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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chicago, Satan's Sanctum, by L. O. Curon
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Chicago, Satan's Sanctum
-
-Author: L. O. Curon
-
-Release Date: May 28, 2013 [EBook #42830]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHICAGO, SATAN'S SANCTUM ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
-http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
-generously made available by The Internet Archive.)
-
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-
-
-  CHICAGO, SATAN'S SANCTUM.
-
-
-  "I am to speak of stories you will not believe;
-  of beings you cannot love; of foibles for which
-  you have no compassion; of feelings in which you
-  have no share."--W. MC. PRAED
-
-
-  By L. O. CURON.
-
-
-  C. D. PHILLIPS & CO.,
-  CHICAGO.
-
-
-
-
-  COPYRIGHTED 1899 BY
-  L. O. CURON
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE.
-
-
-The present Mayor of the City of Chicago was recently re-elected. A large
-number of independent voters, deeming one issue a dominant one, which, in
-fact, was no issue at all, assisted in again bestowing on him the most
-important office in the municipal government.
-
-The legislature had repealed a law under which evil, through the
-threatened action of corruptionists in the Council, might have been
-visited upon the city. That they were powerless to inflict it had been
-demonstrated prior to the repeal of that law and prior to the election.
-His competitors entertained, upon the question of the extension of street
-car privileges, the same views as his own. Both were men of as great
-ability as he, and each had, and still has, a reputation for personal
-integrity not surpassed by his. Both were men more mature in years, and
-possessed wider business experiences than he. Hence, either of them could
-have been safely entrusted with the powers of the executive. Neither of
-them, however, could invent, for campaign purposes, so catching, so
-powerful, and yet so sophistical, a political phrase as "The streets may
-be dirty, but they still belong to the people." To the inventor of that
-cry the Mayor owes no small political debt.
-
-It might be inferred from the large vote he received that, as a public
-servant, he had been tested and not found wanting. With respect to his
-persistent opposition to the extension of street car privileges, without
-adequate compensation to the city, and for a period not in excess of
-twenty years, it should be said he bravely and manfully did his duty,
-following, however, not leading public opinion on that question. All
-danger from that source had disappeared when the polls opened in April
-last. His competitors stood, on that morning, as honorably pledged to
-throttle it, if it again appeared, should either of them be elected, as he
-did.
-
-It cannot, however, be said that during his first administration he did
-his whole duty. It is a peculiarity of the American people that they
-always praise, with exaggeration, an official who partly does his duty, if
-the part performed is regarded by them as especially serviceable to the
-public. He had the benefit of so much exaggerated praise from a press
-that, for nearly two years then last past, had been condemning him, that
-some people were charmed into a sort of hysterical admiration for him. He
-had the happy faculty of concealing the shortcomings of his first
-administration, under cover of a supposedly overshadowing danger. Thereby
-he caused his previous record to appear as if free from blemish, and that
-he had performed every duty--and performed it well. The very adroit use of
-this faculty is the only reason why he received a plurality of votes so
-much larger than that of any other candidate nominated on the same ticket
-with him for a minor office.
-
-His best friends did not contend that he did his full duty. They now only
-hope he will do so. A public official is not entitled to praise, or
-thanks, for doing his whole duty. He is elected for the purpose of its
-performance. But full performance is so rare that the people seem to be
-content if a public servant will do his duty only fairly well.
-
-The vices which prevail in the city, and which grew to their enormous,
-threatening, and hideous proportions during the Mayor's first
-administration, were known to the people to exist, but were forgotten by
-them at the polls, were known to the police, and are still known to them,
-and upon no conceivable basis of belief can it be supposed their existence
-may not have been known to him, and that he does not know of their
-continued existence.
-
-It is for him to utter the command "Stop," and they will cease, in so far
-as they can be kept within bounds by his authority. Their absolute
-suppression, under existing legislation is, perhaps, impossible, but their
-regulation thereunder is not wholly impracticable. Ordinances demanding,
-for instance, the imposition of a fine of $200 per day for keeping a house
-of ill fame, have, he may say, never been enforced, and have fallen into a
-condition of "innocuous desuetude."
-
-The field of observation on matters such as these is too wide to be
-entered upon here.
