HOW THE POLICE DEFEAT THE ARMY

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 25

HOW THE POLICE DEFEAT THE ARMY

1 With dramatic suddenness the Mayor I of New York, Mr. F. La Guardia, drove home one of his points in favour of , making Governors Island a landing field for commercial aeroplanes as well as a military depot. He staged his argument before a delegation of members of the Military Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, headed by Representative, John J. McSwain, its chairman. Halting the group of 'motor-cars in which they were riding at Broad and Wall Streets, the Mayor led the members of. Congress to the sidewalk in front of the offices of J. P. Morgan and Co. "Gentlemen," he said, pointing to the historic building at the' head of Broad Street, "there is the SubTreasury. I'll show you whether we need soldiers on Governors Island to protect it. It is now ten minutes past four. Watch!" He turned to Deputy Police Com missioner Harold Fowler. "Commissioner Fowler," he ordered, "turn in a riot call!" . The commissioner ran to a telephone. Over the wire went the special "Treasury riot call." The twelve visiting representatives, the Mayor, and other city officials went to the steps of the Morgan offices. In three minutes the distant wail of a siren was heard. The representatives, agog, like small boys at a fire, were craning their necks. The -shriek of the siren grew and exactly three minutes and thirty seconds after the call had been sent the first green radio police car, bearing Inspector John Conway of the First Division, sped up Broad Street and then stopped suddenly opposite theii Stock Exchange. Ie

[ From that moment there was a growing pandemonium of siren's and bells. Bewildered Saturday afternoon workers in the financial district were quickly herded to the sidewalks as emer' gency wagons, patrol wagons, and radio cars roared into the district.

In less than ten minutes six emergency wagons, ten patrol wagons, thirty radio scout cars, seventy-five motor-cycle men, and two troops of mounted police—fifty troopers—were on the scene.

The wail of other pieces of apparatus could be heard in the distance, when the Mayor, who had been moving about, smiling and chatting with the amazed members of Congress, said to Chief-Inspector John Serry:

"All right, inspector. Dismiss your men, with the thanks of the Mayor."

The representatives, from a dozen States, watched the appearance of the armed protective forces with exclamations of wonder.

"Why, the soldiers would still be waiting for the ferry," said Representative J. Mark Wilcox, of Florida, who had heard Army officers at Governors Island, in an inspection of that post which preceded the riot call, assert that it was necessary to keep troops on the island to protect the Sub-Treasury.

"In order to get soldiers here for an emergency," the Mayor explained, "I would have to call the Governor, [the Governor would have to call the President, and the President Would have to order out the nearest army contingent."

About 450 policemen responded to the alarm. The district south of Fourteenth Street sent nearly all its apparatus. Eight of the thirty radio cars came from Brooklyn.