I do contend that it will enable us to get as
good government as we deserve, and that the other way will not.
The then government of the Police Department was so devised as to render
it most difficult to accomplish anything good, while the field for
intrigue and conspiracy was limitless. There were four Commissioners,
two supposed to belong to one party and two to the other, although, as
a matter of fact, they never divided on party lines. There was a Chief,
appointed by the Commissioners, but whom they could not remove without a
regular trial subject to review by the courts of law. This Chief and
any one Commissioner had power to hold up most of the acts of the other
three Commissioners. It was made easy for the four Commissioners to come
to a deadlock among themselves; and if this danger was avoided, it was
easy for one Commissioner, by intriguing with the Chief, to bring the
other three to a standstill. The Commissioners were appointed by the
Mayor, but he could not remove them without the assent of the Governor,
who was usually politically opposed to him. In the same way the
Commissioners could appoint the patrolmen, but they could not remove
them, save after a trial which went up for review to the courts.
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