Arizona republican., 1909-11-14
THE POLICE cAMoRRA.
Its Code of Stick Together and Don't
 SqueaI lnexorable.

There is no subject which engages the attention of the American people so much as their police. Take the smallest town in the United States. with only a handful of bluecoats. and you find that ''the force" is it's un- comfortable bugaboo. Few municipal campaigns are decided without the police being the ruling or one of the determining issues. Decent men are elected to office who hurl themselves at the monster of police corruption and graft. Some times they catch a crooked chief or captain or patrol man. and break" him, but when it comes to a criminal prosecution and putting him in stripes there is always a fly in the ointment of correction. They must rely on the untrustworthy and prejudiced sources of the police themselves or the vengeful tongues of the underworld for the convicting testimony. and in nine cases out Of ten the element of reasonable doubt becomes the key of defendants es- cape. In all the reform upheavals in New York only one police captain has ever been put in stripes. He was man named Carpenter, who. after being dismissed from the force" pleaded guilty to save him. self the expense of a trial, and went to the county penitentiary for thirty days. The decent men pass out of office. and winch the wheel turns around again and new set is elected they are confronted with the eternal problem of clean government-the po- lice.
 What is true of San Francisco is true of Detroit What is true of Philadelphia is true of St. Paul What is true of Chicago is true of New York. The police are law unto themselves ''The system" is every where It is more than a system; it is a camorra. The code of stick together and don't squear is inex- orable. Few policemen have trans gressed it and escaped the penalty. Notably among this few in all the history of the American police Is Chief Inspector Max Schmittberger of New York He "sduealed" to the famous Lexow committee; he told how much graft he had collected. by whose orders he collected it, and with whom he divided it. He was only a wardman when he made that confession. but he has managed to come along through the intervening time and ranks to his present posi- tion. I have said that he has es- capped the penalty of transgressing the code. So far he has escaped il.
 It is in New York. with its 10000 men in hlue@the second largest force in the world-that the police have reduced self-government to an incor- pOrated science. They go on ruling themselves cOrruptly. confidently. and insolently, year in and year out. de- spite administrations good. bad and indifferent It is in New York that you find the police code refined to the last degree: it is there that you will find organization intrenched and so powerful that it has been and Is able to invade the legislature with money bags and impunity. and order the fate Of laws. or. failing. flout the laws it hates. This organization of the police is .veritable camorra. In it are such elements that. given the occasion and a daring leader. and New York would have to turn to sol- diers to preserve its peace, as did Paris a short time since. when her municipal employees struck, It pro- tects its loyal sons and damns the disloyal It insures a policeman against dismissal by those in author ity. IL pays him a price for losing his position through breaking the law Golfers Weekly.