MUDSLINGING
“Really, none of the attacks upon the police are more injurious to it than these official defenses.”
—The New York Times, July 29, 1884
In an opening salvo between the police department and the district attorney’s office the New York City Police Commissioners fired off a letter to the district attorney’s office a day after the hearing, demanding to know what if any evidence the DA had that somehow implicated the police department in wrongdoing. The letter was addressed to District Attorney Peter Olney.
DEAR SIR: It appears by publication in the newspapers that charges injurious to the Police Department are made concerning improper and scandalous transactions between members of the police force, who are not named, and Mrs. Mandelbaum. It is alleged that there are in your possession of affidavits or written statements which corroborate the statements in the newspapers. This board would be much obliged if you would send copies, or would allow us to take copies, of such affidavits to enable it to take immediate proceedings against any and all members who may be charged with such reprehensible proceedings. The board trusts that you will be willing to this extent to aid in bringing to . . . punishment any member of the force who may be found to be guilty. Please advise the board at your earliest convenience whether you will furnish copies of such papers and statements or allow this department to cause them to be copied in your office.
By order of the Board of Police.
S. C. HAWLEY, Chief Clerk.
THE POLICE WROUGHT UP INSPECTOR BYRNES ORDERED TO INVESTIGATE THE CHARGES AGAINST THEM
In reply to the letter sent on Friday to the District Attorney’s office with reference to certain accusations made against the detective force in connection with the arrest of Mrs. Mandelbaum for receiving stolen goods the following communication was received by the Commissioners yesterday:
July 25, 1884
S.C. Hawley, Esq. Chief Clerk of the Board of Police:
SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this date addressed to the Hon. Peter B. Olney, District Attorney. In reply I beg leave to state that, in the absence of Mr. Olney, who is at present out of the city, I am unable to give you any information on the subject therein referred to. On his return I shall submit the letter to him, and have no doubt that an early reply will be forwarded to your department. Truly yours,
EDWARD L. PARRIS
Acting District Attorney
—The New York Times, July 27, 1884
A spokesman for the district attorney’s office reported that although they had in their possession a statement explaining fully why the police department was not used in the arrest of Marm Mandelbaum, they asserted that the document could not be released until Olney returned. The spokesman, responding to the letter sent by the Police Commissioners, told reporters that in reference to calling in Pinkerton detectives rather than relying on the police department, even Police Superintendent George Walling had said at one time that the police had not been able to prove a case against Mandelbaum in the course of some twenty years. The statement only further added fuel to a very public and nasty fight between District Attorney Olney’s office and the police department.
It was hoped by reformers in the city that the arrest of Mandelbaum would at long last put an end to not only her role as the “Queen among Thieves,” but it would lay bare the scandal regarding the police department’s ongoing behavior toward Mandelbaum and many other known criminals who had haunted the city for so long. The police commissioners responded quickly to Mandelbaum’s charges on July 27, adopting a resolution that was sent immediately to the district attorney’s office. The resolution read:
Whereas, It appears by newspaper reports that certain charges and allegations have been made against members of the police force connected with the Detective Bureau; and
Whereas, This Board is desirous that any and all members of the force shall be tried, and, if found guilty, to be dismissed from the force or otherwise punished, The Board, on the 25th instant, addressed a letter to the District Attorney asking for information, to which a reply was received Now, therefore, for the purposes of obtaining full information in relation to the subject matter, it is
Resolved, That the Inspector in charge of the Detective Bureau be and is hereby directed to report in writing at an early day all the acts and proceeding within his knowledge, which may enable the Board of Police to decide to what extent, if any, the force under his command is censurable for the acts done or committed in the case referred to; and that he also investigate and report in relation to the character and source of the embarrassments which attend the performance of detective duties, to the end that the Board may take any measures as shall be deemed proper to encourage and protect the members of the force in all cases in the prompt and vigorous discharge of their responsible duties, and punish such as shall fail to properly discharge such duties.
