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Gangs with gaudy names—Demons, Imperials, Jokers, Viceroys and Dragons—erupt with savage violence. Some rob because they need money for dope, assault because of fancied insults that demand vengeance. Typical tools of retribution: machetes, bayonets, zip guns fashioned in school shop classes, radio antennas snapped off parked automobiles that can be used to whip an enemy's face.
Commissioner Kennedy has issued orders to stop such outrages, by force whenever necessary. Says he: "We'll just lock them up. Then it's up to the courts. But we aren't going to shake fingers and say 'Boys will be boys.' " In issuing such commands, Kennedy is not trying to turn back the clock on sociology but to convince his fellow townsmen that the hour is late and that it is time for the police to stand up for law and order. Says he to his cops: "The law prescribes certain conduct. Apply the law and apply it vigorously. It's not your job to become bemused with the vagaries of the why-oh-why school. The policeman has a job to do, and if he does it honestly and intelligently, he gains respect. That's a damned sight more important than being liked."
Bibles & Beltings. Commissioner Kennedy gets listened to—even by the why-oh-why school—because he talks with the authority born of an up-from-the-side-walks understanding of his town. He was born in Williamsburg, on the northern edge of Brooklyn, and when he was six years old, his family moved to a cold-water flat in nearby Greenpoint (then, as now, locally pronounced Greenpernt). "There were three cops on our post—Casey, Egan and Maloney—who straightened us kids out," says Kennedy. "They'd do more than that. They'd tell our parents, and then I'd get belted again at home. Nobody asked me 'What are your needs?' Nobody asked me 'Are you happy?' It was 'Look, Bud, do this.' And if you didn't do it, you got belted."
Kennedy, eldest of four children, got his belts from his father, an immigrant Irish marble worker who read the Bible and Charles Dickens, who had strong ideas about simple matters of right conduct; e.g., whenever inferior marble was used on a construction job, he put down tools and refused to set it. He impressed similar standards on his children. From an 18-month high school commercial course, young Steve bounced to a job as a clerk stenographer for U.S. Steel, to a grueling 57 days as a seaman on a British freighter, to work as a longshoreman unloading bananas on the East and North rivers, to peddling billboard advertising space and selling business machines. He had also developed into a better-than-average 170-Ib. middleweight amateur boxer, got to know and like the cops who worked out with him at Greenpoint's Y.M.C.A.