Proctor, a friend and fellow worker, tried to persuade him not to undertake the job. Roosevelt had given the matter earnest thought. He believed himself capable of bringing about the necessary reforms. He knew that such a work would be of great benefit to his fellow citizens. “Proctor,” he said, “it is my duty. I am going.” “Go then!” said Proctor. “You must always have your own way. Yet I believe you are right. Clean up the city thoroughly!” Roosevelt faced a bigger job than he knew. The metropolitan police system was in the hands of corrupt politicians. The Tammany ring exercised a tyranny over the policemen. Incompetency, immorality and dishonesty honeycombed the department. Many of the policemen, instead of being a protection to the people, were a menace. Promotions went by favor and money. The man who wanted to become a policeman could get the job for from $200 to $300. A police lieutenant could buy his appointment for from $10,000 up. The men who secured positions in this way paid the money with the expectation of getting it back through graft. They had free rope so long as they delivered to the political leaders half of their spoils. If a saloonkeeper wanted to obey the law and tried to get along without paying tribute to the policemen of his district, he found that a rival saloonkeeper was being accorded extraordinary privileges in order that he himself might be either ruined or forced to “come across.” Gambling dens, saloons and disorderly houses were free from punishment so long as they paid toll. Vice flaunted itself in the face of the law-abiding element of the city. The very coming of Roosevelt to Mulberry Street was a challenge to the disorderly and corrupt elements of the metropolis. His friends warned him that other commissioners, with good intentions, had tried to do what he was about to attempt, but had found the police force so full of jealousy, favoritism and blackmail that little progress could be made. “Tom” Byrnes, a detective of national fame, was the head of the New York police at that time. Roosevelt decided that reform should begin at the top. He dismissed Byrnes. The latter hurled at him this challenge: “The system will break your opposition. You will give in, for you are only human, after all.” Roosevelt kept on. No one was allowed anything to say concerning his appointments and promotions. Those who were physically and morally weak he banished from the service. Those who showed merit and faithfulness he promoted. He started in at once to acquire an intimate knowledge of the men who worked under him. He accomplished this by making personal tours at night through the various police districts. Francis E. Leupp, whose previously-mentioned book, “The Man Roosevelt,” will always be a fruitful source to Roosevelt’s biographers, gives this description of such an expedition: HAROUN-AL-RASCHID