A NUT FOR THE POLICE COMMISSIONERS
District Attorney Olney yesterday sent the following communication to the Board of Police Commissioners in reply to their note requesting information as to the charges against the police in the Mandelbaum case:
DEAR SIR: Your note addressed to me by direction of the Board of Police, was received at this office, and its receipt acknowledged by my assistant Mr. Parris in my absence. I am now, and shall be at all times, desirous to aid in the correction of any abuses which may exist in the police force in any of its branches. But, in view of the proceedings and investigation still pending, it is my judgment, as prosecuting officer charged with the conduct of these matters, that the public interests would suffer should I at the present time comply with the request contained in your note. I am yours,
PETER B. OLNEY
District Attorney
—The New York Times, August 2, 1884
The investigation into the alleged police corruption fell to Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes. Byrnes immediately called together several police captains and officers and conducted a series of interviews with them. When asked by a New York Times reporter, “Is the district attorney’s office one of the embarrassments besetting the performance of the detective duties?” Byrnes responded cryptically, “We will find out now. We want to get at what is the matter.”
Police Commissioner James Mathews was more forthcoming regarding the charges and ongoing investigation. The charges of police corruption, according to Mathews, who had been appointed commissioner in 1881, were “groundless, but we will do our best to find out.” Mathews told reporters, “I think the District Attorney ought not to be hasty in condemning a department on the evidence of a convicted felon. He ought to be slow to cast discredit on men who have charge of the property and lives of the citizens of a great city like this. On the contrary, he ought to aid the police to the extent of his ability, and whenever they are derelict, report the facts to this Board, that they may be punished or dismissed from the force. I very much mistake the character for fairness of Mr. Olney, if he does not at an early day publicly correct, as far as his office is concerned, any charge reflecting upon the efficiency of the detective force. Disaster to the public interests must follow unless the arresting and prosecuting authorities concur and act together.”
Byrnes filed a report with the police commissioners saying that he had found no wrongdoing on behalf of the police department.
NEW YORK OFFICIALS AT WAR INSPECTOR BYRNES’S SCATHING PRESENTMENT OF THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
Relating to the charges alleged against the Detective Police force in New York by the District Attorney, especially in reference to the Mother Mandelbaum case, Inspector Byrnes made the following report to the Police Board yesterday:
GENTLEMEN—I have the honor to submit herewith a report in response to your resolution of July 26, a portion of which calls for an investigation and report in relation to the character of the embarrassments in which attend the performance of detective duty in this city. In describing some of the difficulties connected with the proper administration of the Detective Bureau, it is desirable that the misstatements and misrepresentations recently published should be corrected, and also that the District Attorney, Peter P. Olney, and his assistant, Henry G. Allen, are not only antagonistic to the Detective Bureau and the Police Department, but in their official capacity are enemies of the public good. . . .
—Brooklyn Eagle, August 3, 1884
No one expected anything less from Byrnes’s report, although no one expected his report to be so openly hostile toward the district attorney’s office. William Howe had succeeded in turning the tables on both the police and the district attorney. Instead of focusing on Mandelbaum, they were at each other’s throats. Byrnes’s report went on to call into question the district attorney’s relationship with “disreputable lawyers and convicted felons,” for the sole purpose of “defaming the character of honest, trustworthy and efficient officers.” According to Byrnes the ongoing hostility toward the police department by Olney and his offices only contributed to the “defeat of the ends of justice . . .”
Byrnes reiterated the claim that Olney’s office had been reluctant or unable to produce sufficient evidence to support his claim that police officers and detectives acted inappropriately in the Mandelbaum case. “From the time I was assigned to the command of the Detective Bureau in March 1880, the house of Mrs. Mandelbaum has been constantly under surveillance,” Byrnes claimed. He went on to charge that Assistant District Attorney Allen had been protecting known criminals. According to Byrnes, during his interrogation of a well-known robber, who confessed to doing business with Mandelbaum, the robber stated to him that he was protected by police prosecution by his friend Allen from the district attorney’s office and that he never did any business except under the advice of Allen. He confessed to Byrnes that Allen always removed any legal obstructions and that he always consulted Allen before engaging in any criminal activity making sure to get Allen’s blessing beforehand.
