The most spectacular fight of all was against the illegal
operations of the saloons. The excise law forbade the sale of
liquor on Sunday. But the police, under orders from "higher up,"
enforced the law with discretion. The saloons which paid
blackmail, or which enjoyed the protection of some powerful
Tammany chieftain, sold liquor on Sunday with impunity. Only
those whose owners were recalcitrant or without influence were
compelled to obey the law.

Now a goodly proportion of the population of New York, as of any
great city, objects strenuously to having its personal habits
interfered with by the community. This is just as true now in the
days of prohibition as it was then in the days of "Sunday
closing." So when Roosevelt came into office with the simple,
straightforward conviction that laws on the statute books were
intended to be enforced and proceeded to close all the saloons on
Sunday, the result was inevitable. The professional politicians
foamed at the mouth. The yellow press shrieked and lied. The
saloon-keepers and the sharers of their illicit profits wriggled
and squirmed. But the saloons were closed. The law was enforced
without fear or favor. The Sunday sale of liquor disappeared from
the city, until a complaisant judge, ruling upon the provision of
the law which permitted drink to be sold with a meal, decreed
that one pretzel, even when accompanied by seventeen beers, made
a "meal." No amount of honesty and fearlessness in the
enforcement of the law could prevail against such judicial aid
and comfort to the cause of nullification. The main purpose of
Roosevelt's fight for Sunday closing, the stopping of blackmail,
was, however, achieved. A standard of law enforcement was set