The Blue and the brass

This book is a collection of articles and speeches written between 1893 and 1910 by police chiefs from the United States and Canada. Most of the articles were selected from the Proceedings of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) annual conventions dating from 1893. A number of articles are reproduced from "The Detective," a monthly magazine that was generally recognized as the IACP's official publication prior to the advent of the Police Chief. These articles tell a great deal about what it was like to be a policeman at the turn of the century. They present the topics discussed at the annual conventions and describe the procedures and technologies that were being developed in the police discipline. Some articles are anecdotal and some are didactic; the majority are purely descriptive. The articles deal with policing in general, detective work, the third degree, criminal types of the time, keeping the city clean; and the well equipped department. Some of the articles from the IACP annual conventions are in the form of workshop discussions between police chiefs.