Mayor Strong had been elected Mayor
the preceding fall, when the general anti-Democratic wave of that year
coincided with one of the city's occasional insurrections of virtue and
consequent turning out of Tammany from municipal control. He had been
elected on a non-partisan ticket--usually (although not always) the
right kind of ticket in municipal affairs, provided it represents not
a bargain among factions but genuine non-partisanship with the genuine
purpose to get the right men in control of the city government on a
platform which deals with the needs of the average men and women, the
men and women who work hard and who too often live hard. I was appointed
with the distinct understanding that I was to administer the Police
Department with entire disregard of partisan politics, and only from the
standpoint of a good citizen interested in promoting the welfare of all
good citizens. My task, therefore, was really simple. Mayor Strong had
already offered me the Street-Cleaning Department. For this work I did
not feel that I had any especial fitness. I resolutely refused to accept
the position, and the Mayor ultimately got a far better man for his
purpose in Colonel George F. Waring.
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