The ordinary "cop"
tries to do his duty as effectively as he can. With the
average citizen gruffness and roughness go a long way in the
assertion of authority. In the task of policing a big city,
the rights of the individual must indubitably suffer to a
certain extent if the rights of the multitude are to be
properly protected. We can make too much of small injustices
and petty incivilities. Police business is not gentle
business. The officers are trying to prevent you and me from
being knocked on the head some dark night or from being
chloroformed in our beds. Ten thousand men are trying to do a
thirty-thousand-man job. The struggle to keep the peace and
put down crime is a hard one anywhere. It requires a strong
arm that cannot show too punctilious a regard for theoretical
rights when prompt decisions have to be made and equally
prompt action taken. The thieves and gun men have got to be
driven out. Suspicious characters have got to be locked up.
Somehow or other a record must be kept of professional
criminals and persons likely to be active in law-breaking.
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