464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



But once authorized, or the authorization renewed by renewed appro- 

 priations, congress is almost invariably wise enough to refrain from 

 further interference. The art of war is recognized as a metier, a trade, 

 the most exacting and absorbing of professions, demanding not only 

 high technical skill, but for the utmost efficiency power completely 

 within itself, the capacity to act as a unit. So governing the regular 

 force is left to those competent from training and experience to guide 

 it. Watched by a civilian secretary of war, the elements in control are 

 the acts of congress, the articles-of-war, the rules and regulations of the 

 service, and the individual authority, strictly limited and defined, of 

 the officers from the chief-of-staff to the subalterns. The office of a 

 man in commission is for life or during " good behavior " ; ordinarily 

 he can be removed only upon specific charges, and these must be proved 

 before a duly constituted court-martial; in any event he may claim the 

 protection of congress. But always these salient facts stand out un- 

 qualified — the entire separation of the civil from the military func- 

 tions — the just jealousy and dominance of the civil power, the free- 

 dom within limits of the military, and also the clear line of demarca- 

 tion between the legislative and judicial functions and those purely 

 and properly executive. 



The police force of the city of New York has some points of resemb- 

 lance to the regular army, and many more where the analogy has no 

 application. A policeman is in fact in hardly any sense a soldier; he 

 is better to be described as a civilian, suitably armed, and clothed with 

 powers and responsibilities relating primarily to the preservation of the 

 peace, and incidentally to the detection of crime, the capture of crim- 

 inals, the enforcement of the law and the arrest of violators of the law. 

 This force, unlike the army, is the creation almost of yesterday; prin- 

 ciples virtually settled as to the national body of armed men, have not 

 as yet taken definite and coherent shape with them. The blundering 

 incident to everything new, raw and tentative, may be traced in the 

 numerous experiments made in compliance with enactments of the 

 state legislature. These have been due mainly to party policy, but 

 sometimes to well-meant ignorance (often miscalled "reform") and 

 sometimes, it is to be feared, to deliberate or even immoral scheming. 

 Sometimes a board of commissioners, all of one ]3arty, has controlled 

 the department; sometimes — as at present — a single head, and at one 

 time (1895-97) a so-called bi-partizan board, divided nominally equally 

 between democrats and republicans, was in power. Not even the ex- 

 traordinary ability of Mr. Eoosevelt, chairman of the board, could over- 

 come the obstacle of divided responsibility. He left at least one good 

 trace of his incumbency, the tenacity with which he held to the impor- 

 tant doctrine that it was not the province of a commissioner to criticize 

 the laws under which he acted, but to enforce them. 



