I went to Byrnes and was thundered out of the station-house.
There he was boss and it suited him to let me see it. We had not met
before. But we met again that night. I went to the Superintendent
of Police, who was a Republican, and, applying all the pressure
of the _Tribune_, which I served, got from him an order on Captain
Byrnes to let me interview his prisoner. Old Mr. Walling tore his
hair; said the thing had never been done before, and it had not.
But I got the order and got the interview, though Byrnes, black
with rage, commanded a policeman to stand on either side of the
prisoner while I talked to him. He himself stood by, glaring at
me. It was not a good way to get an interview, and, in fact, the
man had nothing to tell. But I had my way and I made the most of
it. After that Captain Byrnes and I got along. We got to think a
lot of each other after a while.
Perhaps he was a tyrant because he was set over crooks, and
crooks are cowards in the presence of authority. His famous "third
degree" was chiefly what he no doubt considered a little wholesome
"slugging.
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