Speech #780180060

In my own city. the great metropolis of New York. our police department is in the neighborhood of 2.300 men under its quota. while the fire department is 1.500 under its allowed strength. Never in the history of the city have these two great departments been called upon to face such problems as they find today. Our police department is confronted with a wave of juvenile delinquency plus an influx of thousands of noncitizens who have been affected by the hysteria of .the war. Our fire department is confronted with the storage of millions of tons of war mat6riel within the city borders. much of which is of a highly explosive and inflammatory nature. If a conflagration or sudden wave of lawlessness were to start in almost any of our large cities it might develop into a major calamity due to the shortage of manpower in these two correlated departments.