-
-During the Mayor's first term, one of his best friends, in the columns of
-his widely circulated newspaper, severely criticised his administration,
-but supported him for re-election, and explained in its columns, in
-response to an inquiry made by a correspondent just prior to the election,
-his reasons for doing so as follows, viz.:
-
-"If Mayor Harrison shall receive the support of the independent voters
-because of the good points of his administration, that will show that his
-strength consists in doing right, not in doing wrong. It stands to reason
-that he would rather have the approval of honest and respectable men than
-of the vicious elements of the community. The R---- believes that Mayor
-Harrison's present administration from first to last has improved and not
-deteriorated. The mayor himself ought to know what are the weak points in
-it, and if he has acquired wisdom by experience he should choose his heads
-of departments for his second term with a view to curing the evils and
-failures of his first term. The relations of the police department with
-gambling resorts, all-night saloons and other forms of vice have been
-indecent, and probably corrupt. The R---- has frequently urged the
-dismissal of Superintendent K---- and the appointment of some better man.
-It believes that Mayor Harrison is much to blame in permitting the evil
-conditions to continue."
-
-The support he received for re-election came from a very large and
-respectable element of the community, but nobody can doubt that he owes
-that re-election to the solidarity of the votes of "the vicious elements
-of the community!"
-
-The respectable element did not vote with such allies in order that he
-should continue to conserve the interests of vice and criminality. The
-supporters of the all-night saloons, gambling halls, poker joints, and of
-all other nests of iniquity rallied to his assistance to a man. Without
-the massed vote of the saloon and its hangers on, he would not have been
-again chosen Mayor.
-
-The leading financial paper of this city, non-partisan in its political
-views, said on the eve of the election: "An emergency exists. The
-government of the City of Chicago is held in contempt not only in Chicago
-but wherever Chicago is known. We are losing good citizens, property,
-capital, prestige. The very streets, with their filth and dust, repel the
-visitor; the servants of the city, whether in administrative or
-legislative positions, are objects of suspicion; the scheme of a well
-ordered civil service is breaking down; vice receives encouragement as the
-price of votes. What wonder that many believe the heart is rotten? But
-there is virtue and power enough to change all this. The moral sentiment
-and enlightened self interest of the city once aroused and properly guided
-would overwhelm all opposition."
-
-Few, if any, evidences have been given out from the City Hall since the
-Mayor's re-inauguration tending to show that he proposes voluntarily to
-destroy this "contempt." His new comptroller is a worthy successor to the
-departed Waller, while the selection for his corporation counsel is all
-that could be desired by the most captious citizen. But the vices and
-crimes which principally brought, through their unchecked prevalence, that
-contempt, find the man, under whom for two years the police force, which
-in his friend's language has been "indecent and probably corrupt," again
-in its command. Doubtless the army of the vicious rejoices. Certain it is
-the community wonders. He will be observed as time passes. May the results
-of observation redound to his everlasting credit and success, and to the
-benefit of the great city of which he is the executive head!
-
-In the following pages references to the causes of that contempt will be
-made. The prurient will find nothing in them to their taste. These
-references ought to be of some assistance to the Mayor in finding out
-through a properly organized and well officered police force that these
-evil causes do exist. Having discovered them, their haunts, and their
-aids, if he does not already know of them, will he tolerate them any
-longer in this community? Will his continuous Superintendent of Police be
-further allowed to throw his kindly protection over them?
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-CHICAGO--Its Development--Power of Criminal Classes in Its
-Government--Pretenses of Reform--Official Satisfaction--Public
-Condemnation--Truths as to Power of Criminal Classes.
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-THE POLICE FORCE--Its Strength--Composition--Power Dominating--Duties of
-Defined--Population of Chicago--Nativity of--Police Enemies of Civil
-Service--Demoralizing Effect--Tariff on Crime--Rates on Gambling Houses,
-Etc.--Penalty for Refusal to Pay--Instances of Police Rates--Method of
-Collection--Habits of Policemen--Some Are "Hold Up" Men--Blackmail
-Levied--Law Department--Arrests in 1897--Police Fix Boundaries for
-Crime--Chief's Testimony--Analysis of Arrests in 1897 in Second Police
-Precinct--In City at Large--Division of Fees and Fines With
-Magistrates--Police Courts, Corrupt--Cost of Police Force.
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-ALL NIGHT SALOONS--Character of--Thieves, Thugs and Prostitutes
-in--Visitors--Country Buyers, Transients, Delegates, Youth and Old
-Age--Women in--Character of--Basement Saloons--Scenes in--Private
-Rooms--Scenes in All Night Saloons--Dancing--Music--Morning
-Hours--Robberies, Etc., Planned--Girls Entrapped--Young Men
-Ruined--Quarrels--Raids--Drinking--Surroundings of--Houses of Ill
-Fame--Assignation Houses--Slumming Parties--Fads--Salvation and Volunteer
-Army--Houses of Ill Fame--Inmates of--How Managed--Practices
-in--Superstitions--Luck Powders--Sources of Supply--Patrons of--Wholesale
-House Entertainer--Police Protection--Diseases--Attempts at Reform--People
-Indifferent.
