Patronage and the Police
Kevin J. Mullen
Before our charter of 1900 a candidate for either of our two great safety organizations would have an oral examination. During that oral examination he "saw" and had some slight conversation with the ward boss "being seen" -- and, incidentally either made his first or final payment, plus a promise on the date of that oral examination. Becoming a fireman or policeman in the good old days entailed the same routine as now prevails on seeing Madame Blank to have your fortune told -- the touching of the palm with silver. . . .
-- Police and Peace Officers Journal, October 1940
In 1925, Captain of Detectives Duncan Matheson described what it was like to get and keep a job in the San Francisco Police Department in the bad old days before civil service. “Politicians were constantly demanding patronage,” he wrote. And on many occasions, “a police officer reporting off duty was ordered to deliver his badge to his commanding officer without an explanation and told that his services were no longer required.”
Today [1991] there’s a new plan for getting people into the Police Department. While no reasonable person would argue that it’s not more high-minded than the patronage of the past, there are some dangers. As recently approved by a federal court judge, the plan aims to increase the number of non-whites and women in the promotional ranks of the Police Department and calls for a panel of senior police officers appointed by the police chief to “use a number of factors” to rank candidates for promotion. These candidates would fall within a band of scores on a job-simulated examination. On the face of it, the new system looks pretty good. But then so does the idea of having a non-partisan police commission make the selections as was done before 1900.
Political interference in Police Department affairs has a long history in San Francisco. When the Board of Supervisors approved 18 new positions for the department in 1865, the appointments were postponed. “This is in order that the 200 police applicants may prove their zeal by working at the polls,” reported the Examiner at the time. Reforms were instituted in 1878 to remove police from direct involvement in politics. Police Commissioners who formerly held their positions as ex-officio incumbents in other offices, now were to be appointed by state authority, and they were prohibited from holding any other political office which might call on them to lean on officers to help at the polls. The reform doesn’t seem to have worked exactly as intended. Completed applications were filed with the commission, and “whenever a vacancy occurs the commissioners take up any application they please,” according to an article in the Examiner.
One feature of the progressive movement which swept the country at the turn of the 20th century was civil service reform, which, in the 1900 San Francisco Charter, required written examinations for most promotional jobs in the Police Department. There was still a lot of political interference in non-civil service appointments, but for more than half a century the system was thought to work pretty well.
By 1973, a group of non-white officers challenged the city’s hiring and promotional practices. And ever since the department has been in turmoil. Often unable to make permanent appointments by any method that would satisfy all parties, the department has filled many positions with temporary appointees. The court-approved plan is the most recent effort to find a satisfactory resolution to the problem. However, the subjective element of the testing process troubles some. Fears of political manipulation run deep in the institutional memory of the department.
Whatever happens, it is unlikely that conditions could return to the way they were in the 19th century, but there have been danger signs. Reports of a recent fund-raiser for Mayor Agnos’ re-election bid, hosted by one of his drivers who is also a police officer, included the news that it was attended by “about 70 wannabe chiefs.” The estimate appears to be over stated, but word has it that a number of police officers attended, so of whom owe their place to the sufferance of political appointees, and some who would like to do better. The lunch cost $250 a plate.[i][1]