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The article presents a paper that has attempted to illuminate the problem of the persistence of specific organizational forms, a problem which has received some theoretical attention, but for which few operational clues exist. A notable exception is researcher Arthur L. Stinchcombe's hypothesis stating that when organizational elite structures are compatible with the interests and purposes of relevant external elites who control the resources upon which the organization depends, then the organizational form has a better chance of survival. The example analyzed in this paper was that of a city police control system that by all odds should have died a hundred years ago. The first task of this paper was to show how the Police Control Board, gradually worked out a routine police control operation that proved to be of great comfort and satisfaction to nervous elites suspicious of the city's will and ability to keep the dangerous classes in check. The second task of this paper was to analyze the social backgrounds of commissioners in order to show that they could hardly be anything but acceptable to elites since they themselves were recruited from elites and brought an elite perspective into the organization.