Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/190

916 At the outset the employees of the Department expected to be turned out, as a matter of course. Their positions were spoils which belonged to the victors, and they were filled with, apprehension as to their future bread and butter. They knew the public would not longer put up with unclean streets and that the clean sweeping demanded might properly begin with them.

Knowing that organizations of men are good or bad according to the way in which they are handled, that "a good colonel makes a good regiment," I paid attention first to those at the top—to the colonels. I found the general superintendent to be an excellent man for his duties, while most of the others were from very indifferent to decidedly bad. These were got rid of. In filling their places I sought men mainly with military training, or with technical education and practice, not one of whom had any political alliance which he was not willing to sever. They were nearly all young men. Of the men of technical education and training who now hold important positions in the Department, three are district superintendents, one is the master mechanic, and a fifth, twenty-five years of age, is the superintendent of final disposition, with absolute control of all work done after the dumping of the carts on to the scows, including all sea-work.

When the important offices had been filled attention was turned to the rank and file of the working force. The men were assured that their future rested solely with themselves; that if they did their work faithfully and well, kept away from drink, treated citizens civilly, and tried to make themselves a credit to the Department, there was no power in the city that could get them out of their places so long as I stayed in mine. On the other hand, if they were drunkards, incompetents, blackguards, or loafers, no power could keep them in. When they found that I really meant what I said—and it took them some time to get such a strange new idea into their heads—they took on a new heart of hope and turned their eyes to the front. From that day