the yellow
press gleefully announced that my "tyranny" had been curbed. But my
prime object, that of stopping blackmail, was largely attained.

All kinds of incidents occurred in connection with this crusade. One of
them introduced me to a friend who remains a friend yet. His name was
Edward J. Bourke. He was one of the men who entered the police force
through our examinations shortly after I took office. I had summoned
twenty or thirty of the successful applicants to let me look over them;
and as I walked into the hall, one of them, a well-set-up man, called
out sharply to the others, "Gangway," making them move to one side.
I found he had served in the United States navy. The incident was
sufficient to make me keep him in mind. A month later I was notified by
a police reporter, a very good fellow, that Bourke was in difficulties,
and that he thought I had better look into the matter myself, as Bourke
was being accused by certain very influential men of grave misconduct in
an arrest he had made the night before. Accordingly, I took the matter
up personally. I found that on the new patrolman's beat the preceding
night--a new beat--there was a big saloon run by a man of great
influence in political circles known as "King" Calahan. After midnight
the saloon was still running in full blast, and Bourke, stepping inside,
told Calahan to close up. It was at the time filled with "friends of
personal liberty," as Governor Hill used at that time, in moments of
pathos, to term everybody who regarded as tyranny any restriction on the
sale of liquor. Calahan's saloon had never before in its history been
closed, and to have a green cop tell him to close it seemed to him so
incredible that he regarded it merely as a bad jest. On his next round
Bourke stepped in and repeated the order. Calahan felt that the jest
had gone too far, and by way of protest knocked Bourke down. This was
an error of judgment on his part, for when Bourke arose he knocked down
Calahan. The two then grappled and fell on the floor, while the "friends
of personal liberty" danced around the fight and endeavored to stamp on
everything they thought wasn't Calahan. However, Bourke, though pretty
roughly handled, got his man and shut the saloon. When he appeared
against the lawbreaker in court next day, he found the court-room
crowded with influential Tammany Hall politicians, backed by one or
two Republican leaders of the same type; for Calahan was a baron of
the un