The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-02-14
CITY CLUB ENDORSES
POLICE LEGISLATION
But Thinks the Commissioners
Term Should Not BE Longer
Than the Mayors.
DIR. ABBOTT PRAISES BILLS
Says Honest Policemen Should
Welcome Change in
Discipline.

Mayor Mitchels police bills which he
hopes will bring Col Goethals here as
Commissioner were Endorsed yesterday
by the City club. which prepared this
| statement:
After careful consideration we heartily
support the Mayors police legislation
We do so because We believe any man fit
to be olice Commissioner ought TO have
force responsive to his wishes and COM
mands.
I'VE believe further that this respon-
siveness can best be secured by greater
disciplinary powers In the Police Com
missioner rather than by destroying the
coherency Of our government by giving
to the Commissioner "A term OF Office longer
than or Independent of the term Of the
Mayor"
The City club also notes that ex-Com-
missioner Bingham said before the Curran
committee last year:
Il am satisfied no injustice would be
done IL after the Commissioner has, dis
missed a man from the force II were
utterly impossible for him ever to get
back again. That would put a cast
steel backbone into the discipline of that
department which would nearly solve your
question of itself"
Before the same committee Chief Mag
istrate McAdoo also a former Police
Commissioner, said
when | went up to Mulberry street
and had been there a couple of days there
walked in, ! think, five inspectors with
their back pay in their pockets and vindi-
cation from the Supreme Court. all to be
reinstated, and a great many Of the men
THAT were tried and found guilty under
my administration were put back"
xMayor Mcclellan told the commit
tee he believed that the right of the
court review is inimical to good discipline
ana that a man once dismissed from the
force, even unjustly, should not get back.
The City Club is sending out pamphlet
advocating the passage OF the bills II
includes an argument by Mayor Mitchell
Dr. Lyman Abbott sent a letter to
Mayor Mitchell yesterday saying that he
heartily approves of the so-called Goe-
thals police bills now in the Legislature.
He said
ITO make a police force effective dis
cipline should DE both prompt and de-
cisve, IL from the disciplinary decisions
OF the Police Commissioner an appeal Is
allowed to the civil courts and they are
authorized to retry the question whether
his decision Is right or not discipline can
neither be prompt nor decisive. No Police
Commissioner has been able to maintain
Il thoroughly efficient police organization
because of this fatal defect in the law
THE honest and efficient policeman
should welcome this change first, because
1t is essential In order to secure order and
efficiency in the force second. because It
Is essential to restore to the police force
the good name of which IL has been rob-
bed by u comparatively small number Of
dishonest and inefficient members who
under the present system cannot be
promptly dismissed from the force. and
thirdly because II will give to every
honest and efficient policeman a chance
to earn by his honesty and efficiency that
promotion which is often denied to him
under the present system