Part 8 (1/2)
New York, January 11, 1913
_My Dear Mrs ----_:
Most certainly your letter will not go into the waste-paper basket I shall think it over and show it to Mrs Roosevelt Will you let me say, in the first place, that a woman who can write such a letter is certainly not ”hopelessly dull and uninteresting”! If the facts are as you state, then I do not wonder that you feel bitterly and that you feel that the gravest kind of injustice has been done you I have always tried to insist to men that they should do their duty to the women even more than the women to them Now I hardly like to write specifically about your husband, because you ht not like it yourself It seems to me almost incredible that any man who is the husband of a woman who has borne hily her debtors You say that you have had nine children, that you did all your oork, including washi+ng, ironing, house-cleaning, and the care of the little ones as they ca trousers for the boys and caps and jackets for the girls while little; that you helped them all in their school work and started theot behind the tie, nor went to any one's house, as you hardly had tirew you, and that your children look up to hirown you If these facts are so, you have done a great and wonderful work, and the only explanation I can possibly give of the attitude you describe on the part of your husband and children is that they do not understand what it is that you have done I emphatically believe in unselfishness, but I also believe that it is a row selfish, even when the other people are husband and children
Now, I suggest that you take your letter to me, of which I send you back a copy, and this letter, and then select out of your family the one hom you feel most sympathy, whether it is your husband or one of your children Show the two letters to him or her, and then have a frank talk about the matter If any man, as you say, becoure in bearing his children, then that man is a hound and has every cause to be asha you a little book called ”Mother,” by Kathleen Norris, which will give you my views on the matter Of course there are base and selfish h I believe in smaller number, base and selfish wos in such a story as this of ”Mother”
Sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
January 21, 1913
_Colonel Theodore Roosevelt_:
My dear Sir--Your letter ca an answer The next day the book ca I feel as though you and Mrs Roosevelt would think I was hardly loyal tothe idea which was so strong in my mind to your notice, I told my personal story If it will, in a s public opinion, through you, I shall be content You have helped ood as a tonic, and braces h I shall refuse to be ”laid on the shelf”To think that you'd bother to send me a book I shall always treasure it both for the text of the book and the sender I read it with absorbing interest The mother was so splendid She was ideal The situations are so startlingly real, just like what happens here every day with variations
A narrative of facts is oftenthan a homily; and these two letters of my correspondent carry their own lesson
Parenthetically, let rown the woman who is his rowth has not been doard instead of upward, whether the facts are not merely that he has fallen away from his wife's standard of refinement and of duty
CHAPTER VI
THE NEW YORK POLICE
In the spring of 1895 I was appointed by Mayor Strong Police Commissioner, and I served as President of the Police Co had been elected Mayor the preceding fall, when the general anti-Democratic wave of that year coincided with one of the city's occasional insurrections of virtue and consequent turning out of Tammany from municipal control He had been elected on a non-partisan ticket--usually (although not always) the right kind of ticket in ain aenuine purpose to get the right overne men and women, the men and women ork hard and who too often live hard I was appointed with the distinct understanding that I was to adard of partisan politics, and only fro the welfare of all good citizens My task, therefore, was really si Department For this work I did not feel that I had any especial fitness I resolutely refused to accept the position, and the Mayor ultie F Waring The work of the Police Departlad to undertake it
The hout my two years in the Police Departetting our social, industrial, and political needs into pretty fair perspective I was still ignorant of the extent to which big reat wealth played a mischievous part in our industrial and social life, but I ell awake to the need of ood faith both an economic and an industrial as well as a political democracy I already knew Jake Riis, because his book ”How the Other Half Lives” had been to htenment and an inspiration for which I felt I could never be too grateful Soon after it ritten I had called at his office to tell him how deeply impressed I was by the book, and that I wished to help his a little better I have always had a horror of words that are not translated into deeds, of speech that does not result in action--in other words, I believe in realizable ideals and in realizing the it Jacob Riis had drawn an indict, pitifully and dreadfully wrong, with the tenee-workers In his book he had pointed out how the city government, and especially those connected with the depart sos
As President of the Police Board I was also a member of the Health Board In both positions I felt that with Jacob Riis's guidance I would be able to put a goodly number of his principles into actual effect
He and I looked at life and its problems from substantially the same standpoint Our ideals and principles and purposes, and our beliefs as to the methods necessary to realize them, were alike After the election in 1894 I had written him a letter which ran in part as follows:
It is very important to the city to have a businessto be that alsoIt is an excellent thing to have rapid transit, but it is a good deal more important, if you look at rounds in the poorer quarters of the city, and to take the children off the streets so as to prevent the to have clean streets; indeed, it is an essential thing to have thee enough to give ample accommodation to all who should be pupils and to provide the ret that I had not been able to accept the street-cleaning cohted to s force absolutely out of the doo, but it ood platform in municipal politics even to-day--smash corruption, take the municipal service out of the do a Mayor who shall be a workingman's Mayor even more than a business man's Mayor, and devote all attention possible to the welfare of the children
Therefore, as I viewed it, there were two sides to the work: first, the actual handling of the Police Depart the city a better place in which to live and work for those to whom the conditions of life and labor were hardest The two probleotten in striving to better the conditions of the New York police force is the connection between the standard of eneral standard of overnment of the Police Department at that tiet good results It represented that device of old-school Aht, the desire to establish checks and balances so elaborate that novery bad In practice this always ood, and that what is bad is done anyhow
In ated ive so the fact that pohich will enable a man to do a job ill also necessarily enable hi kind of man What is normally needed is the concentration in the hands of one man, or of a very small body of men, of ample power to enable him or the of means to hold these men fully responsible for the exercise of that power by the people This of courseto see power misused, it will be misused But it also overnment--if, in other words, our talk and our institutions are not shaovern good governovernment as we deserve, and that the other ill not
The then government of the Police Department was so devised as to render it ood, while the field for intrigue and conspiracy was li to one party and two to the other, although, as a matter of fact, they never divided on party lines There was a Chief, appointed by the Coular trial subject to review by the courts of law This Chief and any one Commissioner had power to hold up most of the acts of the other three Commissioners It was made easy for the four Co theer was avoided, it was easy for one Co the other three to a standstill The Commissioners were appointed by the Mayor, but he could not remove them without the assent of the Governor, as usually politically opposed to him In the same way the Commissioners could appoint the patrolmen, but they could not remove them, save after a trial which went up for review to the courts
As was inevitable under our system of law procedure, this meant that the action of the court was apt to be deteral technicalities