The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1943-10-24
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER

NEW YORK.-It will ne hard to believe but
it is fact that young New York policemen,
married men, most of them, and many with
children, are serving their first six months
on the force for a salary that would not get
you an office boy or housemaid. Their
six months and after their group insurance
and income taxes are checked off they get
about $21. so week to take home out of which,
of course they have to buy their meals when
on duty At the end of the probationary
period, they are raised to $4,000 year which,
minus the deductions, leaves them about $35
a week Thereafter they rise by stated
amounts to maximum of So, 900 year after
five years unless they are promoted.
Comparisons with the inflatonary wages
paid in many of the war industries Instructive
ly brings the response that the people who are
drawing this pay will be laid off abruptly
as soon as the ends, which may not be so,
and probably isn't because even now proposals
are in the works to carry them over the Pc
Rod of the reconverslon OF industry from war
to peace on liberal doles. Nor is there imrne-
diate nourishment in the fact that the Ameri
can who joins the cops, electing the option
to retire on pension after a mere 20 years
most of them do, is creating substantial
social security for himself and his family.
pay check of $21 a week is still a miserable
and admittedly inadequate living and the OBJ
vious answer is borrowing, possibly from the
loan shark at high rates of interest, or the
temptation of graft.
Even the higher brackets, at the present
scale of living costs, are dangerously and
painfully low and the New York cop it should
be remembered is as they say, on duty all the
time, in the sense that he is always subject
to emergency calls and ansWerable to an ex-
trenely high and eXacting standard Of per-
sonal conduct even in his time off. If he
fiohf ho ha Mt III.
ment even to dismissal if he should find him
self unable to act efficiently and with good
judgment in emergency. And although there
are undoubtedly proportion of mere time
servers and some buns and, even occasion
ally criminal amnog them, the New York
policemen are, with equal certainty, the best
civilian body of public protectors in the coun-
try, with a high reputation for conduct, char
actor and intelligence. They include, nova
days, many college men and they are not ex-
enpt from military service which already has
taken $50 men, increasing to about 1000 the
shortage below the authorized strength. The
eligibility list is now exhausted, which means
that the work of the missing 1000 is being
spread among the existing force of 17,440 police
men in addition to the normally hard sched-
ule of hours and duties.
The probationary patrolman starts with bill
of about $3.50 for his uniforms and equip
ment, including his pistol, stick, billy, holster
and nippers and the pressure was seen to be
so great that nowadays by special arrange
ment he is allowed to borrow the money from
the relief fund and start paying it back
after his first raise. If there is new baby
or a tonsillectomy or a funeral in the family
that is his own worry but, nevertheless, in
the weighing of the moral qualifications of
candidates, married men are preferred, all
other things being equal, presumably because
they are thought to be- steadler and more
earnest about life and responsibility. 1t would
seem therefore that most of the new cops
are expected to go into debt in their first six
months at last and live only slightly above
the relief standard and still shun every tempta-
ton to bring in a supplementary dollar even
by honest extracurricular work for private
EMPLOYERS in their irregular hours OFF duty.
In discussing the men who work Tor these
coolie wages, it is customary 10 refer to
their standard of courage in sudden danger,
when with nobody watching they might think
first of their families and themselves and
finch. It is not unreasonable to do so be-
cause such is their sense OF duty and their
corps tradition. even at $2l week to start
and less than $50 a week at the maximum,
with not even their weapons nor ever so much
as sandwich provided while sWeepers in
war plants get $40 week and pohucal bum,
DESIGNATED as an oiler on steam snoVel winch
can he oiled in five minutes by mental de-
fective. get $16 a day, paid out OF the police
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