⇒ PDF Free Island of Vice Theodore Roosevelt Doomed Quest to Clean up SinLoving New York Richard Zacks Joe Ochman 9780307876867 Books

Island of Vice Theodore Roosevelt Doomed Quest to Clean up SinLoving New York Richard Zacks Joe Ochman 9780307876867 Books

Download As PDF : Island of Vice Theodore Roosevelt Doomed Quest to Clean up SinLoving New York Richard Zacks Joe Ochman 9780307876867 Books

Island of Vice Theodore Roosevelt Doomed Quest to Clean up SinLoving New York Richard Zacks Joe Ochman 9780307876867 Books

If you are from New York City or visit often, then you can relate to this book. Widespread police corruption, prostitution, gambling is what ushered out the Tammany Democrats and ushered in the Republican Teddy Roosevelt (Pre-San Juan Hill days) as NYC police commissioner. A man of wealth and extreme sense of right and wrong brought TR widespread praise and fame, but he took it a step too far with his quest to end Sunday drinking. He believed that people will readily accept family times on Sunday without the use of alcohol i.e., their only day off. He didn't expect the backlash from the people, politicians within his own party and the papers (I know, hard to believe we lived in a time when the news was biased). It is a character study of TR and the atmosphere in NYC in the 1890's. Imagine that politicians are unwilling to change that laws that benefit the rich and punish the poor, but as police commissioner you are charged with uploading the letter of the law. Even the politicians who make the laws are chastising Teddy and making his job difficult at every turn. Don't get me wrong, Teddy was never 100 percent in the right and the author writes with an even hand and very little bias (just the facts with a little bit of flavor). The author ultimately delivers fantastic tales, anecdotes, photos, courtroom records and transcripts that bring the story to life. If this topic has any interest to you, I suggest you get yourself a copy and enjoy!


Tags : Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean up Sin-Loving New York [Richard Zacks, Joe Ochman] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>When young Theodore Roosevelt was appointed police commissioner of New York City, he had the astounding gall to try to shut down the brothels,Richard Zacks, Joe Ochman,Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean up Sin-Loving New York,Random House Audio,0307876861,New York (N.Y.);Moral conditions;History;19th century.,Police administration;New York (State);New York;History;19th century.,Vice control;New York (State);New York;History;19th century.,19th century,History,History United States 19th Century,History United States State & Local Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA),History: American,Law Enforcement,New York,New York (N.Y.),New York (State),New York - Local History,Police Administration,Political Science Law Enforcement,Social life and customs,Unabridged Audio - History,United States - 19th Century,United States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic,Vice control

Island of Vice Theodore Roosevelt Doomed Quest to Clean up SinLoving New York Richard Zacks Joe Ochman 9780307876867 Books Reviews

I have always been a fan of TR. This is a period of his life of which I was not familiar and is the stepping stone into his life of politics. I knew much of how he tried to overcome his early childhood of poor health,and some mention of it is made concerning his asthma, but did not realize his vapid temper. The book tends to be a bit drawn out and goes into sometimes too deep detail of the politics of the NYC police and their many trials. The Parkhurst society is interesting and the rampant prostitution and corruption is amazing. Guess we have come a long way or maybe just now we cover it up more. Anyway, it introduces to me, an unknown period in TR"s life. Does not change my opinion of him, but the next book one should read about him is "The Imperial Cruise". That is a real eye opener about TR, American opinion of themselves during the turn of the century and gives an understanding of imperial America the time prior and leading up to the World Wars.
Richard Zacks, author of The Pirate Coast Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 recently published Island of Vice. This lively history tells the story of Teddy's Roosevelt's "doomed quest to clean up sin-loving New York" in the early 1890's. This relates Roosevelt's term as one of the four police commissioners in New York City from 1895 to 1897. This is the young Roosevelt before San Juan Hill or the white house. Here he is taking on the corrupt Democratic machine politics of Tammany Hall. Vice flourishes in a community where the police are paid to look away. "Big Bill Devery" the Tammany pick for NY Police chief, was fired by a reform mayor, Seth Low in 1902. Shortly after, he purchased a dozen buildings at auction in Manhattan for the extraordinary sum of $377,800. He later went on, for example, to purchase with his bookmaker pal, Frank Farrell, a struggling baseball team in Baltimore and brought it north in 1903. "That ball club which had no official name was soon called the "Highlanders' or "Hilltoppers" but would later take the name the New York Yankees."

Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist Papers (Signet Classics) that, "Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy"

Teddy Roosevelt fairly quavered all his life like a tuning fork set on the channel of righteousness. He positively hummed with executive energy whether as police commissioner, assistant Navy secretary, Vice president, or President. His view of righteousness may, at times, have been been narrow. It is fascinating to see how TR the NYC Police commissioner enforcing blue laws would mellow into the statesman who, as President, won a Nobel prize in 1906 (back in the day when these were earned rather than awarded on the basis of party/ideological affiliation) for helping to end the Russo-Japanese war.

