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A German Jew-baiter, Rector Ahlwardt, came over from Berlin to preach a crusade against the Jews. Great trepidation spread through the Jewish colony and they asked Roosevelt to forbid Ahlwardt from holding public meetings against them. This, he saw, would make a martyr of the German persecutor and probably harm the Jews more than it would help them.
While I was Police Commissioner an anti-Semitic preacher from Berlin, Rector Ahlwardt, came over to New York to preach a crusade against the Jews. Many of the New York Jews were much excited and asked me to prevent him from speaking and not to give him police protection. This, I told them, was impossible; and if possible would have been undesirable because it would have made him a martyr.
The meeting passed off without disturbance; Ahlwardt stormed in vain against the Jews; the audience and the public saw the humor of the affair and Jew-baiting gained no foothold in New York City. Although Roosevelt thoroughly enjoyed his work as Police Commissioner, he felt rightly that it did not afford him the freest scope to exercise his powers.
So Roosevelt bethought him of a device which worked perfectly. He summoned forty of the best Jewish policemen on the Force and ordered them to preserve order in the hall and prevent Ahlwardt from being interrupted or abused.
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