Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-31
"CALL THE MARINES!"
That Is the Plant With Which City Hall


TT WAS plain more than a year ago
that the forces of everyday discipline
| in Philadelphia were to be put to new
test. All sorts of new people from every
part of the country drifted in eager tides
to the war industries. The city was
called upon to absorb thousands of men
who had never been accustomed to the
restrictions of life in a crowded COM
munity. To any one who could think at
all it was apparent that friction and irri-
tation were inevitable--that there would
be discomfort in many quarters and that
tact and vigilance would be necessary to
ease the situation and establish new
balances.
In the face of such circumstances City
Councils and the city administration
airily abandoned the Police Department
to processes of disintegration 1t is idle,
therefore, to talk of "race riots as if
such phenomena were inevitable and
natural. In the trouble down town race
antipathies were incidental. Fights and
shootings followed naturally upon end
less triumphs Of bad management in
municipal affairs.
A riot doesn't begin cs q riot. A fire
doesn't become confdgrdtion 1uItH 1t
has had time to derelop. # the police
had been able to act swjfIy there could
hare been no spread Of the disorder that
nolv is likely to cngendcr so much per-
mduent dislike in rdrjO0s neighborhoods.
But the Police Department is falling
to pieces.
Captain Mills did his best under the
circumstances with an inadequate force
of men, He has held what remains of
the force together with difficulty Many
of the best men in the various districts
have resigned the service to find the
living wages which Councils refused to
grant them. The municipality, in its
relations with the police, has proved the
most backward employer on record.
While every privately conducted business
revised its wage schedules to meet the
imperative needs of the time, the city left
the police to be squeezed on the one hand
by politicians and on the other by rising
costs of living. Mr.. Gaffney the direct
ing genius of the Finance Committee of
Councils, who answered the logical wage
demands of the police with platitudes;
the Mayor, who pollyannaed and talked
of patriotism to hide his confusion; the
members of Councils themselves and the
people at large, who permitted an es-
sential public service to be disrupted,
are morally responsible for the riots and
the killings in the downtown section.
Every big industry recently estab-
lished in or near Philadelphia has per-
ceived the danger which the city itself
has refused to recognize, and has taken
pain to increase its police guard. The
Mayor seems content to "call in the ma
rines." When vice rot beyond his con-
troll because of corruption in the Police
Department he called the marines. No'c,
haring permitted the Police Department
to drift to chaos, he again calls the ma
rines to settle minor outbreak among
disorderly men Who might hare been
rounded up and jailed IN an hour II the
police force aUas adequately organized
with men of the required type.
No qualified workman i'll any industry
is asked to work nowadays for the wages
paid by the city to even the best of its
policemen. The most capable men hlse
been quitting the force in droves. Those
of the better type who remain retair
their places largely because they do moi
wish to lose their rights under the police
pension system. The wonder is that thu
trouble wasn't even more serious.
Mr.. Gaffney and the Mayor alike tolt
the truth recently when they said in an
swer to repeated appeals that there was
no money with which to increase the pa!
of policemen. There isn't any none!
available. But Mr.. Gaffney and th'
Mayor did not provide for increases
when there was time to do so.