MR. OLNEY’S BOOMERANG INSPECTOR BYRNES ON THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE MR. ALLEN’S SHADY FRIENDS—THE WAY HE ASSISTED (?) JUSTICE—HOW THE HOEY AFFIDAVITS WERE OBTAINED
I [Byrnes] first learned Mollie Hoey had made statements against members of the department through the boasting of her consort, “Jimmy” Hoey, in various disreputable places which are the resort of thieves. He claimed that the District Attorney had promised her immunity from punishment if she would make certain statements against police officers and other officials. He also stated that at the request of Mr. Allen he should corroborate what she said. . . . Next day (Sunday) a disreputable lawyer, Samuel A. Noyes, of No. 62 Cedar-street, and Mr. Jordan, a stenographer attached to the District Attorney’s office went to her and obtained statements from her against detective officers and others . . . Samuel Noyes once tried unsuccessfully to compromise a case of a bank robber, Jordan, with Inspector Byrnes. “It is only recently,” continues the Inspector, “that Daniel Noyes (the brother of Samuel Noyes) met a gentleman at Long Branch and asked him if he had the New-York papers on our detective force. He replied that he had. Noyes said: Well they brought it all on themselves. My brother had a suit against a woman named Mandelbaum for $6,666, and the detectives could have made her “settle” if they felt so disposed. They did not do so and now he’s getting even. . . . You have been a long while in the Police Department and ought to know better than to insist on having a case tried when we don’t want it tried, and the best thing you can do is to have nothing more to say about it . . .”
—The New York Times, August 3, 1884
According to Byrnes, Olney’s condemnation of the detective bureau and himself had to do with politics—Olney was a Democrat and he (Byrnes) was a Republican who had not agreed to help Olney during a past election. “That the District Attorney may have a personal dislike for me I can readily understand, for at one time he discovered that he could not use me in my official capacity for his own political advancement,” Byrnes said. All told, it was a damning indictment against the district attorney’s office but the more Byrnes and the police department attacked the district attorney’s office, without providing a reasonable explanation why Fredericka Mandelbaum was able to conduct her illegal operations for twenty years without prosecution, the more public sympathy shifted away from Mandelbaum. Neither the public nor the newspapers, fed up with what they saw as police corruption, bought into Byrnes’s attack and soon both Byrnes and the police department found themselves on the defensive.
Mr. HAWLEY ‘did not know why it was that the District Attorney’s office acted in a way to evince hostility.’ And yet there is a plausible explanation. It is that a District Attorney may sometimes be an eccentric person who honestly means to do his duty and enforce the laws. It would be interesting to know how such a person could fail to ‘evince hostility’ toward the Police Department.”
—The New York Times, July 29, 1884
Olney’s public response to Byrnes’s charges was swift, thorough, and damning. He began by dispelling any charge of wrong-doing as far as Mollie Hoey was concerned. According to Olney no application for a pardon had been sought for Hoey as compensation for her testimony against either Mandelbaum or the police department. “I was informed that both Mollie Hoey and her husband, James Hoey, were both willing to give me all the information in their power relative to the Mandelbaum woman and her methods and ways of carrying on her criminal practices,” Olney said. He then did his best to debunk Byrne’s charges against him. “The Inspector makes some other allegations against me which are not only trashy in their nature, but untrue,” Olney said. “I never asked him at that or any other time to do anything in any manner improper. The question of his politics has nothing to do with this matter.” According to Olney, “I always understood that he was a Republican, though the question of his politics has nothing to do with this matter.”
He went on to say that regarding the charges Byrnes made against Deputy Assistant Henry C. Allen that, “and other matters in the office which occurred prior to my becoming its chief, Mr. Allen, who is of age, can speak for himself.” Olney went on to defend Allen, however, by saying he’d been told by many sources that “Mr. Allen was more accomplished and learned in the criminal law than any man . . . at the Bar in the city. . . . I have found Mr. Allen at all times energetic, industrious, intelligent and zealous in the discharge of his duties.”
