MIS GOVERNMENT OF GREAT CITIES. 



3°5 



failure to perform these services is equivalent to an application for 

 discbarge. Efficiency in the line of duty will not atone for a lack 

 of zeal in elections, and skill in detecting crime is of less moment or 

 value than skill in managing primaries or conventions. Thus, the 

 morale of the force is constantly being depreciated. It is impossible 

 to appeal to its professional pride, its enthusiasm, or its professional 

 esprit de corps. And the members of the organization, instead of 

 constituting a dignified and respectable department of the municipal 

 government, degenerate into time-serving placemen. 



As a matter of experience, we have learned to expect, at the end of 

 a newspaper paragraph announcing the perpetration of a crime, the 

 assurance that no arrests have been made ; and the comparative im- 

 munity of the criminal classes among us is a continual disgrace to our 

 civilization. 



The police system of some European cities is far more efficient than 

 anything of the same sort in this country. Especially is this true of 

 Paris. It may be objected that in the latter city the system is too 

 efficient, and partakes too largely of a method of espionage and sur- 

 veillance. I think that this objection would be valid. The Parisian 

 police force would not be, and ought not to be, tolerated in any Ameri- 

 can city ; but the reasons for this apply to some of the inquisitorial 

 and detective purposes for which the force is used, and do not apply 

 to the plan on which it is organized. 



I would make the police service a profession in the same sense that 

 the army is now a profession. Let its rank and file be composed of 

 enlisted men who would be subject to discipline and dishonorable dis- 

 mission for proper cause, in accordance with appropriate regulations 

 adopted for the government of the force, but who could not be other- 

 wise discharged. Let the officers be gentlemen trained to their pro- 

 fession, men holding a commission as honorable and desirable as that 

 held by a military officer and subject to similar conditions. Let pro- 

 motions be made for faithful and efficient service, and in recognition 

 of exceptional ability. 



Let the service be organized on the theory that it is a worthy pro- 

 fession for men of high character and ability. Let it be lifted out of 

 the domain of politics and take its proper position as a department of 

 the city government — a department which can in no way be affected 

 by the mutations which attend the annual elections — and we would 

 have as a result a police force which, either as to its personnel or 

 the character of the work which it would perform, would be unex- 

 celled. 



The best method of raising the revenue necessary for carrying on 

 the municipal government is an intricate problem, and one which, at 

 one time or another, has received a great deal of attention. The sys- 

 tems in operation in different localities are widely different, and the 

 proper discussion of any of them would not be practicable at this time. 



VOL. XXX. — 20 



