The Triumphant Life of Theodore Roosevelt edited by J. Martin Miller

100 ROOSEVELT THE REFORMER
spoils politics with; good for the purpose and necessary, but
in the last analysis an alien kind of growth, of aristocratic
tendency, to set men apart in classes! Instead of exactly the
reverse, right down on the hard-pan of the real and only
democracy; every man on his merits; what he is, not what he
has; what he can do, not what his pull can do for him."
APPOINTED POLICE COMMISSIONER OF NEW YORK
On May 5, 1895, Mr. Roosevelt resigned as civil service
commissioner and was appointed police commissioner of
New York City about a fortnight later.
In the fall of 1894 a combination between Republicans and
Anti-Tammany Democrats, with the aid of so-called independ-
ents, had resulted in the overthrow of Tammany Hall. For
some time public feeling had been very bitter against the city
administration, owing to the corruption which permeated every
department of the municipal government.
"The chief center of corruption was the police depart-
ment," says Mr. Roosevelt. "No man not intimately acquainted
with the lower and the humbler side of New York life—for
there is a wide distinction between the two— can realize how
far the corruption extended. Except in rare instances, where
prominent politicians made demands which could not be
refused, both promotion and appointments toward the close
of Tammany rule were almost solely for money, and the prices
were discussed with cynical frankness. There was a well
recognized tariff of charges, ranging from two or three hun-
dred dollars for appointment as a patrolman to twelve or fif-
teen thousand dollars for promotion to the position of captain.
The money was reimbursed to those who paid it by an elabo-
rate system of blackmail."
When Mr. Roosevelt accepted the police commissionership,