The President of the
Police Board himself had distributed at the polls the policemen
who committed these frauds. It was further revealed that vice and
crime under police protection had been capitalized on a great
scale. It was worth money to be a policeman. One police captain
testified he had paid $15,000 for his promotions; another paid
$12,000. It cost $300 to be appointed patrolman. Over six hundred
policy-shops were open, each paying $1500 a month for protection;
pool rooms paid $300 a month; bawdy-houses, from $25 to $50 per
month per inmate. And their patrons paid whatever they could be
blackmailed out of; streetwalkers, whatever they could be
wheedled out of; saloons, $20 per month; pawnbrokers, thieves,
and thugs shared with the police their profits, as did
corporations and others seeking not only favors but their rights.
The committee in its statement to the Grand Jury (March, 1892)
estimated that the annual plunder from these sources was over
$7,000,000.
During the committee's sessions Croker was in Europe on important
business. But he found time to order the closing of disreputable
resorts, and, though he was only a private citizen and three
thousand miles away, his orders were promptly obeyed.
Aroused by these disclosures and stimulated by the lashing
sermons of the Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, the citizens of New
York, in 1894, elected a reform government, with William L.
Strong as Mayor. His administration set up for the metropolis a
new standard of city management.
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