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-RE-ELECTION OF MAYOR--False Issue Upon Which Re-elected--Vices in
-Chicago--"Blind Pigs"--Protected by Police--Where Situated--How
-Conducted--Classes--Drug Stores, Bakeries, Barns--Revenue to
-Police--Located Near Universities--Lieutenant of Police Convicted for
-Protecting--Cock Fighting--Bucket Shops--Women Dealers--Pool Rooms--Police
-Play--Pulling of, Farcical--Views of Chief of Police--Players
-in--Landlords--Book Making--Alliance Between, and Police and
-Landlords--New York and Chicago--Chicago's Police Force Worst--Hold Up
-Men--Methods--Victims--Police Sleep--Mayor's Felicitations, April 11,
-1899--Account of Hold Ups, Same Day--Classes of Hold Up Men--Strong Armed
-Women--Street Car Conductors Robbed--Ice Chests and Ovens for
-Prisons--Hair Clippers--Protection to Criminals--"Safe Blowers'
-Union"--Fakes--Panel Houses--Badger Games--Nude Photographs--Obscene
-Literature--Confidence Men--Diploma Mills--Gambling--Women's Down Town
-Clubs--Sexual Perverts--Opium Joints.
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-COMMON COUNCIL--Boodlers--Bribers--Council of 1899--Powers of--Misuse
-of--Price of Votes--Passage of Boodle Ordinances--Public Works Department
-and Bureaus--Illegal Contracts--Street Repairing, Etc.--Civil Service
-Commission--History of--Present Board Tools of Mayor--Examination
-by--Examples of--Attacks Upon Law--Special Assessments--Asphalt Ring--Fire
-Department--County Government--Insane Asylum--Sale of "Cadavers"--
-Contracts--Sheriff's Office--Jury Bribers--Judges--Revenue Law--Tax
-Dodgers--Town Boards--Coroner's Office--Press Trust--Civic Societies--
-Berry Committee Report--Baxter Committee--Opening Testimony--Conclusion.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-    CHICAGO--ITS DEVELOPMENT--POWER OF CRIMINAL CLASSES IN ITS
-    GOVERNMENT--PRETENSES OF REFORM--OFFICIAL SATISFACTION--PUBLIC
-    CONDEMNATION--TRUTHS AS TO POWER OF CRIMINAL CLASSES.
-
-
-Chicago, with its world-wide fame as the most marvelous product of
-American enterprise among municipal creations in the nineteenth century,
-with its wonderful growth, from an Indian trading post in 1837 to a modern
-city of the second size in point of population in the year 1898, with the
-record of its stupendous strides in reaching its present commercial and
-financial position among the commanding trade centers in the world, with
-its strong civic pride, its numerous and admirable religious, educational
-and charitable institutions both public and private, its cultured
-development in literature, music, the arts and sciences, with its
-memorable disaster in the great fire of 1871, its speedy recoupment from
-that disaster, and its brilliant achievement in the organization and
-management of the magnificent "White City," the wide range of the
-classified exhibits of which covered the entire and progressive
-contributions of mankind to all that goes to make up the civilization of
-the age from the earliest period of the commencement of that civilization,
-this Chicago, grand, philanthropic and patriotic, suffers, as for years it
-has suffered, from the most extensive and persistent advances in political
-power, along the lines of their respective crimes, of the criminal
-classes, until, from the wealthy bribe-giver to the lowest sneak thief and
-sexual pervert, these classes carry elections, corrupt the corruptible in
-the Common Council, sway justice in the forum of the lower courts, and
-govern the police force until it has become a municipal aid to the
-perpetration of crime.
-
-From one administration to the other, the growing power of these lowest
-classes of society manifests a stronger hold upon civic administration.
-Pretenses of reform are all that, so far, have followed each bi-ennial
-election of a Mayor. Here and there, and now and then, gambling houses
-are closed, threats against police officers, who follow the well grounded
-practice of levying protection rates upon brothels, street walkers,
-gambling games of all descriptions, saloons, concert halls, and that
-varied combination of evils forming the working machinery of vice, are
-given publicity, and while the growth of these monstrous evils cannot but
-be known to public officials, both from observation, official reports,
-events as chronicled in the daily press, grand jury reports, civic and
-State investigations, and verdicts in the courts, a nerveless cowardice
-seems to seize each succeeding incumbent of the Executive's office, under
-whatever political party's banner he may be called to the chair, and
-prevents him from grappling with, and throttling, the ever increasing
-power of the combined votaries of all forms of vice and crime.
