The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1894-11-22
MR. GOFF INTERVIEWED.
The New York Lawyer Talks Of
Municipal Misrule,
POWER OF GOTHAMs PoLIOBFoROB

was Far Worse Than Under st. Peters
burg's Most Violent Police Regulations.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22.-Mr John w.
Gon, the prosecuting attorney for the
LeXOw Investigating committee, who is
stopping in Washington for few days,
has given The Evening Star an interest
ing interview of nearly three columns on
the work of the committee.
1T was, as you may imagine" he said,
"a tremendous task that confronted us
when we started the investigation. There
were two distinct elements that pre-
vented, at the beginning n fair start and
handicapped us i'm our efforts to get reli
able testimony. These were the fear and
apathy of the citizens
81 speak within the bounds of my knowl-
edge when / say that there was not a busi-
ness man in New York city who had not
felt the power of police blackmail. There
were perhaps "a very few instances where
honorable men had refused to give their
tithes of Illegal tax to the police, but al
most without exception these men were
forced out of business.
zone peculiar feature of the blackmail
was that it spared no one class, however
obscure their calling. l have particularly
in mind the sailmakers, who are among
the most upright and sturdily honest peo-
pie of New York They are mostly retired
sea captains, commanders of the old
clipper ships, who have been forced out of
business by the introduction of steam or
their sons. Not one of these honest men
dared to open his mouth and complain.
Our duty was to arouse the conscience
of the people of New York, which had long
been smothered-almost killed. The COM
mon people, the voters, the people who
most felt the oppression Of the police, would
need to be aroused by different methods.
The spectacle Of little boy sitting all
night on a doorstep of police station cry
ing bitterly for his father, who had been
unjustly arrested and brutally beaten by
the police, meantmore TO these people than
the demonstration that the captain had
paid large money for his promotion or that
the commissioner perhaps, had been
bribed The common folks would not
notice such matters, but they would notice
the tyranny of the police over the apple
woman, over the peanut rooster, the boot
black the newsbuy, the keeper of a small
soda water stand the owners of little res
taurants-a great class of honest citizens
striving, struggling for living.
"You may be surprised when l say that
New York, under the rule of the police de-
partment, as it was controlled by Tam
many Hall, was far worse, as regards the
individual comfort of citizens, than st.
Petersburg under it's most violent police
regulation. This was accidentally illus
trated by a witness who took the stand
one day. He was Pole, who had been
sent to Siberia as a result of the Polish in
surrection. He had escaped and reached
this country, and about year after his
arrival he was unjustly arrested and
cruelty beaten. When he was asked how
the police Of New York compared with
those of st Petersburg he answered that
/ Russian police are gentle and humane
com pared with those of our city.
'As an illustration of the tremendous
J power welded by this organization l will
refer to the difficulty we had in obtaining
! witnesses to go upon the stand and swear
| to facts that they had brought to us in
/ private. At first this applied to all classes,
both reputable and disreputable. When
| appealed to they would claim that if they
! should testify the police would hound
them out of the city. When asked if they
could not go elsewhere and establish them
( selves in business they would reply that
( the persecution of the police Of New York
country, and we gradually revealed the
astounding fact that the police of New
York dominated not only that city, but
every large community in the country.
"The lower classes of citizens were made
to believe that the blackmail was lawful
and regular. They came to consider the
captain of their precinct rs the source Of
all municipal authority. In effect, he was
such to them. This was illustrated by the
introduction of the word pantata' into
our language.
"You ask me if l think this power is
now crushed. / do most emphatically. l
think that, the public conscience having
once been aroused, the machinery of this
nauseous system exposed, will be a per
petual bar against the development of such
an organization in the future. l consider
the great danger to our form of govern
lies in the possibility of municipal mis-
rule. The tendency is too strongly to-
ward the growth of the urban community
at the expense of the rural. This feeds
the machine that, if not watched and
checked will grow to such corrupting in
fluence as that which we have just de-
stroyed in New York Capitalization, /
believe, as this investigation has proved, is
the danger Of the day. / believe that the
, example OF New Ork VIII serve to check
this tendency toward corruption and po-
lice domination
i 81 cannot answer the question as to
, where the blackmail money went or in
what proportions it was distributed, for
that is a personal matter, which would
force me TO mention names. Nor can
tell you just what lines the committee
" II take upon the resumption of its work
D
to finish the work by the first of January
Then l will be obliged to leave the COM
, mittee to assume the duties Of my Office.
Refuse to Change Their Charter.
. PITTsBURG, Nov % - The board oi
trustees of the Western Theological sem
mary Of this city met yesterday and re
fused to concur in the recommendation o.
the prpehr.nrinn General Assembly thai