Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1901-10-04

United States Civil Service Commits
sion. His ability and rugged honesty
in the administration of the affairs OF
that Office greatly helped to strengthen
his hold on popular regard.
Police Conmi1sioner in Metz
... York.
Roosevelt continued in that Office un-
til May /, 1895, when he resigned to
accept the Office of Police Commits
sioner from M.yor Strong. He found
the administration of affairs in de-
moralized condition, but he soon
brought. order out Of chaos. Says James
A. Riis, who is an intimate friend OF
President Roosevelt:
We had been trying for forty years to
achieve system Of dealing decently with
our homeless poor. Two score years be-
fore. the surgeons of the police depart
ment had pointed out that herding them
in the cellars or over the prisons OF police
stations in fostering heaps. and turning
them out hungry at daybreak to beg their
way from door to door, was indecent ana
inhuman. Since then grand juries, acad-
emies of medicine, committees on phil
anthropic citizens, had attacked the foul
disgrace, but to no purpose. Pestilence
ravaged the prison lodgings, but still they
stayed. I know what that fight meant.
for l was one of a committee that waged
it year after year, and suffered defeat
every time, until Theodore Roosevelt
came and destroyed the nuisance IN
night. I remember the caricatures OF
tramps shivering in the cold with whlcn
the yellow newspapers pursued MIN at
the time, labelling him the poor man
foe." And remember being just little
uneasy lest they wound him. and perhaps
make him think he had been hasty. But
not he 1t was only those who did not
know him who charged him with pelns
hasty. He thought a thing out quickly
yes, that Is his way; but he thought it
out, and, having thought it out. suited ac-
ton to his judgment. OF the consequences
he didn't think at all. He made sure ne
was right, and then went ahead with per
feet confidence that things would come
out right.
His AdUice TO Or6anized Labor.
Mr.. Riis says he never saw Roose-
welt to better advantage than when ne
once confronted the labor men at their
meeting-place, Clarendon Hall:
The police were all the time having
trouble with strikers and their ''pickets.
Roosevelt saw that it was because neith-
er party understood fully the position OF
the other, and, with his usual dlrectness,
sent word to the labor organizations that
he would like to talk it over with them-
At his request I went with him to the
meeting. 1t developed almost immedi-
ately that the labor men had taken a
wrong measure of the man. They met him
as politician playing for points and
limited at trouble unless their demands
were met. MIR. Roosevelt broke them off
short:
'Gentemen"' he said-with that snap
Of the jaws that always made people lis
/ tent asked to meet you. hoping that
we might come to understand one anoth-
Their, that the worst injury anyone Of you
can do to the cause of labor is to counsel
violence. 1t will also be worse for him
self. Understand distinctly that order
Will be kept. The police Will keep 1T. Now
we can proceed.
I was never so proud end pleased as
when they applauded him to the echo. He
Redeemed with pleasure, for he saw that
the best in them had come out on top,
he expected it would
Attracted BY ''yeiiotO" Net0s-
papers.
It was of this incident that handle
was first made by Mr.. Roosevelt's enc
mics in and out of the police board
and he had many-to attack him:
1t happened that there was music
hall in the building in which the labor
men met. The yellow newspapers circu-
lated the lie that he went there on pur-
pose to see the show, and the ridiculous
story was repeated until actually the
liars persuaded themselves that it was so.
They would not have been able to under
stand the kind of man they had to do
with, had they tired. Accordingly they
fell into their own trap. 1t is a tradition
of Mulberry Street that the notorious
Seeley dinner raid was planned by his en-
emies in the department Of which he was
the head, in the belief that they would
catch Mr.. Roosevelt there. The dinners
were supposed to be his set"
Some time after that, Mr.. Riis was
in Roosevelt's Office when police Of
fetal Of superior rank came in, and re-
uuested a private audience with him:
They stepped aside and the policeman
smoke in an undertone. urging something
strongly. Mr.. Roosevelt listened. Sud-
denly l saw him straighten up as man
recoils from something unclean. and dis
miss the other with sharp: mo. sir! l
don't fight that way" The policeman
went out crestfallen. Roosevelt took two
or three turns about the floor, struggling
evidently with strong disgust. He told