Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-12-03
BETTER DAYS AHEAD FOR
THE MAN ON THE BEAT
City Council Has Learned At Last That
Policemen Are Useful People TO
Have Around


protect life, property and the interests Of
their political friends. They are supposed
to be men whose life Of dignity and ease is
gladdened by pinochle, joy rides to fires and
q consciousness Of precedence over the rest
Of mankind.
But the police serve a much larger pur-
pose in a community like ours. They are
the folk upon whom you are permitted to
heave full blame for such disasters, or con-
fusion as result from your own foolishness,
your own mistakes and your own negligence
When yeggs run wild because they are no
longer able to collect fifteen dollars day for
doing nothing for the government; when the
baby gets itself lost in the Wilderness of the
neighborhood alleys; when there Is fire or
riot or pestlence; when the car stalls when
the elections go wrong; when there Is too
much rain or not enough Of II, and In any
other emergency that tries your nerves there
is but one thing to do.
Blame II on the man termed cop.
He should not have been where he was
or he was not where he should have been.
The process of reasoning is extremely simple.
Say something nasty about the ineffciency
Of the police, and then you will not have to
think seriously OF your own share of the
responsibility.
Certainly we do not ask much of the
police. They are expected to travel faster
on foot than a highwayman can move in an
automobile after he takes the watch and
money of q defenseless citizen. They must
be without fear and yet they must be gentle.
Each one of them must be q bureau Of in
formation as we'll as guide, mentor and
friend to the stranger within the gates.
They must stand for twelve or fourteen hours
in the rush Of traffic, but they must never
grow tired and they must never lose the per-
feet suavity of manner which speed maniacs
do so much to cultivate and encourage.
A policeman cannot strike for better pay.
He is supposed to be a soul consecrated to
the higher social idealism He is supposed
to bring all the virtues of this world. and
some that can exist only in the next, to a
job for which the city has been accustomed
to bay him an average of q little more than
three dollars a day.
There are people who, in the innocence Of
their hearts. actually have envied the happy
lot of the man on the beat. 1t must be a
fine thing, they will tell you to have nothing
to do but swing a club and order other peo-
pie around and see all the parades and fires
from the best vantage ground. and vary the
routine of each day with blissful intervals
devoted to the cultivation Of prowess at
poker.
Optimists Of this sort took their pens in
dignantly in hand when. two years ago. it
was suggested and urged in this column that
nobody on the police force ought to draw
less than five dollars day. They wrote
regularly when we repeated the suggestion
time and again. They wanted to know
whether the city was made Of money. They
wanted to know where the funds were to
come from and whether IL was our desire that
golden bells be put on all patrol wagons.
Some of these letter writers may have
been held up and robbed in recent months.
They may have lost their jewels Something
has happened to them, because none has
written to criticize the City Council for at
last granting larger wages to the men in
the Department Of Public Safety.
Five dollars a day. which, it appears, the
police and iremen are to get at last. isn't q
great deal. But it is something. 1t shows
that the people who have to do with such
matters and the public behind them are
gradually becoming aware of the fact that
| the Department Of Public Safety is the most
| important division of the whole municipal
| scheme, and that a starved, dispirited, dis
| migrating police bureau is likely to grow
more expensive with every dollar that is
withheld from it.
There are good policemen and bad police
| men. just as there are good business men
| and bad business men, yet on the whole and
! despite the terrible havoc that political job =
|
| Safety the police and fire bureaus have man :
aged to keep high records of general eff :
! cheney. Virtues native to men themselves
| rather than anything done by the people In
authority have kept the police department
going as a dependable mechanism.
| Superintendent Mills and his traffic men
deserve a great deal of credit that they will
never get for their skillful handling of q
difficult problem Of increasing completely
| ,t,ith In
| ment But the traffic men are not the only
| ones who have been overworked and under
| paid 1t Is nothing uncommon for men il
the various districts to be assigned to emer
gency work that keeps them on duty fol-
eighteen or twenty or twenty four hours Al
q stretch.
Is there any of the overtime pay, of which
so much is being said nowadays. for tha
sort of work? There is not Nor is ther,
any provision by which men on such assign
ments can be fed. II you are u policeman
you trust to luck because you have to. DC
Casionally there is blast in the newspaper
about police graft. The queer thing is tina
the service is as clean as it is.
In late years members of the police force
like vast numbers of federal employees wh
couldn't live under the wage scale by whicl
| Burleson belgiumed the postal system. hav
had to seek extra jobs. They have had t
labor outside Of the department In their Of
time and on their off days. That sort o
thing doesn't help the morale Of any organi
zation. 1t hasn't helped the postal servic
and It hasn't helped the Department O
Public Safety.
The increase of crime in the streets rathe
than any appreciation Of the general injus
tice Of the existing wage scale appears I
have inspired the members of Council I
provide money for a larger police force an
better wages. Yet the increase of Grim
means little in itself. Certainly it doesn
suggest any definite state of affairs In tn
police organization.
You hear only Of the crimes that are com
mitted. OF those prevented every day
the police-and there are a great many
thrm-you hear little or nothing at all.
1t is a question whether in general sur
. i a Il..ll L.