The New York Police Force 227 



of the force, and we did just as well in our" exam- 

 inations for matrons and police surgeons. The up- 

 lifting of the force was very noticeable, both physi- 

 cally and mentally. The best men we got were those 

 who had served for three years or so in the Army 

 or Navy. Next to these came the railroad men. 

 One noticeable feature of the work was that we 

 greatly raised the proportion of native-born, until, 

 of the last hundred appointed, ninety-four per cent, 

 were Americans by birth. Not once in a hundred 

 times did we know the politics of the appointee, and 

 we paid as little heed to this as to their religion. 



Another of our important tasks was seeing that 

 the elections were carried on honestly. Under the 

 old Tammany rule the cheating was gross and flag- 

 rant, and the police were often deliberately used to 

 facilitate fraudulent practices at the polls. This 

 came about in part from the very low character of 

 the men put in as election officers. By conducting 

 a written examination of the latter, and supplement- 

 ing this by a careful inquiry into their character, in 

 which we invited any decent outsiders to assist, we 

 very distinctly raised their calibre. To show how 

 necessary our examinations were, I may mention that 

 before each election held under us we were obliged 

 to reject, for moral or mental shortcomings, over 

 a thousand of the men whom the regular party or- 

 ganizations, exercising their legal rights, proposed 

 as election officers. We then merely had to make 

 the police thoroughly understand that their sole duty 

 was to guarantee an honest election, and that they 