-
-The Mayor recently congratulated the Common Council in these words, viz:
-"The report of the General Superintendent of Police contains assurance for
-all classes of citizens that the efficiency, vigilance and zeal that have
-characterized this department will permit them to pursue their avocations
-without fear of being robbed and assaulted by long and short men. One need
-not be exceedingly observant to note that with the approach of winter
-comes an annual outbreak of crime. We all noticed evidences of such a
-visitation at the advent of the winter just ended, but it should not be
-allowed to pass without comment that criminality rarely showed itself
-during last fall when it was crushed out with a suddenness and success
-that ought to be regarded with pride and satisfaction by every Chicagoan.
-There has been no evidence of crime through the recent year as in former
-years; the criminals came in the fall, but they were severely taught that
-Chicago was an unhealthy clime for them, with the result that they were
-wise enough not to linger here long."
-
-This statement, so self-satisfying to the official who made it, so totally
-false in fact, so dangerous to the welfare of the people, and so
-flippantly interwoven into a public document by one who either knew the
-contrary to be the truth, or who knowingly used his official position for
-the suppression of truth, if not of crime, is contradicted by the
-disclosures made by every organization devoted to the purification of the
-public morals, the betterment of civil administration, and the eradication
-of the bestial vices so freely and openly flaunted in the faces of a busy
-and apparently indifferent people.
-
-Contrast the announcement of the Law Enforcement League with this official
-declaration. Said this League, composed of the pastors of churches and
-law-abiding people, "Chicago's influence ought to be on the side of purity
-and good order, but the fact is that vice and crime are prevalent,
-lawlessness is defiant, recreancy to sworn duty is all but universal. The
-disorderly saloon is the nesting place of the terrible debaucheries which
-disgrace our city. Ordinances and laws which have for their object the
-suppression of venality and crime are trampled ruthlessly beneath the feet
-of a disloyal and un-American horde. * * * The public mind is profoundly
-agitated over the reign of lawlessness and moral disorder. * * * The
-co-operation of all decent and respectable people is absolutely imperative
-if municipal government is to be transferred from the baser to the better
-element. * * * We have a right to demand that lawlessness shall cease;
-that gang rule shall be broken; that partisan politics shall be made
-subsidiary to municipal righteousness; that the all but omnipotent power
-of the disorderly shall be broken; that the carnival of crime which curses
-Chicago shall end; that the law breakers, crime makers and bribe-takers
-shall be adequately punished and that the fair name of this imperial city
-shall be redeemed from the reproach of blackmail, wanton immorality and
-widespread disorder."
-
-A noted divine said recently, "I believe that this city is to be the
-greatest city of this continent and of the world. I believe that Chicago
-is the devil's headquarters, and I think it is not far from the City Hall.
-If our own eyes could be fully opened we would see there infinite
-indecencies, bum politicians, ward workers, heel tappers, men who are the
-devil's own and delivered body and soul to do his bidding."
-
-Another said, "Saloons and all other haunts of vice are wide open, as they
-have never been before in the city's history."
-
-A distinguished lawyer, speaking before the Christian Convention recently
-held in this city, said, "Scourge off and out of your temples the
-political hyenas that prey on the municipal body politic, that fatten on
-the scarlet woman's wages of sin, that share the gambler's plunder and the
-blind pig's profits."
-
-Another eminent divine declared at this meeting, "He knew that men have
-been kept from coming to, and investing in, Chicago because our morality
-is so low."
-
-Still another divine declared at the same meeting, "But when in one night
-five homes in the block in which I live--and I moved there because it was
-the safest place in the city--are robbed, and, within the same week, three
-men are held up within two blocks, the conditions are serious." Serious,
-indeed, they are, despite assurances of protection by the police force
-emanating from the highest official authority!
-
-A few plain truths as to the utter prostitution of the civil authorities
-to the power of the criminal classes in Chicago, and as to the filthiness
-of those classes, are attempted to be given in the following pages. They
-may assist in arousing the people to a keen sense of their duty as
-citizens to demand from a new administration a rigid enforcement of the
-law by public officers, and that these officers shall become the servants
-of the people rather than remain the slaves, as well as the persecutors
-for private gain, of the riffraff of the community.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-    THE POLICE FORCE--ITS STRENGTH--COMPOSITION--POWER DOMINATING--DUTIES
-    OF DEFINED--POPULATION OF CHICAGO--NATIVITY OF--POLICE ENEMIES OF
-    CIVIL SERVICE--DEMORALIZING EFFECT--TARIFF ON CRIME--RATES ON
-    GAMBLING HOUSES, ETC.--PENALTY FOR REFUSAL TO PAY--INSTANCES OF
-    POLICE RATES--METHOD OF COLLECTION--HABITS OF POLICEMEN--SOME ARE
-    "HOLD UP" MEN--BLACKMAIL LEVIED--LAW DEPARTMENT--ARRESTS IN 1897--
-    POLICE FIX BOUNDARIES FOR CRIME--CHIEF'S TESTIMONY--ANALYSIS OF
-    ARRESTS IN 1897 IN SECOND POLICE PRECINCT--IN CITY AT LARGE--DIVISION
-    OF FEES AND FINES WITH MAGISTRATES--POLICE COURTS, CORRUPT--COST OF
-    POLICE FORCE.
