The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-09-25
New York Moi Satisfied
With Its Police
Nobody Has Ever Run the Force the Way Tom
ByrneS Did.

New York, Sept. 24.-The people and
the papers are making a good-sized
howl about the laxity of the police.
They have been doing this, much of
the time, ever since Thomas H. Byrnes
stepped down and out as head of the
department.
And say what you WILL in his day
tom" Byrnes, with all his defects
and shortcomings, was about the most
efficient policeman that has ever step
ped foot upon Manhattan Island.
In the heyday of his power he was
by all odds the best known police Off
Ger in the world. Since his deposition
New York has had no one at the head
of the force to compare with him as
fame winner. big Bill" Devery won
some notoriety while police head, but
it was his picturesque slang and his
blunt ways that made him widely
known, not his work as a policeman.
Besides, though New York would be
shocked to know it, there are many
places where big Bill'' has never been
heard of.
Byrnes, on the other hand, was
known almost everywhere by thief,
thug, safe robber and good citizen
alike, and always as a past master in
the arts of finding and locking up
criminals and then of furnishing the
testimony to convict them.
Byrnes undoubtedly got the lions
share of his reputation by clearing the
Wall street district of thieves and
confidence men, and by the large pro-
portions of convictions which he Sc
cured. Undoubtedly, too, he deserved
all the good words he received.
His plan for keeping the wrong per-
sons out of Wall street was simple 1t
was also beyond the law, if not, strict
ly speaking, Illegal. He merely gave
it out generally that any man with a
criminal record that might be found in
the financial district would be arrest
ed summarily, whether he had done
anything out of the way or not. The
effect was magical Although there
were many predictions that the scheme
wouldn't work, that the legality of the
order would be successfully assailed
and so rendered worthless, nobody
ever attempted to asSail it, even, and
1t was working perfectly within a very
short time after it was PROMULGATED.
Wall street and the financial district
are as well policed to-day as they were
in Byrnes' time. There were practical
~ ITO ToDDSrleS at all IN LnaL part OF
the town after the order had taken eff
feet, and there are none now but it is
Tom Byrnes and not Commissioner Nc
Adoo who gets the credit for this.
Byrnes thought out and put the plan
afloat; those who have succeeded him
have merely Travelled along the same
lines as he did.
In this matter of securing convic-
lions BYrneS was a wonder. Not only
was a larger percentage of the persons
arrested during his regime sent to
prison than under any more recent po-
lice administration, but there were also
arrests in larger percentage of cases.
Many of his critics said then, and say
now, that his convictions were some
times fakes. obtained by threats, tor
ture and false swearing. Possibly that
is true, but, all the same, Byrnes sent
more real criminals to prison than any
enc ever did before him or than any
one ever has since his day.
One case in which Byrnes and his
methods appeared in a particularly bad
light was that of "Frenchy Number
One" who was convicted of murder
ing woman by the peculiar methods
of London's Jack the Ripper
French Number One has long been