The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [259]
Yet suddenly, on 10 June 1895, the President of the Police Board called in his officers and instructed them to “rigidly enforce” the closing of all New York City’s saloons between midnight Saturday and midnight Sunday. “No matter if you think the law is a bad one; you must see that your men carry out your orders to the letter.”83
Announcing his policy to the press, Roosevelt brushed aside suggestions that it was bound to fail and bound to make him personally unpopular:
I do not deal with public sentiment. I deal with the law. How I might act as a legislator, or what kind of legislation I should advise, has no bearing on my conduct as an executive officer charged with administering the law … If it proves impossible to enforce it, it will only be after the experiment of breaking many a captain of the police …
Moreover, when I get at it, I am going to see if we cannot break the license forthwith of any saloon-keeper who sells on Sunday … I shall not let up for one moment in my endeavor to make the police understand that no excuse will be permitted on their part when the law is not observed, and that Sunday by Sunday it is to be enforced more and more rigorously.
This applies just as much to the biggest hotel as to the smallest grog-shop.84
It was a declaration of war, harsh and uncompromising, expressed throughout in the first person singular—with the exception of one “we,” suggesting that at least a majority of Roosevelt’s Board backed him up. As a matter of fact, all four Commissioners believed that the law should be enforced. Roosevelt was particularly gratified by the public support of “my queer, strong able colleague Parker … far and away the most positive character with whom I have ever worked on a Commission.”85
Parker appeared to like him, and Roosevelt was by nature inclined to like everybody at first, so the two men got on excellently. They had many long discussions of the law at Headquarters, often continued over dinner in a nearby restaurant, and Roosevelt never doubted Parker’s sincere dedication to municipal reform. Yet something about the affable lawyer made him uneasy. “If he and I get at odds we shall have a battle royal.”86
ALL HOPES THAT Roosevelt might have been indulging in excise rhetoric evaporated on Sunday, 23 June, when astonished saloonkeepers throughout the city found their premises being invaded and warrants served on them when they refused to close. Even the notorious “King” Callahan, an ex-Assemblyman with powerful political connections, was ordered by a rookie to lock up his establishment on Chatham Square. Callahan liked to boast that he had thrown his front door key into the East River the day he opened for business, and he assumed his visitor was joking. But the rookie, whose name was Bourke, decisively repeated the order; whereupon Callahan knocked him down. Patrons of the saloon joined in stomping the figure on the floor, but Bourke was a wiry youth, and rose to lay out all comers with his nightstick. The King was duly served with a summons to appear in Tombs Police Court.87
The seriousness of this gaffe—and Roosevelt’s real motive in ordering the saloons closed—became evident when Bourke arrived at the courthouse a couple of days later and found the chamber packed with professional politicians. A Congressman and State Senator stood ready to testify on Callahan’s behalf; senior police officials were conspicuously absent. Lincoln Steffens urgently sought out Roosevelt at Headquarters. “Pat Callahan is a sacred person in the underworld, a symbol,” he warned. Roosevelt must defend his rookie—even promote him, if the judge found Callahan guilty.88
Roosevelt immediately left for the courthouse, but word of his coming preceded him, and Callahan’s defense collapsed. Patrolman Bourke was upheld; the witness waived examination and was remanded for trial on two charges of violation and assault. Overjoyed, Roosevelt pumped his rookie by the hand. “Bourke, you have done well. You have shown great gallantry … the