-
-
-The Police Force of the City of Chicago consisted on December 31st, 1897,
-of 3,594 men, of which number 2,298 were first-class patrolmen, the
-remainder being officers, sergeants, clerks, drivers and patrol-wagon men.
-The number of square miles of territory embraced within the city limits
-was, and is, 186.4.
-
-The force is composed largely of men of one nationality or of their
-descendants. A large majority affiliates with the same church. Prior to
-the passage of the civil service law in 1895, each bi-ennial
-administration made the force its own valuable mine in which veins of rich
-rewards for its friends and political workers were found. To this force
-the aldermanic supporters of the administration attached their henchmen
-and ward heelers, and these, in turn, as public officers, looked after the
-political welfare of their backers and of the administration these backers
-supported. Thus, the political complexion of the force was liable to
-change every two years. Notwithstanding the presence of a civil service
-law on the statute books under which the force is now supposed to have
-been re-organized and re-appointed, its political complexion remains the
-same. The organization is dominated by the political party which alone
-uses the distinctive title of "Tammany." The civil service law has been
-attacked, in behalf of this public force, by officials who were sworn to
-sustain it, until through their repeated assaults upon it, its
-administration is looked upon as farcical, and its administrators as its
-most cunning and relentless foes.
-
-The duties of the police force are clearly defined in the city charter.
-Generally, that instrument provides, "The police shall devote their time
-and attention to the discharge of the duties of their stations according
-to the laws and ordinances of the city and the rules and regulations of
-the department of police, and it shall be their duty, to the best of their
-ability, to preserve order, peace and quiet, and enforce the laws and
-ordinances throughout the city."
-
-According to the school census of 1898, the population of Chicago was then
-1,851,588. This population is one of the most polyglot of any city in the
-world. Each modern language is spoken by some one class of its people.
-
-The population born of American born parents exceeds that of any other
-nativity, being in round numbers 486,000, while the Germans, born of
-German born parents, and Germans born in Germany, number in round figures
-468,000. Of the Irish 131,000 are American born of Irish parents; born in
-Ireland, 104,000, making a total of 235,000. These are the largest
-classes, by nativity, of its people, and with the proverbial ability of
-the latter nationality to govern and "get there" it supplies the police
-force with the largest quota of men, year after year.
-
-During the years 1897 and 1898 this force, and every man seeking to become
-a member of it, was taught by city officials, and by none more
-energetically than by the chief law officer of the city administration,
-that the civil service law was an especial enemy of theirs, inasmuch as it
-abridged their privileges and immunities as citizens of the United States,
-and was, therefore, a menace to their rights, wholly unwarranted by the
-Constitution of the United States.
-
-It was accordingly attacked upon that ground by the officers sworn to
-enforce it, and, since the establishment of its validity by the highest
-courts in the land, its provisions are constantly sought, by them, to be
-avoided and defeated.
-
-The efforts of the commissioners to enforce it were commented on in an
-official message by the city's Executive, as if such efforts were in fact
-being made, and were part and parcel of an administrative policy; while,
-in practice, no possible legal device or illegal invention was allowed to
-fail of application by municipal officials to destroy its commands, even
-by its commissioners, who announced themselves as its greatest devotees.
-No more demoralizing example could have been set before the police force
-than the acts of the higher authorities. Such acts have produced the
-inevitable result, that, as such higher authorities saw fit to openly
-throttle a law they were sworn to enforce, the rank and file of the police
-force itself inferred that they, too, could seek to evade, and refuse to
-execute, all laws and ordinances which in their judgment affected the
-suppression of crime.
