The Leon reporter., 1901-10-10
!26h pRESIDENTtofM u, S. !

i2on PREolDE
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 Commissioner in Metz
York.
Roosevelt continued in that office un-
til May 1, 1895, when he resigned to
accept the Office of Police Commits
sioner from Mayor 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 and
1nhuman. Since then grand juries, acad-
emies of medicine, committees on phil
anthropic citizens, had attacked the foul
disgrace, but to no purpose. Pestilence
rayaged the prison lodgings, but still they
stayed. I know what that fight meant,
TOR l was one of a committee that waged
IL year after year, and suffered defeat
every time, until Theodore Roosevelt
came and destroyed the nuisance in a
night. l remember the caricatures OF
tramps shivering in the cold with which
the yellow newspapers pursued him at
the time, labelling him the poor mans
foe" And / remember being just a 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 being
nasty. 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 he
was right, and then went ahead with per-
1ect confidence that things would come
out right.
HIS Aduice to Organized Labor.
Mr.. Riis says he never saw Roose-
welt to better advantage than when he
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 directness,
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
n ffnfr, ~ Fo, =
hlnted at trouble unless their demands
were met. Mr.. Roosevelt broke them off
short:
Gentlemen he said-wth that snap
OF the jaws that always made people lis
ten-"1 asked to meet you, hoping that
we might come to understand one anoth-
er. Remember, please, before we go fur
ther, 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 it. Now
| we can proceed
/ 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,
as he expected it would
ATTACHED by "yelios0" NetOs-
papers.
1t was of this incident that a 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 tradition
| of Mulberry Street that the notorious
| Seeley dinner raid was plannedsby 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-
quested private audience with him:
They stepped aside and the policeman
| spoke in an undertone, urging something
strongly. Mr.. Roosevelt listened Sud-
denly saw him straighten up as man
recoils from something unclean, and dis
miss the other with a sharp: mo, sir! I
fon't fsb' sthetassway." The policeman
! z floor, struggling
gust He told