The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [293]
ANDREW D. PARKER was greatly amused when news of Roosevelt’s imminent departure circulated through Headquarters. “What a glorious retreat!” he exclaimed, and laughed for a long time.104 Contemptuous to the last, he stayed away from Roosevelt’s last Board meeting on Saturday, 17 April. So, too, did Grant, leaving only Avery Andrews to stare across the big table and express polite regrets on behalf of the Police Department. Since there was no quorum, a resolution thanking Roosevelt for his services could not be entered into the minutes. They waited until noon, and then, as Headquarters began to close down for the half-holiday, Roosevelt declared the meeting adjourned. “I am sorry,” he said wistfully. “There were matters of importance which I wished to bring up.” He shook a few hands, then went into his office to pack up his papers.105 Chief Conlin did not come in to say good-bye. Later, when Roosevelt walked down the main corridor for the last time, a guard on duty outside Conlin’s office threw the door open for him. “No,” said Roosevelt, with a gesture of disgust, “I am not going in there.” The guard hesitated. “Well, good-bye, Mr. President.” “Good-bye,” Roosevelt responded, taking his hand. Then, apparently as an afterthought: “I shall be sorry for you when I am gone.”106
ALTHOUGH THE WORLD CLAIMED, with possible truth, that New Yorkers were pleased to see Roosevelt go,107 few could deny that his record as Commissioner was impressive. “The service he has rendered to the city is second to that of none,” commented The New York Times, “and considering the conditions surrounding it, it is in our judgment unequaled.”108 He had proved that it was possible to enforce an unpopular law, and, by enforcing it, had taught the doctrine of respect for the law. He had given New York City its first honest election in living memory. In less than two years, Roosevelt had depoliticized and deethnicized the force, making it once more a neutral arm of government. He had broken its connections with the underworld, toughened the police-trial system, and largely eliminated corruption in the ranks. The attrition rate of venal officers had tripled during his presidency of the Board, while the hiring of new recruits had quadrupled—in spite of Roosevelt’s decisions to raise physical admission standards above those of the U.S. Army, lower the maximum-age requirement, and apply the rules of Civil Service Reform to written examinations. As a result, the average New York patrolman was now bigger, younger, and smarter.109 He was also much more honest, since badges were no longer for sale, and more soldierlike (the military ideal having been a particular feature of the departing commissioner’s philosophy). Between May 1895 and April 1897, Roosevelt had added sixteen hundred such men to the force.110
Those officers he managed to promote before the deadlock began in March 1896 were, with one or two exceptions, men of good quality. They had brought about such an improvement in discipline that even when morale sank to its low ebb a year later, the force was still operating with a fair degree of efficiency. Crime and vice rates were down; order was being kept throughout the city; and police courtesy—a particular obsession of Roosevelt’s—had noticeably improved. During the reform Board’s administration, he had personally brought about the closure of a hundred of the worst tenement slums seen on his famous night patrols. Patrol-wagon response was quicker; many new station-houses had been built, and other ones modernized; marksmanship scores (thanks to the adoption of the standardized .32 Colt) were climbing; and the “bicycle squad,” first of its kind in the world, was being imitated all over the United States and in Europe.111
Unfortunately Roosevelt’s genius for moral warfare obscured his more practical achievements as Commissioner, both during his tenure and for some time after he left Mulberry Street. An inescapable aura of defeat clouded his resignation.112 He was the first among his colleagues to quit, having served less than one-third of a six-year