GIVING THE LIE DIRECT MR. OLNEY’S ANSWER TO INSPECTOR BYRNES WHY HE DID NOT EMPLOY THE POLICE—THE PERSECUTION OF MOLLIE HOEY—WHITEWASHING MR. ALLEN
“The Inspector inquires whether it is in accordance with my ideas of justice and public policy that public officers should be charged in the press with atrocious crimes and not have the opportunity of refuting the charge. My answer to that is, those charges have been made in the public press in considerable detail, and if the Police Board is anxious to investigate them, why don’t they do so? They would seem to be of a sufficiently serious nature to demand their attention.”
—The New York Times, August 5, 1884
Perhaps most damning to the police department was Olney’s explanation why he had hired Pinkerton detectives rather than go to the police in his effort to finally apprehend Mandelbaum. According to Olney he had many reasons. First and foremost it was because of Superintendent Walling’s statement that the police had been unable to arrest Mandelbaum. And if that wasn’t enough, according to Olney, there was the incident involving James Hoey. Hoey had been threatened by the police before the civil trial against Mandelbaum. Hoey was told that if he testified against Mrs. Mandelbaum that his wife, Mollie, who was then incarcerated in Boston on other charges, would be brought back to New York to be tried on more serious charges. After Hoey did testify in the case where the jury found Mandelbaum guilty, unbeknownst to Olney, a detective was sent by direction of the Detective Bureau to Boston to extradite Mollie Hoey to New York. The police department’s ineptitude in arresting Mandelbaum over the years, their overt hostility toward the district attorney’s office, and the department’s behavior toward Hoey and his wife were all good enough reasons, Olney maintained, to circumvent the usual police channels in apprehending Mandelbaum.
Without consulting with the district attorney’s office, the police department had decided unilaterally to transport Mollie Hoey from Boston back to New York City where she was incarcerated. The police reportedly wished to send Mollie Hoey to Riker’s Island located in the East River between Queens and the Bronx. Women prisoners were held at Riker’s. The island was bought by New York City from the Riker family in 1884 for $180,000. According to Olney, the police had taken steps against Mollie Hoey in retaliation for her husband’s testimony against Mandelbaum in the previous civil case.
The confession of Superintendent Walling that twenty-five years had been spent by the police in an effort to convict this notorious receiver in chief of stolen goods, recently made in print, furnishes Inspector Byrnes with a stumbling block in his attack against the public prosecutor that the latter is not slow to avail himself of. That one shrewd woman at the head of an organization of criminals—a class notoriously deficient in intellect—should defy the combined wisdom, enterprise, ingenuity and authority of a police force for twenty-five years is a fact that does not at once seem to establish beyond a doubt the claim that it is the finest, most intelligently and most honestly administered force in the world.
—Brooklyn Eagle, August 3, 1884
Byrnes was slinging mud at the district attorney’s office at an alarming rate. Olney had to strike back hard. He challenged Byrnes and the New York City Police Department to undertake a full investigation based on the recent May 15, 1884, findings of the Roosevelt Committee which had been charged by the state legislature to investigate years of reported corruption within the New York City Police Department. Freshman Assemblyman Theodore Roosevelt served as the chairman of the committee, hence its name. “If they (the Police Department) are really anxious to investigate, why not take up the charges made by the Roosevelt Committee in May last?” Olney had asked.
According to Roosevelt’s report, “there are graver instances of wrong doings where the Commissioners have failed and seemingly willfully failed to do their duty as required by law.” The Roosevelt Committee charged “that a large amount of the vice, drunkenness and misery which exist in the City of New York is due to the failure of the Board of Police Commissioners to discharge their duties relative to the enforcement of the laws.”
It was a stinging indictment.
