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

In one way or another, every European government before the French Revolutionrelied on indirect rule via local magnates. The magnates collaboratedwith the government without becoming officials in any strong sense of theterm, had some access to government-backed force. and exercised wide discretionwithin their own territories .... Yet the same magnates were potentialrivals, possible allies of a rebellious people.Eventually, European governments reduced their reliance on indirectrule by means of two expensive but effective strategies: (a) extending theirofficialdom to the local community and (b) encouraging the creation ofpolice forces that were subordinate to the government rather than to individualpatrons, distinct from war-making forces, and therefore less useful asthe tools of dissident magnates.'"Likewise, in Philadelphia, so long as the central government was dependentupon the cooperation of the ward bosses, the government's influence was quitelimited and no one faction could be assured of permanent dominance. Facedwith difficulties resembling those of the early European states, Philadelphia'slocal government followed a similar course.[In England.l Tudor demilitarization of the great lords entailed four complementarycampaigns: eliminating their personal bands of armed retainers,razing their fortresses, taming their habitual resort to violence for the settlementof disputes, and discouraging the cooperation of their dependentsand tenants. I;In Philadelphia, all four aims were accomplished with one masterstroke: thecreation of a citywide police force allowed the limited consolidation of the citygovernment. The ward-based militants were either co-opted into the police ordefeated by them. While no fortresses existed to be pulled down, the wardleaders were made increasingly vulnerable politically; their position cameto depend as much on their swius withiu the machine, CItywide, as on theirinfluence in their own ward. Inter-ward battles were either avoided by thenew system or forcibly resolved by the new police. And the cooperation andloyalty of ward residents, once owed to their local boss, became at+t.ached tothe new citywide machine.Philadelphia did not become a nation-state, of course, or even a city-state.But the authority of the city government was produced by very similar means,and in this process the creation of modern policing played a central role. Thenew police were not simply one aspect of a modernizing city government; theyalso represented a means of consolidating power within the modernizing government.But as the city consolidated power, it embarked on the first of a seriesof adaptations that would strengthen the government itself at the expense of thelocal leaders, eventually leading to the decline of the machine system.48Centralization, even in meager form, not only changed the distribution ofpower, but also tended to transform the institutions that shared power. Themodernization of the police allowed for a major advance in the organizationand efficiency of the political machine, and with it the power of the municipalgovernment. With a single police force in place, power could be, if not quitecentralized, at least somewhat solidified. This step proved a major boon tothe reigning machine, and provided one means for the machine to exert62