-
-Consequently, that force has become demoralized and corrupt, openly
-levying a tariff for revenue and official protection upon all classes of
-wrong-doers, below those who commit felonious crimes of the highest grade,
-and when the rates are not promptly paid by the protected classes, they
-are coerced by arrest into the payment of fines and fees for division
-between the justices and the officers. It is a well known fact that a
-schedule of prices prevails for police protection, which prices must be
-paid for that protection. Gambling houses pay from $50.00 per month
-upwards; panel and badger games, $35.00 to $50.00; music halls with saloon
-and private room attachments, $100.00; houses of ill fame, from $50.00
-upwards, according to the number of inmates at so much per capita; cigar
-store and barber shop gambling games, $10.00; "blind pigs," the unlicensed
-vendors of liquors, $10.00 to $30.00, and with permission to gamble,
-$30.00 to $50.00; crap games, $10.00 to $25.00; opium and Chinese joints,
-$10.00 to $25.00; drug store "blind pigs," $10.00 to $30.00, and prize
-fights and cocking mains, a percentage of the gate receipts--usually
-one-fifth.
-
-Whenever a gambling house refuses to pay it is immediately pulled. These
-rates of police blackmail and of protective tariff have been sworn to
-before public investigations, and inquiry trials, as imposed and
-collected. The press has repeatedly commented upon these frightfully cruel
-persecutions, reeking with the infamy of the participation by public
-servants in a division of the fetid proceeds of the procuress, of the
-landlady, of her unfortunate slave, the harlot; of the skin gambler, the
-clock swindlers and tape gamesters, and of the operators of massage
-parlors, both male and female.
-
-In one case, tried before the Criminal Court of Cook County, a lieutenant
-of the police force was convicted of the crime of exacting money from the
-owner of a "blind pig" paid to him by the owner for protection in his
-unlawful occupation. Going back a few years, during the World's Fair
-period, as high as $2,000, it is said in public print, was paid for
-similar protection in a single instance.
-
-The officer in charge of a given precinct makes the collections, retains
-his percentage, passes the remainder on to his next superior, who
-withholds his rake-off, and so on until the net profit reaches the highest
-police official. A leading city newspaper, in a caustic editorial,
-declared that "in Chicago protection means the privilege to commit crime
-upon the payment of a sum of money to the police. It has ceased to mean
-that the citizen will be guarded against the acts of criminals." So
-thoroughly recreant to duty have some of the ranking officers of this
-force become, that one of the oldest captains when asked why he did not
-close, in his district, certain notorious saloons where depraved women
-robbed strangers in wine rooms, replied that "some people would steal in
-the churches, and you might as well close churches as close the saloons
-for that reason."
-
-Patrolmen in uniform are found in dives playing cards; and in others
-sleeping during the hours of their supposed presence on their beats. They
-know the women of the town, the street walkers in the territory they
-patrol, the keepers of every vile joint, where the most depraved practices
-are indulged in, the houses of ill fame, high-priced and low-priced, the
-"Nigger," Japanese, Chinese and mixed bagnios, the policy shops, fences
-and schools for thieves.
-
-All these vice mills and their operators contribute to the policemen's
-demand, and thus obtain permission to carry on, in daylight, and at
-night-time, their nefarious, lecherous and disgusting crimes and orgies.
-
-One officer gambled in a saloon with a citizen, lost his money,
-overpowered the citizen, recovered his lost money and then robbed his
-victim.
-
-In broad daylight an officer held up a citizen and robbed him of his money
-and valuables. When the Chief of Police had this case called to his
-attention before a legislative investigating committee, he answered, "I
-tried that man yesterday. He got on the police department ten years ago,
-and he always had a reputation of being a good officer, and the other
-morning he had been drinking some, and, like everything else, became a
-little indiscreet and started out to hold up a man and got hold of a few
-dollars in that way, and under the impression, very likely, that he would
-never be discovered, and, like everybody else, with his good record in the
-past, he was discharged and reinstated, because many people vouched for
-him, and all said he was an excellent officer, but he stepped by the
-wayside and fell, and we had him arrested and discharged."
-
-Whether the many people who so generously interceded with the Chief of
-Police for the retention of a thief as a member of his force were that
-thief's fellow pals and hold-up men, was not disclosed; but it may be said
-without hazard, that they were not reputable men--if they had any
-existence at all other than in the imagination, and as part of the
-bewildering policy of an incapable Chief.
-
-Methods of levying blackmail upon other than the disreputable classes, but
-reaching through them, upwards and beyond them, are not only countenanced,
-but advised by superior officials and approved by the city's highest
-executive.
-
-On the 5th of November, 1897, a practical stranger in the city was given
-the following letter, signed by the Chief of Police, viz.:
-
-    "TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
-
-    The police department is about to issue a history for the benefit of
-    their relief fund. Kindly make all checks payable to W. V. M., East
-    Chicago Avenue Station, and any favors shown the bearer will be
-    appreciated by,
-
-        Yours truly,"
-
-This stranger had been denounced through the press as a fraud and a
-schemer, who had been arrested in other cities for obtaining money under
-false pretenses, which facts were known to the Chief of Police when his
-letter of recommendation was written. The stranger was to receive a
-commission of twenty-five per cent on all subscriptions obtained by him,
-and the treasurer of the fund, who was selected with the approval of the
-Chief, the Mayor, and his principal political satellite, ten per cent.
