Today is National Police Memorial Day

Today in history: Today is National Police Memorial Day. National Police Memorial Day falls on the nearest Sunday to September 29. This year, it is observed on October 1. 

Throughout most of human history, there weren't any police departments. "The first truly modern police department was created by Napoleon I in the wake of the French Revolution. In fact, the Paris Prefecture of Police was the first uniformed, professionally organized police department in the world. The London Metropolitan Police Department was organized and led by Sir Robert Peele shortly after, and in 1838 the concept reached Boston and New York City by 1844." Source

Did you know that modern police departments won't hire you if you are too smart?  

"It is not a myth. It is a court case that dates to 2000.

Robert Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, scored a 33 on an intelligence test he took as part of the application process to become a police officer in the town of New London, Connecticut. The score meant Jordan had an IQ of 125. The average score for police officers was a 21-22, or an IQ of 104. New London would only interview candidates who scored between 20 and 27. Jordan sued but lost, as the court ruled that being smart was not a protected category and the standard of only hiring average applicants was equally enforced.

So why bother? The argument goes that police work can inherently be boring and repetitive. A person who is highly intelligent will probably get bored, and look for a new job. When this happens, the department has to recruit and train a replacement, which takes time and money. They figured it was better to just hire average - intelligence applicants who were less likely to become bored and dissatisfied.

I’m not saying this argument makes sense. In fact, I think it is profoundly stupid. But that is the argument the police recruiter used when they declined Jordan.

So next time you see a policeman caught up in some sort of abuse or misconduct, remind yourself that they deliberately screen out the smart ones." Source

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The Cult of the Supreme Being on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Maximilien Robespierre inaugurated the French Revolution's new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, with large organized festivals all across France. The Cult of the Supreme Being was a form of deism established in France by Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution. It was intended to become the state religion of the new French Republic and a replacement for Roman Catholicism. It went unsupported after the fall of Robespierre and was officially banned by First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.

"Robespierre started out as a thoughtful, Enlightenment reformer who championed liberty and opposed the death penalty. On his way to the pinnacle of power during the French Revolution of the 1790s, he crushed liberties, introduced the famed 'Terror' and ordered the guillotining of thousands. Before he lost his physical head by the very same 'National Razor,' he lost his mind, even creating a new religion he called 'the Cult of the Supreme Being' with himself as its high priest." Source

"The 20th Century philosopher Eric Hoffer studied fanatics and the power that fanatics crave. He thought that power brings out the worst in any mortal, that few in number are those who can walk away from it or restrain themselves when they gain it. He wrote,

'The corruption inherent in absolute power derives from the fact that such power is never free from the tendency to turn man into a thing... For the impulse of power is to turn every variable into a constant and give to commands the inexorableness and relentlessness of laws of nature. Hence absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.'" Source

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Master Criminal, Adam Worth, on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: The Napoleon of Crime, Adam Worth, died on this day [January 8] in 1902. Adam Worth was a German-born American criminal and crime boss who is widely considered the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional criminal mastermind James Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes series, whom Conan Doyle calls "The Napoleon of Crime".

Worth enlisted in the Union Army during the civil war at age 17. When he was wounded in battle he found out that he was listed as "killed in action" and so he left. After the war, Worth became a pickpocket, and over time he started his own gang of pickpockets, and then began to organize robberies and heists.

"His name was Adam Worth; a dapper, cerebral and ambitious little man, he had come from nowhere--specifically, the mean backstreets of Cambridge, Massachusetts--to become the most successful safecracker and bank robber in the city of New York, which in 1865 boasted 53,000 crimes of violence. Dissatisfied with a mere local notoriety, and seeking to escape the notice of Pinkerton detectives, in 1869 he borrowed or stole the name of Henry J. Raymond, late founder editor of the New York Times, and sailed to England where he transformed himself into an elegant English gentleman, with a flat on Piccadilly, a steam yacht, racehorses and an international syndicate of robbers and forgers. For years he drove the world's police forces to distraction with well planned, bloodlessly executed crimes all the way to Port Elizabeth in South Africa, without ever leaving a bit of incriminating evidence."

Richard Wolkomir

"Adam Worth, the greatest thief of the 19th century, could have furnished the basis of a great novel. No need though: In 'The Napoleon of Crime--The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief,' British journalist Ben Macintyre has given him a biography that reads like one. Worth, a German-born American Jew who affected the manners and lifestyle of a Victorian English gentleman, became, in the words of his great adversaries, the Pinkerton detectives, 'The most remarkable, most successful and most dangerous professional criminal known to modern times.'" Source

See also 19th Century Crime Boss Adam Worth and the Pinkertons 1905