Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE CHURCH AND THE POLICE "Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages." With this memorable epigram John the Baptist counseled the soldier of his time. A large part of the duties of this official was the preservation of civic order and the last part of John's admonition has a significant sound. Was this civil officer a grafter? And did John insinuate his abuse of authority to increase wages illegitimately? Whether his reputation be inherited or acquired, the policeman is often suspected of sympathy for, if not collusion with, the exploiter of vice and the violator of law. Investigations of the Force in large cities have revealed, time and time again, widespread corruption—partnership with vice and crime, petty oppression and sordid tyranny. The public is tired of these scandals. "To put on the lid," to pursue again and again the old repressive policy, hounding the officers with maledictions to an unprofitable job, is poor philosophy and wasted effort. A constructive policy is demanded—the policeman's positive quality is yet to be developed— the intimacy of his relation to the spread of the Kingdom of God disclosed. But to realize such an ideal requires that he be virtuous and the sooner we stop our demoralizing practice of regarding him as a traitor to the Society he is pledged to protect the more rapidly we will progress toward this end. He is human and if persistently regarded with suspicion will be tempted to justify his critics. Upon the common officer, the pressure from above is the most potent cause of his downfall. Too often, a vicious system has become so deep-rooted and habitual in the administration of a police force that the individual who essays to antagonize it must be courageous indeed, and who is there to stand by ...