Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-20

A'4 through thick and thin, that the
police department is an agency intended
by its officers to maintain law and order.
1t has been generations since any
routine heeler in Philadelphia politics
held any such view of the service.
TO bosses and sub-bosses the police
department has appeared as a handy and
pliable auxiliary sent by Providence to
strengthen the narrow groups that sur
vive and grow rich by careful lawless-
ness and through raids on the city's
treasury.
The extraordinary spectacle that pre-
ceded the sudden suspension of the police
lieutenant of the Second district yester-
day is thus easily eXplainable. Lieuten-
ant Echtermeyer, Superintendent Robin
son and lmber, the magistrate, were re-
vealed not only as the protectors of a
patrolman charged with 4 brutal viola
tion of the code which he was sworn to
obey, but as the energetic defenders of
system that has left many divisions Of
the service inefficient, corrupt and de-
moralized.
Echtermeyer was suspended: Schwartz,
the accused policeman, was suspended;
because his friends pleaded that he be
permitted to serve until February. when
he can retire with the. privileges of the
police pension fund, Should have been
promptly suspended with the other;.
1t becomes palmer daily that if Director
Cortelyou wishes to reclaim the police
from the influence of constituencies
and belligerent faction he will have to
use harsh methods. His efforts at con-
ciliation have failed.
The degradation Of the police service
has been swift in recent years, especially
in the downtown districts. A man who
entered the department had to be ap-
proved by ward and division men.
Evidently he was made to feel that he
was beneficiary of secret system; that
he had to obey unwritten laws and sus-
tain, with the authority of his uniform.
his badge and his club. if necessary, The
feudal scheme in which he was detail.
He could be faithful to his obligations
only when those obligations didn't con-
fict with the interests of the bund which
frankly assumed to control him. No one
had a chance who disputed this rule,
which had a traditional validity even
before the day of the Wares.
Yet to indict the whole department., or
even a considerable part of it, because of
the Echtermeyers and the Schwartzes is
to display ignorance of the police system
and the motives animating its person.
mel. There are innumerable self-respect-
ing men in the service who have man
aged to hold their places without being
in ba &c
orders. They are majority. And they.
too. desire the sort of cleanup which
Director Cortelyou is promising.
A thug in police uniform is poor sort
of press agent for the department. Until
the thugs are rooted out they will con-
tinue to put their decent associates in a
bad light.
The increase of violent crime shows
what factional politics can do to a police
system when it is left unhampered for
long period. There is definite relation
Of cause and effect between recent high
way robberies and daylight burglaries
and the system of police administration
which Robinson, Imber and Echtermeyer
were not ashamed to defend in the course
of an action brought by relatives and
friends of Doctor Morris.
If the police department has been slack
it is because there seldom has been a
man at the top with the force of char
acter and intelligence necessary to con-
vince the old City Councils of the needs
of it's various units. The traffic squad,
one division of the service that has gone
far to redeem the others in public esti-
nation, is still without even a modern
system of street signals. The whole
organization is behind the times in
general equipment. The decline of
morale has been general in the districts
and this is due to political interference at
the top as well as at the bottom.
1t is fashionable to blame the depart
ment as a whole for conditions that per-
nit thieves in motorcars to raid business
houses even in the central streets. But
a patrolman on a beat has no means of
dealing with yeggmen in a siXty-mile
automobile. To the decadenca and inef-
ticiency of detective contingents such
crimes are almost invariably due.
Plain-clothes squads are organized to
keep track of the goings and comings of
underworld adventures. In any CITY
WItlG lIt NGlCCIlNt DuIeduS are properly
manned and organized, thieves of the sort
that have been harassing this city are
tracked and Jailed or hustled out of town
before they have even an opportunity to
begin operations. Here the plain-clothes
contingents have been made up largely
of political favorites advanced to i'm
portant positions, not because of their
fitness for exacting details of police work,
but because they have been able to claim
recognition for political service.
Director Cortelyou threatened a sweep
ing change and general transfer of police
officials in the various districts. Then,
for some unknown reason, he relented.
Echtermeyer and his kind show him that
he viii have to go through with his pro-
There seems Sfbs a good deal Of fight