Richard E. Enright traveled a long way from the country lanes of Campbell, and a long way on the sidewalks of New York.
Born August 30, 1871, Enright left Campbell as a young man to work as a telegrapher in Elmira, and later joined the New York Police Department (in 1896). Starting out as a patrolman he plodded up the ranks, pushed up from below and held down from above. He was president of the Sergeants’ Benevolent Association, and later of the Lieutenants’ Association. He was also a popular member of the Steuben County Society of New York City… a group of successful transplants who hosted a hugely popular annual banquet in which they wined and dined themselves, visitors from back home, and big city bigwigs. Naturally, they “wined” with Steuben vintages.
His union activities repeatedly kept him out of the captain’s rank, but on January 23, 1918 he was called from his desk at his precinct to become the first man to rise through the ranks and become New York City’s police commissioner. This was no small accomplishment. One of his predecessors (William Gibbs McAdoo) had become secretary of the treasury, and another (Theodore Roosevelt, with a different title and organizational structure) was president of the United States.
The mayor hoped Enright would be more pliable than his predecessor. Reformers hoped he was a new broom sweeping clean. Both would have their disappointments.
Once on the job he attacked gambling, set up a vice squad, beefed up the missing persons bureau, hired more policewomen, improved police working conditions, and strengthened the pension fund. He organized an international conference that helped lead to the creation of Interpol. In 1921 he was one of a jolly group that accompanied Franklin D. Roosevelt on a boat trip to the Bear Mountain Boy Scout encampment — quite possibly where FDR contracted polio. On the way FDR conducted a mock trial for Enright, who brought with him a liquid that his fellow-passengers suspected might violate the Prohibition laws.
Many supporters turned on him when he got rid of some famous members of the force.  This was either a move to divest himself of some veteran who had successfully exposed city hall corruption, OR a move to get rid of 19th-century fossils and bring in new blood — depending on how you looked at it.  Enright had little success in rooting out corruption within the force. This problem only deepened as Prohibition went on, and reform groups began to call for his resignation, which he submitted effective December 30, 1925. Only one person has ever served longer as police commissioner. (Enright’s predecessor only lasted 23 days.)
Enright later published both fiction and non-fiction on police work, served as a reserve colonel on the army, worked for the National Recovery Administration, and on September 4, 1953 died as the consequence of a fall. His term as commissioner consisted of an endless drive to modernize and professionalize the New York Police Department.