Hamilton maintained that the executive function required energy and Teddy Roosevelt had plenty. Evans Thomas' War Lovers (see earlier post Remember the Maine, but Forget The War Lovers, 2/20/12) suggests that it was TR's father's exemption from service during the US Civil War that drove him to becoming a bellicose young man. Zacks is far more even-handed and sympathetic than Thomas. He too suggests that TR's attempt to enforce the blue laws in NYC may have been driven, at least in part, by the premature death of his alcoholic brother, Elliot.

Island of Vice contains some excellent scenes that paint a wonderful picture of fin de siecle New York City. The crusading Reverend Parkhurst trolls through the city's red light district on the sin tour of New York with a gang of worthies. They are guided to a cross-dressing homosexual brothel. Parkhurst declares, "to say that the police do not know what is going on and where it is going on is rot...Anyone who with all the easily discernible facts in view, denies that drunkenness, gambling and licentiousness in this town are municipally protected, is either a knave or an idiot." Roosevelt accosts a sleeping policemen on his beat who responds, "Come on now, get a hustle on before I dump you." Later that night, noticing an officer in extended conversation with a presumed lady of the evening, TR confronts him thus, "Officer, is this the way you attend to your duty?" The officer responds, "What are you looking for, trouble? You see that street?" he said pointing down Second Avenue. "Now run along, or I'll fan you and I'll fan you hard."

A contemporary editorial in the Brooklyn Eagle quoted by Zacks says, "Roosevelt is a good man in the most obnoxious sense of the word. He is about as unwise and whimsical as can be." At times TR seems to be entirely quixotic in his attempt to shut down all saloons on Sundays enforcing the existing laws. He alienated many New Yorkers and many in his own political party in his self-righteous pursuit of crime. Tammany Hall rebounded sharply in the election of 1895 in reaction to TR's enforcement of the blue laws.

In a telling episode Zacks' book firmly establishes the fact that Teddy Roosevelt did, however, have a sense of humor. Herr Ahlwardt, an anti-semitic rabble rousing German, planned to give a Jew-bashing speech titled "The Essence of Modern Judaism" at Cooper Union. On the day of the speech TR requested that "about forty good, true intelligent Jewish members of the force, men whose faces clearly show their race and and order them to report to me in a body....I want them to keep order at this Ahlwardt meeting tonight." A potential crisis was thus averted. Zacks writes, "the police has squelched any riot and had admirably handled the night. Editorialists citywide denounced Ahlwardt...Roosevelt's clever and humane strategy of setting Jews to guard a Jew-hater went largely unnoticed and unreported."

Zacks concludes his work, "As in ancient Rome, the vitality of New York City sometimes seems to come more from the crooks than the do-gooders." Zacks comment is undeniably fair--my favorite line in The Godfather is, "Leave the gun, take the Canolli." The price we pay for the "vitality of the crooks,"however, is the necessary lack of vitality of so many many of their victims -- 'Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes"!

TR campaigned actively in support of the McKinley ticket in 1892. It is interesting to note how the political rhetoric of 120 years ago has changed...or not. TR declaimed then, "Instead of a government of the people, for the people and by the people, which we now have, Mr Bryan would substitute a government of a mob, by the demagogue, and for the shiftless and disorderly and the criminal and the semi-criminal."

At the end of the day, are the interests of the American people served better by energetic political leaders who, though self-righteous, have character, conviction and a boy scout-like determination to improve the world OR by the products of Big City corrupt political machines such as Tammany Hall? Today, in the light of the conviction of Governor Blagojevich, the Solyndra scandal, the "Fast and Furious" scandal, the IRS scandal etc. this question and Zack's illuminating book seem more relevant than ever.

If you like Island of Vice you may also enjoy America Invades How We've Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth by Kelly / Laycock.
If you are from New York City or visit often, then you can relate to this book. Widespread police corruption, prostitution, gambling is what ushered out the Tammany Democrats and ushered in the Republican Teddy Roosevelt (Pre-San Juan Hill days) as NYC police commissioner. A man of wealth and extreme sense of right and wrong brought TR widespread praise and fame, but he took it a step too far with his quest to end Sunday drinking. He believed that people will readily accept family times on Sunday without the use of alcohol i.e., their only day off. He didn't expect the backlash from the people, politicians within his own party and the papers (I know, hard to believe we lived in a time when the news was biased). It is a character study of TR and the atmosphere in NYC in the 1890's. Imagine that politicians are unwilling to change that laws that benefit the rich and punish the poor, but as police commissioner you are charged with uploading the letter of the law. Even the politicians who make the laws are chastising Teddy and making his job difficult at every turn. Don't get me wrong, Teddy was never 100 percent in the right and the author writes with an even hand and very little bias (just the facts with a little bit of flavor). The author ultimately delivers fantastic tales, anecdotes, photos, courtroom records and transcripts that bring the story to life. If this topic has any interest to you, I suggest you get yourself a copy and enjoy!