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Archive Record


Catalog Number 2001.061.161
Object Name Letter
Title Metropolitan Police Commission
Scope & Content 1-page letter handwritten in black ink on slightly yellowed paper by the Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police Commission. The letterhead of the Commission is printed in black ink across the top of the page which also has the watermark, "Calvert Bond." In the lower left area of the page, the embossed seal of the Police Commission can be seen. The text of the letter has been transcribed as follows:

To the Honorable Mayor and Common Council.
of the City of Detroit
for the year 2001
Greeting,
We, the Police Commissioners of the City of Detroit prophesy that when this box is opened that the Police department of the City of Detroit will number 2500 members and that there will be forty Police Stations; that the stations will be heated by a process not now known and that prisoners instead of being conveyed to the several police stations in Automobile patrol wagons will be sent through pneumatic tubes, flying machines, or some similar process. That while crime is not very prevalent at the present time, and we now have occasional days when we are not called upon to make an arrest. We prophesy that arrests will be less frequent than now in comparison with the population.
Our police are now armed with revolver and baton, and we think that there will be a method of arresting desperate criminals without resorting to firearms or other deadly weapon.
The position of Police Commissioner is now one of honor.
Very courteously and respectfully yours.
Geo. W. Fowle
Ralph Phelps Jr.
Marvin M. Stanton
Commissioners
J. Edward Dupont
Secretary
J. Henry Cleveland
Asst. Secretary."
Date 1900
People Warren, Homer
Fowle, George W.
Phelps, Ralph Jr.
Stanton, Marvin M.
Dupont, J. Edward
Cleveland, J. Henry
Extent of Description 7.875" x 13"
Collection Detroit Anniversaries
Search Terms Metropolitan Police Commission
1901 Time Capsule
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