Lexow Committee

Robert C. Kennedy writes: The Lexow Committee, ironically headquartered at the Tweed Courthouse on Chambers Street, examined evidence from Parkhurst's City Vigilance League, as well as undertook its own investigations. The Lexow Committee uncovered police involvement in extortion, bribery, counterfeiting, voter intimidation, election fraud, brutality, and scams. Attention focused on [William] Devery, then a police captain, who stonewalled before the committee by only responding vaguely to questions: "touchin' on and appertainin' to that matter, I disremember." The state probe and Devery's impudent testimony prodded the police commissioners to clean house. Charged with accepting bribes, Devery feigned illness and his case never reached trial, although he was temporarily demoted. One newspaper wrote about the hearing that it was "[t]he most detailed accounting of municipal malfeasance in history." ==Impact==

The boss of Tammany Hall, Richard Croker, left for his European residences for a period of three years at the onset of the committee. A new Committee of Seventy was formed, again largely consisting of upper-class reformers, and in the mayoral election of 1894, Republican William L. Strong won. ==Key participants==

Committee • Clarence Lexow Chairman • Daniel Bradley Member • Jacob A. Cantor Member • Edmund O'Connor Member • George W. Robertson Member • John W. Goff, Chief Counsel • William Travers Jerome, Associate Counsel • Frank Moss (lawyer), Associate Counsel • William A. Sutherland, Associate Counsel Police • William "Big Bill" Devery last superintendent of the New York City Police Department police commission and the first police chief in 1898. • Alexander S. "Clubber" Williams, New York City Police Department Inspector, popularly known as the "Czar of the Tenderloin". • Thomas F. Byrnes, head of the New York City Police Department detective department from 1880 until 1895 • Max F. Schmittberger, New York City Police Department precinct captain in the Tenderloin district, star witness Social reformer • Charles Henry Parkhurst Policy dealers • Al Adams "Al has the most ... sheets, and he is the biggest man, and has the most money, and has the biggest pile." "He is called the king of the policy dealers." "Al Adams has from Fourteenth street up on the west side mostly." • Jake Shipsey • Cornelius P. Parker • Charles Frederick Lindauer (1836-1921), a.k.a. Charlie Lindauer • William Meyers a.k.a. Billy Meyers "Billy Meyers is a backer on the east side, around the Hebrew district, and up about as far as Sixth street" • Edward Hogan a.k.a. Ed Hogan • Richard Gammon, a.k.a. Dick Gammon • William Morton a.k.a. Billy Morton "he has mostly down about South and Broad streets." ==References==