-Some $8,000 were collected under this scheme, one large railroad
-corporation subscribing $1,000 and a noted Board of Trade operator $500.
-Whence the remainder came rests in conjecture, with a well defined belief
-that noted gamblers, and keepers of houses of ill fame, were contributors
-to it.
-
-A legislative committee's inquiries prevented the consummation of the
-scheme, but, owing to the speedy departure from the city of the treasurer,
-the source of the remaining subscriptions could not be inquired into.
-
-As a cover to the purposes of this scheme, it was proposed to place these
-collections to the credit of the Policemen's Benevolent Association Fund
-of Chicago, which, by reason of the failure of a bank, whose officials are
-now under indictment for the misappropriation of public funds other than
-those of this association, had become badly impaired. This proposal
-followed the appointment of the legislative committee of investigation, by
-way of preparation to conceal the real purpose of the swindle. That
-association repudiated the plan.
-
-The Chief of Police was asked by the committee of investigation whether he
-thought it was the proper thing for him, as Chief of Police of Chicago,
-"to give to a man to go out among business men, corporations and
-manufacturing establishments of the city a letter telling them that
-everything this man did and said you would be responsible for, if you knew
-he had been indicted and arrested in different cities of the United States
-for defrauding the people out of money on this same identical scheme?" He
-answered, "I don't believe it." Immediately he was asked, "Have you heard
-A. was arrested a number of times?" and in reply said, "I read in the
-newspapers that he was arrested and had trouble in Detroit." Again he was
-asked whether A. had given him any information as to the number of times
-he had been arrested for getting money on false pretenses, and his answer
-was, "I can give you some information on that subject."
-
-These extracts from the sworn testimony of this official, speak in no
-commendatory manner of his sense of official responsibility. They point to
-a mind deadened to all sense of the duties of his position; they elevate
-him before his force as a conspicuous example for them to follow, in his
-disregard of the principles of official decency. In themselves they urge
-upon that force, by their silent influence, an emulation of such a
-blackmailing course, even though in its accomplishment the assistance of a
-swindler is required, and deliberately accepted.
-
-A brother of the Chief, a member of the detective force, was frequently
-found in poolrooms, assisting in their management, and yet the Chief seems
-to have been unable to acquire the knowledge that poolrooms were running
-wide open throughout the city. He probably knew it as an individual. In
-response to a question as to his information on this subject he answered,
-that no particular complaints were made--"the newspaper boys often came
-around and said there was pool selling going on at different places," and
-he presumed "if a desperate effort had been made to look that kind of
-thing up, we might have possibly been successful." More open admissions of
-official incompetency it would, perhaps, be difficult to make, and no more
-flagrant instances could be cited of official degeneracy than are these
-extracts from the sworn testimony of a defiant and dangerous public
-servant.
-
-In the attack on the Police Pension Fund, which was established under an
-act of the legislature for the benefit of an officer who shall have
-reached the age of fifty years, and who shall have served at reaching that
-age for twenty years on the force, then be retired with a yearly pension
-equal to one-half of the salary attached to the rank which he may have
-held for one year next preceding the expiration of his term of twenty
-years, or who shall have become physically disabled in the performance of
-his duty, there was manifested a degree of moral irresponsibility, if not
-of criminality, and a blind adherence to partisanship in defiance of the
-laws, seldom found in the history of any municipal corporation, and
-unmatched even by the developments of the Lexow committee of New York
-City, in matters of a kindred character, inquired into by that committee.
-
-For the sake of creating vacancies in the ranks of the police force, to be
-filled by appointments to be made by the Chief in defiance of the civil
-service law, and while that law was running the gauntlet of every
-conceivable attack, both open and covert, which could be made upon it by
-every department of the city's administration, and by none more virulently
-than by the Law Department, a plan was devised and put into execution
-whereby officers of all ranks, after years of police service and
-experience and in strong physical condition willing and anxious to remain
-in their positions, were retired from the force against their protest,
-merely to make way for the substitution of new appointees--the political
-friends of the Chief and his superior. Men with good records and
-physically able to perform their duties were thus forced upon the rolls as
-pensioners, to deplete a fund, sacred as a trust, not only for the benefit
-of the living and necessitous pensioners, but also for the widows of the
-men who had lost their lives in the service and the wives and children of
-those who had died after ten years of police duty. One effect, as to the
-standing of this fund, was to reduce the balance on hand January 1, 1897,
-from $16,837 to $4,543 December 31st, 1897. Thus over $10,000 was raided,
-seized and forced upon unwilling pensioners, "still able bodied and
-anxious to retain their positions at their full salaries." A more
-contemptible exercise of political power and administrative robbery could
-not well be imagined.
