SUNDAY, June 10, Senator Daniel J. Bradley, an Independent Democrat of Brooklyn, and a member of the legislative committee which is now investigating the police department of this city, took a little tour of investigation on his own account disguised as a countryman. Starting out from his cigar store in Brooklyn,—which was doing business as usual,—the senator directed his steps toward New York. This is his story as related in the Evening Sun:
I strolled aimlessly up the Bowery and at every five steps I saw barkeepers peering from their doors and beckoning to their old customers to come in. And the policemen were all there standing in front of saloons and looking as nonchalant as cigar store Indians, but never looking toward the doors from which men emerged wiping their mustaches and heaving sighs of relief.
When I reached Steve Brodie’s saloon, near Grand Street, I paused to look at the trophies of the bridge jumper, and it was then that the event of the day occurred. A well-dressed young man came out of the saloon, and, after sizing me up, inquired if I had the time. I pulled out my watch, which is a pretty good one, and told him the time. He then politely asked if I would have a drink. I winked at him and declined, and he turned and went sorrowfully up the street.
I suppose that he wanted to give me some knock-out drops and get my week’s share of the tobacco store receipts. But when he saw that wink he knew I was fly, and departed.
If it wasn’t for looking at the calendar nobody would know that it was Sunday on the Bowery. Clothing, hat, shoe, and furnishing stores were all open wide.
This, it must be remembered, was in a city and State which have a Sunday law. But the law is not enforced. As has been [214] brought out in the investigations of the legislative committee of which Senator Bradley is a member, the police are bribed to wink at violations of the law. Those who pay are permitted to keep open; those who refuse or neglect to contribute regularly are arrested. Thus the law serves only to corrupt the police force.
But notwithstanding the use made of the Sunday law already on the statute books, Senator Bradley wants more of the same sort, and told a reporter that he intends to introduce a bill at the next session of the legislature to close everything on Sunday except restaurants and drug stores—and policemen’s extended palms; the latter close only on a bribe or on the collar of some poor victim who refuses to “divvy up.” [213]