An Interpretation

Hard Times Cop: Jerry Mulcahy's, Years Walking the Beat During the Depression
by Barbara Curry Mulcahy

Biographical information:

Barbara Curry Mulcahy is the author of a book of poetry The Man with the Dancing Monkey.

Introduction to Essay:

At the age of 97 Jerry Mulcahy can look back at a long and interesting life. For years Barbara Curry Mulcahy heard her father-in-law talk about his work as an Edmonton police constable during the Depression. She investigates his life and times in this personal tribute.

Jeremiah Mulcahy, 1929

Who would have known in the spring of 1929 that hard times were ahead?

The 1920s were still roaring when my father-in-law Jerry Mulcahy left his job in Fort Saskatchewan and came to Edmonton to play baseball for the Young Liberals. He had applied to be a city policeman, and he was waiting to hear if he would get an appointment. He was single, young, and lucky because that year the police department would end its policy of hiring only older, married men. In June 1929, when Jerry was just a month short of twenty-three, he became a constable.

Letter from Mayor Bury wrote to Jerry's father (2)

For years I've heard Jerry's stories about his time as a constable-of buffalo fur coats, walking the beat, and tangling with thieves. Almost any job was a good job during the Depression, but being a constable was especially good for Jerry. The work suited him. "I loved... being a constable on the police force," he says, adding that he made "many, many friends."

Jerry is 97 years old now. Talking to him is like stepping into the past. He corrected me when I said the Edmonton General Hospital was downtown. "No," he said, "It's not right downtown-it's not far but it's a block and a half further than 9 th Street. It's just off of Jasper in the west end."

Here in my hand, I have the letter that Mayor Bury wrote on June 12, 1929 to Jerry's father. It speaks of Jerry's appointment to the force and closes by saying, "I am glad to have been able to do this and hope it will relieve your mind." I'm not sure if this means that Mayor Bury had a hand in hiring my father-in-law, but, as mayor of the city, Bury was the Police Commissioner and he did have some say about police work. This letter helps to bring the history of those times alive for me. The very next year, in 1930, a former mayor and First World War military leader William A. Griesbach led an inquiry into police administration; one of his recommendations was that the police department be freed of political interference.

No matter how he got hired, Jerry filled the requirements for an Edmonton cop in 1929. He had completed grade seven and was big, about 1.9 metres tall.

The length and girth of Edmonton's policemen were so well-known that in 1929 Chief Shute, himself a big man, used their size as an argument in favour of buying the police car he wanted, a Whippet six cylinder touring car. He wrote to the mayor, "I have seen this car demonstrated, and noted particularly the extra room compared with the Ford, and as you are aware, the members of this Department using the cars require considerable room."

Photos of policemen from earlier years show a beefy lot, but in Jerry's years on the force policemen were encouraged to exercise and to play sports. There was an uproar about local crime in the local newspapers in late 1929 and 1930, with headlines such as "Epidemic Of Petty Thefts Sweeps City" and "Wave of Crime Continues With No Abatement.") In the election of November 1930 the hottest issues were local crime and police corruption and inefficiency.

1930 City Police Softball Team

In his inquiry into police administration, Griesbach found no corruption - in fact he found the policemen to be an honest lot - but he did find fault with a number of things, including the average policeman's physical fitness and his education.

"For the past twenty years it would appear that the qualifications for admittance to the Edmonton police force have been, roughly, to weigh in the neighborhood of 180 pounds, and to be able to read and write and do simple ciphering." Griesbach recommended "a number of older men be got rid of."

Griesbach suggested a minimum requirement of Grade 10 for police officers. While he didn't have that education, Jerry was certainly fit. He was athletic, a member of the police softball team. The team played on Boyle Street and, for two years in a row, won district tournaments in the Edmonton softball league.

He was also a sprinter, running in the hundred and the two-twenty races. He remembers, "For years I held the big cup that I won each year as a member of the police department."

In the winter he worked out downtown at the YMCA three times a week with about a dozen of his fellow constables. They played volleyball and other sports to keep in shape "in case you did need to use your strength... like in an arrest or a robbery." Some of the constables lifted weights, and one of them, Pat Meehan, later left police work to become a professional wrestler on the west coast.

Griesbach's inquiry and his recommendations were a turning point in the modernization of the Edmonton police force. On Griesbach's recommendation and with his editing, the Edmonton City Police Instruction Book was published in 1931. This book and the details from the inquiry provide a good counterpoint to Jerry's personal experiences.

