100 YEARS AGO

Police chiefs criticized

Police chiefs who told the State Conference of Mayors that enforcement of state dry laws would be impossible under current conditions were unfit to hold their jobs, said

Gov. Nathan Miller. This was in response to statements made by 40 upstate chiefs united in their declaration that their forces were powerless to cope with bootleggers, speakeasies and other illegal drinking-related enterprises. Albany’s chief, James L. Hyatt, said his force would have no problem detecting dry law violators in the city and so far not a single arrest had been made. This ran counter to federal authorities’ findings, where they’d uncovered scores violations in Albany and confiscated large quantities of alleged “booze.” When Miller was asked to address remarks from Amsterdam’s — that it would be necessary to “turn 100 percent Americanism into 100 percent ‘squealer’ in order to enforce the law” — he became incensed, then said, “He manifests his unfitness to be chief of police and the mayor of that city would do well to look into the qualifications of his chief.”

—Times Union, May 9, 1921