he horses or his shop, he didn't care
which.

I have spoken before of my experience with the tenement-house cigar
factory law which the highest court of New York State declared
unconstitutional. My experience in the Police Department taught me
that not a few of the worst tenement-houses were owned by wealthy
individuals, who hired the best and most expensive lawyers to persuade
the courts that it was "unconstitutional" to insist on the betterment of
conditions. These business men and lawyers were very adroit in using
a word with fine and noble associations to cloak their opposition to
vitally necessary movements for industrial fair play and decency. They
made it evident that they valued the Constitution, not as a help
to righteousness, but as a means for thwarting movements against
unrighteousness. After my experience with them I became more set than
ever in my distrust of those men, whether business men or lawyers,
judges, legislators, or executive officers, who seek to make of the
Constitution a fetich for the prevention of the work of social reform,
for the prevention of work in the interest of those men, women, and
children on whose behalf we should be at liberty to employ freely every
governmental agency.

Occasionally during the two years we had to put a stop to riotous
violence, and now and then on these occasions some of the labor union
leaders protested against the actions of the police. By this time I was
becoming a strong believer in labor unions, a strong believer in the
rights of labor. For that very reason I was all the more bound to see
that lawlessness and disorder were put down, and that no rioter was
permitted to masquerade under the guise of being a friend of labor or a
sympathizer with labor. I was scrupulous to see that the labor men had
fair play; that, for instance, they were allowed to picket just so far
as under the law picketing could be permitted, so that the strikers had
ample opportunity peacefully to persuade other labor men not to take
their places. But I made it clearly and definitely understood that under
no circumstances would I permit violence or fail to insist upon the
keeping of order. If there were wrongs, I would join with a full heart
in striving to have them corrected. But where there was violence
all other questions had to drop until order was restored. This is a
democracy, and the people have the power, if they choose to exercise
it, to make conditions as they ought to be mad