The 1931 Police Instruction Book told constables that "while on duty they must not enter into conversation with anyone, not even with other Constables, except on matters of duty." This must not have been strictly enforced. Jerry remembers being accompanied on some of his daytime beats. Nursing students from Lamont walked with him, chatting. Goldie Nuckles was a particular favourite; he met her when she was waiting for the streetcar to take her over the High Level Bridge. "She'd come to work in the morning and if I was walking the beat I'd see her there on a certain corner, and I used to stop by and talk to her." He did more than talk. In 1931 they married.

The daytime beats were on Jasper Avenue and 101 st Street. The 118 th Avenue beat was almost 29 kilometres long. The night beat on 124 th Street was about 19 kilometres long. The downtown beats were shorter, only about 13 or 16 kilometres long. Of course an eight-hour shift walking a beat on an Edmonton mid-winter night was not easy work.

Fortunately, the police winter uniform included a buffalo fur coat and a buffalo cap. But the coat was heavy, weighing up to twenty kilos. You had to be strong just to wear it. Interviewed in the Edmonton Sun in 1962, Anne Lindsay said, "You would hear tales of big, strapping men going out on patrol all tall and standing straight." She added, "When they came back, that big coat would be dragging on the floor because their knees would be bent from all the weight."

Buffalo fur was only part of the solution. Jerry remembers bundling up with wool long underwear, the policeman's tunic and leggings, a muffler, police boots and overshoes-and one of the constables' secrets: those in the know wore silk stockings under their long underwear. The silk cut the cold winter wind, and it made a big difference, Jerry said. "You put on everything... You were out from eight- or eleven-at night, all night long, and...sometimes the weather was anywhere from 20, 30 to 40 below. And sometimes I've seen it 45 below."

In the winter, especially, walking a beat was tough work. Constables weren't allowed to go inside to warm up except on their one half-hour break during the eight-hour shift. "You were allowed a half an hour out," Jerry said. "If you were caught off of your beat when you weren't supposed to be, they'd take you in-fine you two days pay."

Jerry remembers keeping a sandwich in his pocket for lunch and, in the middle of the night when everything else was closed, going into the hallway of an apartment house and sitting down to eat. Sometimes "the sandwich would be frozen but you'd eat that there, and then you'd go back on your beat." He remembers a couple of times when he left his sandwich in the hallway to thaw out "and when I came back the damn things would be full of cockroaches."

Police call boxes were spaced about every three or four miles apart along each route. The patrolmen unlocked the box with a key and called in to the police station to report. Jerry's number was 49 and when, for example, he was at call box 17 he'd say, "Forty-nine at seventeen." This let the police station know that everything was fine on his route. If a constable didn't call in at the appropriate times, a patrolman on a neighboring beat or the patrol sergeant would check to see what was the matter. Of course when a patrolman found something amiss on his route and there was no phone nearby he could use a call box to report that. The police station would send "a prowler car out if you had trouble." This police cruiser "prowled around town," keeping an eye on the city. It could also be used to transport prisoners. Two police officers manned the prowler car-Jerry said there was only one car-and they would assist wherever needed.

The 1931 Edmonton City Police Instruction Book stated that constables were to be "responsible for safety of life and property, the preservation of peace and good order on their beat during their tour of duty." Jerry checked for fires and signs of crime. There were three shifts and Jerry had a turn at each one. He worked by himself. In the business district it was his job at night to check to make sure each establishment was locked. He checked the front doors, back doors, and windows, testing each one "to make sure that it was okay. Lots of times the owners would go away and they'd forget and leave a door open so... we'd go in and call the office and they'd call 'em and they'd come down and lock up." Walking down the dark alleys at night was a scary part of the job. But what he remembers clearly was that there wasn't much crime -"not near what you'd expect" in those years of high unemployment and poverty.

Of course there was some trouble. Jerry gave me undated newspaper articles about one incident. He was hospitalized with head injuries after he broke up a midnight fight (the newspaper said he found a "quarrelsome" group of three men and a woman). He'd been walking his regular beat when some of the local residents called to him for help. It was a real wing-ding of a fight. Before it was over and the three men arrested, an inspector and three other constables had come to assist Jerry.

Another story involved a break-in at a wholesaler's. Jerry had discovered an unlocked door and when he went in, he found two thieves. While he was attempting to arrest them, a third man attacked. Jerry was knocked down and repeatedly kicked in the abdomen. The men got away and Jerry ended up in hospital. He had years of digestive problems. Later adhesions were discovered.

Each constable was required to keep a notebook and record all details of arrests, accidents, or anything of note that occurred during his beat. He also had to record the times when he reached certain places on his beat and any times when he left his beat and the reason for doing this. Every shift someone-usually a sergeant, but sometimes an inspector-would visit each patrolman. If the constable's notebook didn't jibe with the sergeant's, the constable was in trouble.