“I have never yet heard that the Police Department made any investigations or made any reform or changes in the administration of their department in consequence of this report,” Olney fired back at Byrnes and the police department. “Counsel for the Mandelbaum woman have already prevailed upon their client to say in court that the prosecution against her was a prosecution against the police, thus seeking to confuse the real issue, and one of her counsel has said that in such a fight he was with Inspector Byrnes,” Olney charged. “And am I to suppose that in a fight of the people against Mandelbaum the Inspector is to be on her side?” he charged.
And that wasn’t the end of it. Assistant District Attorney Allen also took a potshot at Byrnes and the police in the papers.
ANOTHER SHOT AT BYRNES THE WAR BETWEEN THE POLICE AND THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY ASSISTANT ALLEN THROWS HIS HANDFUL OF MUD AND REPEATS THE CHARGES AGAINST THE DETECTIVES
Assistant District Attorney Allen made a very long reply to the charges of Inspector Byrnes in his communication to the Board of Police on Saturday last. Mr. Allen characterized them as most wanton, vile and malicious.
—The New York Times, August 8, 1884
Henry Allen had been with the distinct attorney’s office since 1858. In his own estimation, he was “very conversant with the nature of the peculiar relations which exist between the police and criminals.” According to Allen, despite Byrnes’s claim that Mandelbaum’s operations had been ended because of the outstanding efforts of the New York City Police Department, during the period of time her shop was under the surveillance of Pinkerton detectives, nearly 15,000 yards of stolen silk alone were bought and sold at her premises, and during this same period, known shoplifters, pickpockets, and sneak thieves were constantly entering her establishment day and night. Allen also took umbrage over Byrnes’s accusation that he had somehow betrayed the district attorney’s office by protecting various criminals from prosecution. Allen claimed, “if he has enjoyed any reputation at all in connection with that department it has been that of the most bitter enemy of crime and criminals of every grade and description.”Allen charged that every assertion Byrnes made about his relationship with Mollie Hoey was utterly untrue.
“The efficiency of this bureau during the four years that it has been under my charge has been publicly recognized by the Judges and officers of almost every court in this city. In strong contrast appears the condemnation and strictures in open court against the gross stupidity, carelessness, neglect, if nothing worse, of the officials in the District Attorney’s office for improperly preparing the cases for trials and thereby frustrating the ends of justice.”
—Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes, August 3, 1884
This public display of mudslinging went on for several days in the newspapers. It was ugly and nasty and benefited no one except Mandelbaum and her attorneys. Knowing that the hostility between the district attorney’s office and the police department would only play right into Mandelbaum’s hands, Olney decided to offer an olive branch. He needed the hostility to end so he could get on with the prosecution of the Mandelbaum case.
“I would like to say this further, that I cheerfully bear testimony to the courage, zeal and efficiency of the majority of the rank and file of the police force as I have had occasion to witness them since I have held this office. I am glad and proud to be associated with such as collaborators in the common cause of detecting and punishing crime,” Olney told reporters. Assistant District Attorney Allen joined Olney in trying to put an end to the dispute. According to a New York Times article dated August 8, “Mr. Allen, in conclusion, joins Mr. Olney in his commendation of the rank and file of the Police department, the body of men composing this department having shown themselves to be as a rule good men.”
The reputations of those connected with the District Attorney’s office and the Police Department were being irreparably damaged while Mandelbaum’s astute attorney William Howe gleefully stood by and watched. According to Scoundrels in Law by Cait Murphy, “Wisely, the two sides stopped after a couple of free and frank exchanges of views. No good to their reputations could come of this circular firing squad. They needed each other.” And so, the battle between them ended, with both sides forced to refrain from their public attacks and withdraw to lick their wounds. It was a foregone conclusion in just about every intelligent person’s mind that the New York City Police Department was riddled with corruption from the top, beginning with its four-member Board of Commissioners, down through precinct Captains, detectives, straight down to patrolmen who walked a beat. They were all on the take, some to a lesser degree than others and some on a much grander scale. The issue wasn’t determining if it existed—there was never any doubt of that and a plethora of hearsay evidence to substantiate it—but how to fix it. And more so, how to get any credible witnesses to testify against the police. New York State Assemblyman Theodore Roosevelt’s investigating committee of 1884 was not the first attempt at reigning in vice and corruption within the department. As early as 1840 there had been investigations but little had been accomplished.
