Politics
In 1844 James Harper was elected American Republican Party mayor of New York for one-year term, defeating Locofoco Party candidate Jonathan I. Coddington and Whig Morris Franklin. James won the election by 4,316 votes.
He reformed the city police force and established the first municipal police force in 1844, based on planning undertaken earlier by Peter Cooper. In-fighting between the city alderman delayed full implementation of the reform plan, and Harper was only able to select 200 men for the force before he was ousted by voters in April 1845. He outfitted his "Harper's Police" in blue uniforms, which they felt made them targets of violence, and they lobbied successfully to wear street clothes. His successor William Havemeyer continued to reform the police force and was successful in expanding the force to 800 and beginning the establishment of station houses.
Harper banished free-roaming pigs from the streets of New York, and began work on establishing a citywide sanitation system. He was subsequently put forward for the governorship of the state; but he preferred to conduct the business of his firm rather than enter public life.
Read more about this topic: James Harper (publisher)
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“...to many a mothers heart has come the disappointment of a loss of power, a limitation of influence when early manhood takes the boy from the home, or when even before that time, in school, or where he touches the great world and begins to be bewildered with its controversies, trade and economics and politics make their imprint even while his lips are dewy with his mothers kiss.”
—J. Ellen Foster (18401910)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
“While youre playing cards with a regular guy or having a bite to eat with him, he seems a peaceable, good-humoured and not entirely dense person. But just begin a conversation with him about something inedible, politics or science, for instance, and he ends up in a deadend or starts in on such an obtuse and base philosophy that you can only wave your hand and leave.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (18601904)