Jerry was lucky to get this job because just a few months after he was hired the stock market crashed and the Depression began. Unemployment soared. On December 10, 1929 Chief Shute wrote to the Mayor about the problems poverty was causing:

Yesterday one of the men who came to the station... stated that he would have to commit some crime in order to be taken care of, as he had nothing to eat since the previous day....

There is no doubt that is such cases as these which are responsible for many of the crimes, such as thefts, hold-ups, etc., which have occurred in the City recently, as these men find it impossible to secure employment, and the inclemency of the weather tends to drive them to desperation. This, consequently, places a considerable burden on the Police Department.

The situation only worsened over the coming months and years of the Depression. Under the pressures of these times, police work changed. One of the city's big concerns was that if Edmonton's relief were more generous than other areas, the destitute would be drawn to the city. Hampered by a lack of money and fearful of attracting more unemployed, the city was watchful of every penny spent. Policies were hard-nosed. Relief was inadequate in many cases, and often degrading. There was much agitation among the unemployed. The various levels of government felt threatened by the presence of communists among the unemployed. They remembered the Bolshevik Revolution; the dangers of large masses of desperate people could not be denied.

When thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, maintaining law and order took on new dimensions. Undercover police officers attended demonstrators' meetings. Even constables were called in to police demonstrations. On December 20, 1932 about three thousand unemployed farmers and workers gathered near Market Square (now the site of the Stanley A. Milner Library) for a "Hunger March". They planned to walk to the Legislature. The Brownlee government banned the march, but the demonstrators were determined to proceed. They left Market Square planning to walk peaceably three abreast on the sidewalk. Between 8,000 and 10,000 people-supporters, onlookers, and passers-by caught up in the crowd-gathered on the sidewalks, rooftops, and at windows overlooking the areas near Market Square. The RCMP, the Alberta Provincial Police, and the Edmonton Police turned out to stop the demonstration. Not a shot was fired, but the RCMP, on horseback, waded in and the police swung their batons. Demonstrators were hit and injured, some needing medical attention. It was an ugly situation. Force ended the march.

The next day police swept in, arresting nearly 30 leftists and communist leaders. The basic problem of inadequate relief remained however. Demonstrations and relief worker strikes became regular events in the city, but the police never again had to use such force to confront the demonstrators.

The City tried new ways of providing relief at less cost. Constables had new duties. Single men were fed in what the City first called community kitchens but which the unemployed, and later everyone, called soup kitchens. Jerry remembers at times he and others "used to have to take the group of people who weren't working down... to get their breakfast-parade them down to get their breakfast-and their dinner in large groups." The soup litchens were unpopular (they replaced meals which had been served in local restaurants). The unemployed spoke out against the regimentation, the presence of police, and the poorer quality of food.

On May 9, 1935 one leader from Central Strike Headquarters wrote a letter to Mayor Clarke describing the breakfast he had eaten at the community soup kitchen: "The porridge (if anyone in Scotland heard me call it porridge they would lynch me without the least hesitation) consisted of many lumps as large as walnuts with pale liquid called by some Milk", coffee that "dirty'd the cups", "some kind of meat concoction" that "was an insult to a dog", "cold and soggy" potatoes, and bread and butter. He derided the police presence as "armed Force A La-Mode", and closed by calling the soup kitchen a "Community Slop Kitchen".

It wasn't easy work and Jerry remembers "tough years", but all in all, considering the problems they could have had, Jerry believes there was "not much crime from people who were unemployed."

In October 1935 Jerry resigned, but that's another story. He wasn't able to find another job in Edmonton or Vancouver, and in 1936 he moved to the U.S. He worked there for the next sixty-five years, largely in law enforcement.

He's ninety-seven now, and he quit working only two years ago. He quit coming back to Alberta only when he became too sick to drive, his stomach causing too much pain. But until then, he was strong.

Now it's just his memories that are strong. He remembers the friends he made: constables at the gym and on the sports teams, and the people on his beats. Everything was so different then. Buffalo coats and silk stockings. Walking a beat at 40 below. The cold. Soup kitchens and strikes. Hard times and hard deeds. But also, goodness. Good people.

The city was so much smaller when Jerry walked the beat. Things are the same now, but different. Alberta's Legislative Assembly is now dwarfed by the buildings near it. Market Square is gone, replaced by the Edmonton Public Library.

Deep in the library are the records of a demonstration. Some things remain only as documents and memory, but vivid there. Strong. Leaving a mark.

The End