The Washington herald., 1913-08-17

the fact that power which will enable
q man to do job well will also neces-
sarily enable him to do, II Ill II he 10 the
wrong kind OF man. What Ii n0rmslly
needed Is the concentration in the. hands
Of one man. or Of very small body Of
men. of ample power to enable him or
them to do the work that Is necessary:
these men fully responsible for the ex-
ercise of that power by the people.
This, of course. means that, IL the peo-
lie are willing to see power misused. 1t
will be misused. But II also means that
IL, as We hold. the people are mt for self
government-if. in other words, our talk
and our institutions are not shams-we
will get good government. ! do not con-
tend that my theory will automatically
bring good government do contend
that 1t will enable US to get as good
other way will not.
Checking Efficiency.
The then government Of the Police De-
partment was SO devised as to render II
most difficult to accomplish anything
good. while the field for intrigue and con-
spiracy was limitiess. There were four
commissioners. two supposed to belong
to one party and two to the other. al
though, as a mater OF fact. they never
divided on parry lines.
There was a chief, appointed by the
commissioners. but whom they could not
remove without a regular trial subject to
review by the courts Of law. This chief
and any ole commissioner had power To
hold up most of the acts Of the three
other commissioners. 1t was made easy
for the four commissioners to come to
lAa ND
dagger was avoided. 1t was easy for one
commissioner. by intriguing with the
chief. to bring the three others to a stand
still.
The commissioners were appointed by
the mayor. but he could not remove them
without the assent of the governor, who
was usually politically opposed to him.
In the same way the commissioners could
appoint the patrolmen. but they could not
went up for review to the courts.
As was inevitable under our system Of
l.w procedure. this meant that the action
of the court was apt to be determined
by legal technicalities 1t was possible
TO dismiss a man from the service for
quite insufficient reasons, and to pro-
"ide against the reversal of the sentence,
il the technicalities OF procedure were
observed.
but tHe WOrst CTlnllndlS were apt tu
be adroit men, against whom II was i'm
possible to get legal evidence which
court could properly consider in a GRIM
inal trial (and the mood Of the court
might be to treat the case as II IL were
n criminal triaD, although II was easy 20
get evidence which would render 1t not
merely jrstifable, but necessary for .
man to remove them from his private
cmploy-and surely the public should be
as well treated as a private employee.
Accordingly. most Of the worst men
Put out were reinstated by the courts:
and when the Mayor attempted to re-
move one OF my colleagues who
made II his business to try to pullify the
work done by the rest of us, the Cover
nor sided with the recalcitrant commits
sioner and refused to permit his removal.
Nevertheless. an astounding quantity OF
work was done in reforming the force.
We had a good deal of power. anyhow:
We exercised II to the full: and ".
accomplished some things by assuming
the appearance OF a power which We did
not really possess.
Keeping Politics Out.
The first fight made was to keep rol-
itics absolutely out of the force: and not
only politics. but every kind of improper
favoritism. Doubtless in making thou
sands of appointments and hundreds OF
promotions there were men who ccn-
trived to use influence of which i was