Etiquette and Polite Policing

The manual, “Courteous Selective Enforcement” takes its text from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Life is not so short but that there is always time for courtesy.” Gibbons says he is going to keep drumming at it until his men are as polite as a Bobbie at the gates of Buckingham Palace.

Courtesy Kick Irks Police In Philadelphia 

The city's policemen have given their new etiquette book a whirl and now, many of them say, they feel like a bather who wades ashore and finds that someone has taken his clothes. Issued at the bidding of Police Commissioner, Thomas J. Gibbons, the manual aims to refine police behavior, purify the cops' language: introduce at least a bit more patience; and improve his posture. “Please” and “thank you” are musts in the new vocabulary from have been expurged all coarse phrases, withering insults, juicy hyperbole, and richly elaborate sarcasms addresses to erring motorists.

The manual, “Courteous Selective Enforcement” takes its text from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Life is not so short but that there is always time for courtesy.” Gibbons says he is going to keep drumming at it until his men are as polite as a Bobbie at the gates of Buckingham Palace. The book was thrown at the cops after the commissioner's office got a flock of complaints that many policemen were too quick to make arrests at intersections, grabbing drivers for going ahead on the amber signal; and that “wholesale ticketing” was coupled with insults and rough talk generally. – Philadelphia (UP), 1957

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia