Amending the Metropolitan Police Act
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AMENDING THE METROPOLITAN POLICE ACT.
Our readers will have observed in the telegraphic summary of the doings of the Legislature yesterday, an abstract of Mr. Diven’s bill to amend the Metropolitan Police:
It provides that the Metropolitan District shall consist of New York and Kings, and makes the Board consist of six Commissioners, the Mayors of New York and Brooklyn to be members of the Board—one to preside as President, the other as Vice President, but to have no vote, except in certain cases; the four commissioners to be elected at the next general election in the same manner as the Inspectors of Election are elected, and to take the place of the four present Commissioners. It continues the Commissioners now in office, whose term expires in May next, till January following after the next general election, two Commissioners to be elected each year—one only to be voted for on each ticket. It gives the Mayors the power of removal, in case of offenses, but gives two-thirds of the Board power to reinstate. After 1860 it transfers the power to fill vacancies from the Governor to the Board of Supervisors.
This bill, which has been referred to the delegates of the Metropolitan District with instructions to report at an early day, appears to us to be eminently sensible and judicious in its salient features and well calculated to meet with the approbation of all thinking men. It cannot be denied that as the law now stands it is not without vulnerable points, one of the greatest of which will be removed should the amendment providing for the election of four Commissioners in the same manner as the Inspectors of election, pass. The principal governing the latter is a safe one, giving, as it does to the minority a fair representation and proving, as all must acknowledge, a most effectual check on municipal corruption. In the other leading provisions of Mr. Diven’s bill, we can see nothing to condemn and much to approve. A full and careful examination should be bestowed upon it.
We hope yet to see the Metropolitan Police Bill so perfected in all its provisions that cavillers will have nothing to harp upon and the public at large become fully satisfied of its superiority to the old order of things. One of the gravest objections to it—the great objection, in our view, is the heavy expense it entails on the community, by the absurdly excessive salaries it bestows on the Police. We see no mention of this in the bill now under consideration and cannot avoid considering it a serious omission. Everybody knows—everybody admits—except the parties themselves, that this tax is an imposition on the community and should be reduced. To make popular opinion unanimous in favor of the Law, such a reduction is imperative.