer had admitted the truth did they pounce down upon him and make an example. It is only fair to say that the Board was not aware when it suspended Creedon of the remarks that had been made by the counsel of the Committee as he left the witness stand. When they were rebuked they restored him to his post. But even with this allowance, the fact that the Commissioners should have only made one suspension, and that of a man who had confessed and repented of his wrong-doing, while they left all the other scoundrels unwhipped, was one of the most significant incidents in the whole course of the inquiry.

But after such an illustration of the methods of the Police Board, is it very surprising that until the Lexow Committee sat the authorities were utterly unable to discover any specific evidence as to the corruption into which the whole force had sunk?