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“We found our work a great source of happiness.”
rOU have your own way of thinking about policemen. And in
that newer personage—the policewoman what von may think
will be still more a matter of speculation. So that there is an ele
ment that you must take into account, just because there are police
women. Our old friend Propinquity is on the job. If the basin: -
man is to wed his stenographer, the surgeon to marry his favorite
nurse, the artist to marry his favorite model — well, nearness ana ac
quaintance must have their way, and you must begin to expert that
no policewoman is going to escape Cupid just because she has a stern
responsibility that isn’t supposed to be concerned with love at all.
By Helen Hoffman
DON’T be running off with any of my good
looking cops.”
This was the friendly warning given by
Commissioner of Police Enright, as he smiled his
good wishes for the success of Miss Katherine B.
Hyde, one of the first six women police reserves
to be appointed a year ago.
Miss Hyde was the youngest of the group, be
ing only 23. She also bore the distinction of be
ing the prettiest. She is tall and fair and gentle
in her speech and manner. And even a year spent
in meeting all kinds of people, where her duties
took her into the slum districts of New York, in
cluding that section of the Bowery which takes
in Chinatown, Miss Hyde remains the high bred
feminine type of woman, to whom any good man
was likely to be attracted.
The Police Commissioner’s Warning
When Commissioner Enright cautioned her
against “running away with one of his boys," as
he calls them, Miss Hyde replied, with a girlish
bhish: “Ridiculous.”
But Cupid was even then smiling at her
retort.
Commissioner Enright is a friend of Miss
Hyde’s father, so her romance, which has just
culminated in her marriage to Henry Schneider,
of the New York Police Detective Bureau, is re
garded by Commissioner Enright as a sort of
family affair.
Miss Hyde is the first policewoman to marry
into the force.
“I should like to continue my work,” said the
pretty young bride, “but my husband doesn’t want
me to. He prefers I should keep house, so w
are looking now for an apartment."
But Mrs. Schneider, who “made good” in her
work, as her associates say, is enthusiastic over
police service for young wot"!.
“It’s wonderfully interesting work,” -he sain,
“and there is such an opportunity to do goo;!. It
was this that first attracted me to my husban I
We worked together or. many cases, and it was
the great respect shown him by the toughest boys
es the district that also won r.iy ro»po:t for hint
“Often we- would pass one of humanity's
wrecks, as it would seem, dirty and ragged and
somehow out of tunc with the world; but r.o mat
ter how low the man had fallen, his hat always
came off as he noticed the young policeman 'with
a lady,’ ” explained the young woman who had
exchanged her police badge for a wedding ring
"1 met my husband shortly after I began my
service. My work was largely welfare work, anJ
my first case was that of a missing girl from
Passaic. N. J. The family urged the police de
'' ''' * " ' ' ' ! * 1 * ' ,"”
partment to locate her. It was believed ;he had
run away with a young Italian. o Detective
Schneider was asked to try to trace the girl
through the boy, and I was to use my woman’s
ingenuity to find the girl. We worked together
on the case a few days, then suddenly one night
walking through the streets of Chinatown, 1
noticed a girl standing in the shadow of one of
the funny little buildings, and she wab crying.
The Girl in the Street
t
“I went up and spoke to her. She' was hun
gry. The boy had deserted her, and she had come
to this quarter looking for him. After a while
she confessed to us that she was the girl vve were
looking for.
“Of course in this work one’s illusions get i
plenty of jolts. One of these is about men. Lut
although I learned from my experience that men
Officers of the Women’ll Police Force of Knzland.
t " • ••: ,v<-avv; V .... .
Policeman Henry Schneider, Who Cap
tured the Policewoman Pride.
Here
Is
Policewoman
Katherine B.
Hyde
on the
I)uy of
Her
Wedding.
do moke a lot of trouble in the world, and that
many of them are very bad, yet my expcrienca
did not shake my faith in men.
One reason, too, 1 suppose, for thin Is that !
have five brothers and an excellent father. My
husband doesn't dance, while I love dancing, hut
1 realize, from what my work has taught me,
that dancing men do not necessarily furnish any
guarantee for the making of good husbands. The
truth us t) in matter Is that many of them do not.
"I believe from the knowledge of life that I
gained in my year of police work that men who
know life, that is to say, men who know humanity
and are interested in human beings, knowing full
well their frailities and their virtues, make the
best husbands.
"Such men when tney rnurry and settle down
know exactly what they are settling down to,”
said this young philosopher. "A man who has
seen both sides of life, and know-i that ho wants
only the one kind, thut of truth and honor and
self-respect, will muke a woman the best hus
band. She is sure of him. She knows that ho
is the kind that doesn’t cure to wander from the
fireside, because the life that lies beyond th>)
family hearth does not appeal to him.
"If it did he wouldn’t marry’.
Workinz Together
"My husband and I were tremendously inter
ested in working together. We found our work a
great source of happiness, because opportunities
are constantly arising to help poor, struggling
humanity.
"1 believe two people interested in the same
't.)f, f vC
Cil '&> jp
line of work are always certain to be happy
They have so much in common.
“Mr. .Schneider says he has feared that 9
woman who sees too much of the darker aid* of
life will be apt to become cynical and lose faith
in human nature,
"Of course, my experience in the dark walks
of life, where vice and poverty walk hand in hand,
was a short one. But even in a year of such work
one sees and learns a great deal. 1 just felt
sorry for wrongdoers. They suffer so much fron:
their misdeeds.
“And of course,” confessed the young bride,
“I didn't lose faith in men. After knowing that
the re are many unworthy, it is all the finer to
meet and know the worthy type of men. I think
a woman who becomes cynical and sneers at the
world and its men and women, must be very un
happy. At any rate she loses the greatest happk
nc that human beings cun possess—the high
friendship of congenial people people who can
carry on the world’s work side by side and enjoy
the blessing of human companionship.
"Before I became interested in police work ’’
caid Mrs. Schneider, "1 did sow welfare work in
connection with my church. 1 wish every young
woman, whether she marries or not, could have
my experience, for knowledge makes for happi
ness: half knowledge for misery, and in meeting
various types of men a woman learns to distin
guish the true from the untrue. She observes in
their actions the qualities that count in the mak
ing of character, and after all it depends on a
man’s character, not the color of his hair or neck
ties, or how well he dances, what sort of a huj
band he will make!”
