rst criminals
were apt to be adroit men, against whom it was impossible to get legal
evidence which a court could properly consider in a criminal trial
(and the mood of the court might be to treat the case as if it were a
criminal trial), although it was easy to get evidence which would render
it not merely justifiable but necessary for a man to remove them from
his private employ--and surely the public should be as well treated as
a private employer. Accordingly, most of the worst men put out were
reinstated by the courts; and when the Mayor attempted to remove one of
my colleagues who made it his business to try to nullify the work done
by the rest of us, the Governor sided with the recalcitrant Commissioner
and refused to permit his removal.

Nevertheless, an astounding quantity of work was done in reforming the
force. We had a good deal of power, anyhow; we exercised it to the full;
and we accomplished some things by assuming the appearance of a power
which we did not really possess.

The first fight I made was to keep politics absolutely out of the force;
and not only politics, but every kind of improper favoritism. Doubtless
in making thousands of appointments and hundreds of promotions there
were men who contrived to use influence of which I was ignorant. But
these cases must have been few and far between. As far as was humanly
possible, the appointments and promotions were made without regard to
any question except the fitness of the man and the needs of the
service. As Civil Service Commissioner I had been instructing heads
of departments and bureaus how to get men appointed without regard to
politics, and assuring them that by following our methods they
would obtain first-class results. As Police Commissioner I was able
practically to apply my own teachings.

The appointments to the police force were made as I have described
in the last chapter. We paid not the slightest attention to a man's
politics or creed, or where he was born, so long as he was an American
citizen; and on an average we obtained far and away the best men
that had ever come into the Police Department. It was of course very
difficult at first to convince both the politicians and the people that
we really meant what we said, and that every one really would have a
fair trial. There had been in previous years the most widespread
and gross corruption in connection with every activity in the Police
Department, and there had been a regular tari