It would not be until March 1894, when the Lexow Committee, chaired by state senator Clarence Lexow, that any real change occurred. By then Roosevelt had been appointed head the Board of Police Commissioners by the city’s newly elected, reform-minded mayor, William L. Strong. Once again, Roosevelt ran headlong into an array of his previous foes, including Inspector Byrnes, now Superintendent of the police department. This time, however, the results were much different than the 1884 investigation. The Lexow Committee was able to do what the 1884 Roosevelt Committee could not—it uncovered a reliable witness to testify about police corruption from the inside. That witness was Police Captain Max Schmittberger. He testified before the Lexow Committee that small vice shops paid $20 a month, for police protection although, he said, some monthly fees went as high as $200 a month for some of the more lucrative gambling dens or successful brothels. According to Schmittberger each police officer took a 20 percent cut from the bribes as the money made its way from the police to Tammany Hall. Schmittberger’s testimony before the Lexow Committee helped lead to the hiring of reform-minded Theodore Roosevelt as the New York City Police Commissioner in 1895. The Lexow Committee handed out approximately 70 indictments against various police officers, two former police commissioners, 20 police captains and three police inspectors. Although many of these men were convicted, the verdict against them was overturned in a higher court, which was overseen by hand-picked Tammany Hall judicial appointees. Many of those indicted were reinstated on the police force. Although the indictments didn’t stick, the city’s reform-minded citizenry forced out the Tammany Hall mayoral candidate in the city’s 1894 election. William L. Strong, a reform-minded Republican, was elected mayor and came into office with the clear and abiding mandate to reform the city’s police department. One of Mayor Strong’s first acts as the newly elected head of the city was to get rid of all the Tammany Hall–appointed Police Commissioners and appoint his own men to the positions. In 1896, Strong named the thirty-six-year-old Theodore Roosevelt as president of the newly organized Police Commission. One of Roosevelt’s first orders of business was to get rid of the upper echelon of the police department including Superintendent Thomas Byrnes. Byrnes resigned before Roosevelt could press charges against him.
“An earlier inquiry into the policing of the city had reported as long ago as 1840; another had sat in 1875; and a third (led by none other than Theodore Roosevelt) in 1884.
Each committee had found vice flourishing in the city, and each concluded that New York’s police abetted it. Firm evidence of wrongdoing, admittedly was scanty, and none of the commissions produced credible witnesses who could describe the inner workings of the system. Even so, accumulated testimony demonstrated that some senior officers had been pocketing $10,000 a year from graft as early as 1839.”
—Mike Dash, Satan’s Circus, 2007
Although the immediate impact of the Roosevelt Committee’s findings appeared futile, it managed to lay the foundation for further investigations which ultimately led to a variety of civil service reforms, including the forced resignation of Thomas Byrnes. The 1884 report by the committee laid out ten areas of concern that needed to be addressed along with a list of changes that needed to be made in order for the police department to rid itself of ongoing corruption. Among the committee’s recommendations was a call to disband the existing four-member Board of Police Commissioners, who were appointed by the mayor, and replace it with a single Commissioner, “either appointed to hold during good behavior or else who should take and leave office with the Mayor appointing him.” According to the report, “With a many-headed commission, moreover, the long-termed system works badly . . .” The Committee also called for police officers to be appointed through a civil service process rather than purely as political appointments. “The constant disregard of their own rules by the Commissioners, though very properly exposing them to severe criticism, is still an evil that can be in great part reached by legislation, for instance, by including the department within the provisions of the Civil Service Reform bill.”
