The duties of the police force are clearly defined in the city charter. Generally, that instrument provides, "The police shall devote their time and attention to the discharge of the duties of their stations according to the laws and ordinances of the city and the rules and regulations of the department of police, and it shall be their duty, to the best of their ability, to preserve order, peace and quiet, and enforce the laws and ordinances throughout the city." According to the school census of 1898, the population of Chicago was then 1,851,588. This population is one of the most polyglot of any city in the world. Each modern language is spoken by some one class of its people. The population born of American born parents exceeds that of any other nativity, being in round numbers 486,000, while the Germans, born of German born parents, and Germans born in Germany, number in round figures 468,000. Of the Irish 131,000 are American born of Irish parents; born in Ireland, 104,000, making a total of 235,000. These are the largest classes, by nativity, of its people, and with the proverbial ability of the latter nationality to govern and "get there" it supplies the police force with the largest quota of men, year after year. During the years 1897 and 1898 this force, and every man seeking to become a member of it, was taught by city officials, and by none more energetically than by the chief law officer of the city administration, that the civil service law was an especial enemy of theirs, inasmuch as it abridged their privileges and immunities as citizens of the United States, and was, therefore, a menace to their rights, wholly unwarranted by the Constitution of the United States. It was accordingly attacked upon that ground by the officers sworn to enforce it, and, since the establishment of its validity by the highest courts in the land, its provisions are constantly sought, by them, to be avoided and defeated. The efforts of the commissioners to enforce it were commented on in an official message by the city's Executive, as if such efforts were in fact being made, and were part and parcel of an administrative policy; while, in practice, no possible legal device or illegal invention was allowed to fail of application by municipal officials to destroy its commands, even by its commissioners, who announced themselves as its greatest devotees. No more demoralizing example could have been set before the police force than the acts of the higher authorities. Such acts have produced the inevitable result, that, as such higher authorities saw fit to openly throttle a law they were sworn to enforce, the rank and file of the police force itself inferred that they, too, could seek to evade, and refuse to execute, all laws and ordinances which in their judgment affected the suppression of crime.