The Republican Party barely won the mayoral election in 1948 in which the Democratic challenger attacked city government and police corruption. The old Republican coalition fell apart during the next 4 years while charges of widespread corruption increased and structural changes occurred in the city government. Democratic reformers led by Joseph Clark swept into office in 1952 and abolished patronage, bringing in reform police commissioners who reorganized the department and neutralized the issues of gambling, vice, and police corruption. Another Democrat, Richardson Dilworth, became mayor in 1956. He sanctioned additional police and court reforms, but was primarily concerned with economic development. Crime continued to rise, however, and public attention focused increasingly on juvenile crime, prison overcrowding, and drug use. James H. J. Tate, mayor from 1962 to 1971, was more of an old style Democratic politician than his predecessors. He continued to reorganize and modernize the police, but also used them on occasions for political purposes. Problems surfacing in the Tate era included the 1964 riots, hardline police tactics against demonstrators, the 1969 abolition of the civilian Police Advisory Board, case backlogs in the courts, and prison riots. Tate's last police commissioner, Frank Rizzo, captured the mayor's office in 1972 on the law and order issue. Charges of police corruption, police brutality, and discrimination against minorities in hiring and promotion assaulted the police domain during the Rizzo years. In 1978, Rizzo was defeated. The article provides 2 footnotes and approximately 50 references.