The Committee identified gambling and prostitution as two of the main vices allowed to operate openly in New York City with seemingly no police interference. “Down to within the last two years the lottery policy business and kindred forms of gambling were conducted in New-York in the most open and defiant manner and to an extent which it was absolutely unpardonable of the police authorities to permit,” the report noted. The Committee further indicated that the matter of open gambling had been brought to the attention of the police department and its Commissioners again and again without any action being taken. It was further stated that the closure of illegal gambling businesses would not have occurred if it weren’t for the efforts of various public organizations and societies and the use of Pinkerton detectives. “Outside societies and private individuals with the help of Pinkerton detectives were able to put an end to it in many places . . .”
Roosevelt’s Committee also brought to light damning evidence of police payoffs by gambling establishments, including account books taken by Pinkerton detectives during their raids showing “numerous entries of expenses (amounting in the aggregate to thousands of dollars annually) under the head of “Police Moneys . . .” and in many of these instances these entries were accompanied by the name or the abbreviation of the name of the Captain in whose precinct the policy shop was.” According to the Committee far more arrests and convictions of known gamblers and the proprietors of gambling house enterprises had been made by Pinkerton detectives than the police.
According to the Committee’s report, “In a less degree, these remarks apply to the laws against prostitution. This is a vice that can probably never be eradicated, but the evils resulting from it can be minimized and at least such flagrant and offensive exhibitions of indecency as prevail in certain streets of the city can be prevented.”
The work of the Roosevelt Committee was long and laborious and although it did little at the time to stem the tide of police corruption it served as notice to the Police Commissioners and the department that they were being watched and that there would be changes coming. The Police Commissioners and men like Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes were hard-pressed to heed these warnings and instead spent their time defending the status quo of the department.
MR. BYRNES GETS EXCITED THE INSPECTOR’S ENERGETIC DEFENSE OF THE POLICE WHY DETECTIVES MUST ASSOCIATE WITH THIEVES AND GAMBLERS—COMMISSIONER CAUFIELD ON THE STAND
The Inspector called for a glass of water and sat down with the remark that he had been in the Police Department 21 years and any reflections on it were a great measure reflections on him. “Mr. Allen,” he added “always wanted me to cooperate with private detectives and I declined to do so.”
“Mr. Byrnes,” said Mr. Russell, “something has been said about police detectives associating with thieves. Is it apart of their duty?”
“Yes,” was the answer, “it is the first duty of a detective to make himself familiar with all kinds of criminals, expert cracksmen, their haunts and their methods. Without the knowledge thus gained he would be almost useless. Therein lies his power. Then, when anything happens he knows whom to ask for information, where to look and how to act. I myself daily spend two hours out of the 24 in the company of criminals. Oh no not because it’s a pleasure to me,” said the Inspector, when the committee laughed, “but because it’s my duty—my education.”
—The New York Times, May 13, 1884
The department was not without its supporters which included judges and former Commissioners. In light of the facts and in the face of historical evidence, their undying support seems ludicrous.
IN PRAISE OF THE POLICE THREE JUDGES SPEAK HIGHLY OF THE FORCE CAPTAINS AFRAID TO DO THEIR DUTY, ACCORDING TO MR. VOORHIS
The Assembly investigating committee devoted itself yesterday to listening to the defense offered by the Police Department to the many charges which have been made against it . . . Dock Commissioner Voorhis was the first witness called. He was cross-examined by Col. Bliss. He said that he thought that some of the Police Commissioners during his term of office were indifferent on the question of shutting up houses of prostitution but he did not know that any Commissioners had taken any money from these places . . . Judge Rufus B. Cowing of the City Court was the next witness called. On the examination by ex-Judge Russell the Judge said that he knew every Police Captain on the force and many of the police force. “During the past five years,” said Judge Cowing, “from what I have seen of the police I unhesitatingly say that they are efficient and trustworthy. Capt. Williams from my observation is a very brave and efficient officer. I believe that he is a man of strict integrity and I take no stock in the rumors that have been circulated against him . . .” Judge Henry A. Gildersleeve, of the Court of the general Sessions was called by Mr. Russell. He said that in his judgment the police force was exceedingly efficient, very trustworthy and one of which the city should be proud. The Judge said that the condition of the city so far as crime was concerned was improving all the time . . .