Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| him on the discipline-book; but about all the recognition he had ever earned from the Police Board was the privilege of buying a new uniform at his own expense when he had ruined the old one in risking his life. Roosevelt had not been in Mulberry Street four weeks when the board resolved, on his motion, that clothes ruined in risking life on duty were a badge of honor, of which the board was proud to pay the cost. |
| That the police became, from a band of blackmailers’ tools, a body of heroes in a few brief months, only backs up my belief that the heart of the force, with which my lines were cast half a lifetime, was and is all right, with the Deverys and the Murphys out of the way. Led by a Roosevelt, it would be the most magnificent body of men to be found anywhere. Two years under him added quite a third to the roll-of-honor record of forty years under Tammany politics. However, the enemy was quick to exploit what there was in that. When I looked over the roll the other day I found page upon page inscribed with names I did not know, behind one of a familiar sound, though I could not quite make it out. Tammany or |