Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

Francis Tukey, who took office in 1846. Within the first year of Tukey's commandthe number of officers on the force was doubled, a detective divisionadded, and a special night force created.19 But there were limits to how farthis power would be allowed to develop. In 1851, the police voted as a blocfor Benjamin Seaver in the mayoral election, acting under the assumptionthat he would bar Irish immigrants from joining the force. Seaver won, butdid not ban Irish police. Apparently the night police had crossed a line whenthey marched to the polls en masse. Seaver responded by firing all the nightduty officers, dissolving that branch of the force, and leaving its patrolsentirely in the hands of the barely existent night watch. Over the course ofthe next year, power was systematically moved away from the marshal andtoward the mayor and the aldermen. In April 1852, the aldermen limited themarshal's tenure to one year. Two months later, they replaced the positionwith that of chief of police. While Tukey was not fired outright, neither washe named the new chief.2° The Boston Semi-Weekly Atlas drew a comparison:"The Great Caesar fell for his ambition."21 The lesson was clear: the policewere a tool for the political machine; they would not be allowed to developas a political force in their own right.This balance could be difficult to maintain, though, since police were socentral to the functioning of the machines. The police served the interests ofpolitical machines in three key ways: police jobs served as rewards for supporters; police controlled the elections; and police regulated illicit businesses,deciding which would be allowed to operate and under what conditions.22Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the police did not suppress vice; theylicensed it. From New York's Te nderloin to San Francisco's Barbary Coastand from Chicago's Levee to New Orleans' French Quarter, they permittedgamblers, prostitutes, and saloon keepers to do business under certainwell understood conditions. The:::.e eutrejJJ eHem:::. were required to makeregular payoffs, which ranged, according to the enterprise and the communityfrom a few dollars to a few hundred dollars per month, and to stayinside the lower- and lower-middle-class neighborhoods .. . . 2 .1In this way vice laws, and liquor laws especially, proved a useful tool for politicalmachines to enhance their power. Protection money provided a sourceof funding, and selective enforcement allowed political bosses to disciplinetheir supporters and put their competitors out of business.24In New York, precinct captains used detectives to collect protection money.25In other places, the landlord would collect it as a part of the rent, then pass it onto the police. He would say to the proprietor of the saloon or brothel: ''You canhave this house for two hundred dollars, with police protection, or one hundreddollars if you take care of yourself."26Police detectives, like the thieftakers before them, were more interestedin retrieving stolen property and collecting rewards than in catching crooks.Of course, the easiest way to get hold of stolen goods was to work with thethieves. In exchange for immunity and a portion of the reward, thieves wouldsupply detectives with their loot. The detectives would return the stolen itemsto the rightful owners-minus whatever sum they claimed as a reward. Manyprofessional criminals would not work outside of such a framework, and these58