MUNICIPAL REVIEW, 1908-1909 505
the press of the city, but from other well-informed observers. The New York World voiced the general sentiment when it said :
Every criminal, every divekeeper, every crooked policeman, every cor- rupt politician in New York has reason to be glad. Thanks to George B. McClellan, Theodore A. Bingham is no longer at the head of the police department, and in the manner of the commissioner's removal the mayor has dealt to the cause of good government the hardest blow it has sus- tained in years. Mr. McQellan has not increased but diminished Tam- many's chances of winning in the fall election. Where no popular issue existed before, he has created one. He has revived the whole question of the police in politics On that issue Tammany is always com- pelled to fight on the defensive. Mr. McClellan has done many foolish things as mayor, but for blind stupidity and folly we recall nothing else that is comparable to his action against Commissioner Bingham.
Bingham's dismissal represents in concrete form, better than perhaps any other one event, the limitations and shortcomings of Mr. McClellan, as a municipal administrator. He leaves office without any important element in the community solidly at his back, and with the record of having desired to achieve greatly in many directions, but of having failed to accomplish much except in the way of certain physical improvements, nota- bly the material improvement of the water-front.
District Attorney Jerome also disappears, for the time at least, from public life. He is to be credited, however, with a political innovation of considerable value. He appeared last winter before a great meeting of the People's Institute and de- fended his course in office. He submitted himself to cross- questioning and conducted himself with dignity and ability. In short he gave a reasonable accounting of his stewardship, and set at rest many of the charges that had been preferred against him during the past two or three years ; but he failed to recover the ground he had lost in the public esteem, or to convince, either his immediate audience, or the larger audience that was reached through the newspapers, that he had done all that he could possibly do in reaching after the man higher up. There is no question that he measurably improved his position and the public regard for him, but not sufficiently to restore him to public favor.
