As chairman of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, Rev. Charles Parkhurst of Madison Square Presbyterian Church knew that illegal gambling and prostitution flourished in New York City in the 1890s. He suspected that the city's police were paid to "look the other way." The reverend was justified in his accusations: taverns paid the police $10,000 to open on Sunday; gambling dens set aside between $15 and $300 each month as insurance against raids; and a successful brothel would contribute $30,000 each year to a precinct captain. This kind of graft was so lucrative that there were two applicants for every one position on the thirty-eight-thousand-man police force. It was commonplace to buy rank, as in the case of one officer who paid his superiors $15,000 in order to receive a captain's badge. Police Chief Thomas Byrnes presided over this network of extortion and was...