POLESTAR 





POLITICAL ECONOMY 



POLE 'STAR, a name given to the 

 Star, the brightest in the constellation Ursa 

 Minor, or Little Bear. It is described in the 

 article NORTH STAR, and its position is shown 

 in the illustration accompanying the article AS- 

 TRONOMY, page 445. 



POLE VAULT, a sport which consists in 

 leaping over a horizontal bar with the aid of a 

 pole. The aim r an easily dislodged 



bar, supported by two uprights. The vaulting 

 pole, made of light, tough wood, is from thir- 



POLE VAULTING 



teen to fifteen feet in length. The vaulter, hav- 

 ing measured the height of the bar, takes an 

 undergrip with his right hand about six inches 

 above this point. The left hand, with an un- 

 dergrip, seizes the pole at a little over a foot 

 below the right. The vaulter approaches the 

 ;r at a run, rests the end of the vaulting 

 pole in the turf about eighteen inches from the 

 bar, and lifts himself into the air while thrust- 

 ing his legs forward with the aid of the pole. 

 He must go over the bar without dislodging it. 

 The world's amateur record for this event, 

 made in 1912, was thirteen feet two and one- 

 fourth inches (height of vault). 



POLICE, po lees', in modern practice, a body 

 of trained men, organized to protect life and 

 property and to maintain order. Governments 

 have two primary uses to preserve order within 

 their borders and to protect their people from 

 foreign foes. Thus the police perform one of 

 the chief services of government. The control 

 and organization of police differ considerably 

 in various countries. In Paris and Berlin the 

 organization is distinctly military, control be- 

 ing vested in a Cabinet officer. On the conti- 

 nent of Europe such organization is quite gen- 

 eral, while in England police commissioners are 

 named by the Crown. In the United States 

 and Canada, on the contrary, the police are 

 ordinarily under the control of the municipal 

 authorities, and are organized as a part of the 

 local government. Pennsylvania has long had 

 a successful state police system in operation, 



and New York followed the example of its sis- 

 ter state in 1917, but in the other common- 

 wealths state laws are usually enforced by 

 county or municipal officers. 



Of late years, with the growth of great cities, 

 many other duties have been imposed besides 

 the preservation of order. The police no longer 

 confine their activities to dealing with criminals 

 and preventing crime. They concern them- 

 selves with keeping their districts sanitary, in- 

 specting buildings which may be unsafe, investi- 

 gating nuisances of all sorts, and seizing and 

 condemning spoiled food supplies. In some of 

 the larger cities they exercise a sort of moral 

 censorship, forbidding the production of plays 

 regarded as objectionable and inspecting mov- 

 ing-picture films, in addition to seeing that 

 public dance halls and similar resorts are run 

 in an orderly fashion. 



Organization in America. The police in 

 American cities are organized under a chief. 

 commonly appointed by the mayor or board of 

 commissioners. He has under him a consider- 

 able force directed by subordinates of graded 

 rank usually inspectors, captains, lieutenants 

 and sergeants. With the exception of the head, 

 the department members are commonly under 

 civil service and may spend their lives in the 

 employ of the city. For convenience of admin- 

 istration, a city like New York or Chicago is 

 divided into many police districts and subdis- 

 tricts, each district being in charge of a com- 

 manding officer of the rank of inspector or cap- 

 tain, who must answer to the department head 

 for inefficiency or want of energy in preserving 

 order. It is the business of the captains and 

 lieutenants, the next lower grade of officers, to 

 direct the patrolmen and detectives assigned 

 to the station, and to follow the details of 

 criminal investigation. The detectives are often 

 referred to in America as "plain-clothes" men, 

 because they do not travel in uniform, as do 

 regular patrolmen. It is their business to know 

 the haunts and habits of felons of all degrees, 

 and to anticipate and foil as much roguery as 

 possible. 



Women have recently been added to the po- 

 lice in America, especially in the West. Soon 

 after they were admitted to the service, Chi- 

 cago employed twenty-one policewomen, thus 

 heading a list that included Los Angeles, San 

 Francisco, Saint Paul and about twenty other 

 cities. G.B.D. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY, polit'ik'l ekon'o 

 mi, a term for which the word economics has 

 been largely substituted. See ECONOMICS. 