-
-The omissions of the police force in the enforcement of the laws, their
-acts of commission in evading, attacking and disregarding others,
-especially those relating to all night saloons, the source of most of the
-arrests for disorderly conduct, where wantonness is displayed,
-assignations are arranged, drunkenness aided and brawls engendered, are
-blamable, not so much upon the patrolmen, as upon their superior officers.
-The patrolmen do as they are told. They report infractions of the law, or
-not, according to their instructions. Their eyes are opened or closed, as
-the "wink is tipped" to them from above. The men are brave in moments of
-danger, fearless in rescuing the inmates of burning buildings, risking
-their lives in stopping runaway horses, tender in caring for lost
-children, or destitute persons, both men and women, and faithful in the
-performance of their duties as members of the ambulance corps.
-
-During the year 1897 one hundred and eighty were injured while on duty,
-and of this number forty-seven were on service in the first precinct,
-embracing the business district, the thoroughfares of which are the most
-crowded and in which the heaviest fires happen, while only seven were
-injured in the second precinct along the "levee"--the tough precinct.
-Given proper management, strict discipline and law abiding example, it
-could be made, and ought to be made, one of the "finest" forces in the
-world. Thugs and thieves, within the past two years, through the
-manipulation of the civil service law, have been admitted to its ranks, to
-its everlasting disgrace and that of the usurped appointing power.
-
-The number of arrests in 1897 for those offences from the perpetrators of
-which the police are charged with receiving protection money, was less
-than in any of the previous years since 1895, notwithstanding the increase
-in population, according to the school census, from 1,616,635 in 1896, to
-1,851,588 in 1898, an increase in round numbers of 234,000.
-
-The following is the number of arrests for the years 1894, 1895, 1896 and
-1897 for offences as named, viz.:
-
-                                    1894.   1895.   1896.   1897.
-
-  Cock fighting                     .....     156      69   .....
-
-  Decoy to gambling houses          .....   .....   .....   .....
-
-  Disorderly                       49,072  44,450  50,641  45,844
-
-  Inmates of assignation houses        53      53      92      14
-
-  Inmates of disorderly houses         21     105     205     181
-
-  Inmates of gambling houses          879   1,802   2,535     725
-
-  Inmates of houses of ill fame     2,516   2,894   5,547   1,531
-
-  Inmates of opium dens               943   1,112     528     253
-
-  Keeping assignation houses           17       5      15      19
-
-  Keeping disorderly houses            39      28      30     139
-
-  Keeping gaming houses               238     300     310     155
-
-  Keeping houses of ill fame          174     210     241     648
-
-  Robbery                           1,072   1,099   1,083   1,200
-
-  Violation saloon ordinance          717   1,283   1,359     559
-
-In 1897, as compared with 1896, there was a decrease of 78 in the number
-of arrests of inmates of assignation houses, 24 of the inmates of
-disorderly houses, 1,810 of the inmates of gambling houses, 4,016 of the
-inmates of houses of ill fame, 275 of the inmates of opium dens, 155 of
-the keepers of gaming houses, and 800 for violation of saloon ordinances.
-That these offenses had not decreased in point of perpetration is a fact,
-patent to observation and well known to the people. On the other hand, the
-arrests for keeping disorderly houses increased 109, and for keeping
-houses of ill fame 407. In the year 1896, when some effort was made to
-keep the police out of politics, the total arrests were 13,167 more than
-in 1897, when the police force had passed into the hands of a political
-machine, which sought to erase the application of the civil law to its
-government. In 1896 the inmates suffered arrest, but in 1897 the policy of
-arresting fewer inmates and more keepers, except of gaming houses, seems
-to have been inaugurated. "The keepers" are more able to pay than the
-inmates. For every dollar collected from inmates, the keepers are able to
-pay ten, or fifty dollars if necessary. From these figures it is clear
-that the practice of assessments for police protection was maintained
-principally against keepers in 1897, and that few inmates, comparatively,
-refused to pay in that year, while a large number of keepers of immoral
-and gambling houses were tardy in their payments, consequently, the former
-were not arrested, while the latter were.
-
-What the figures for the year 1898 will reveal is as yet unknown.
-
-Not only is crime thus tolerated by the police, but its chief officials
-assume, also, to define the boundaries of the districts in which it may be
-freely and safely perpetrated.
-
-The Chief of Police, testifying before a legislative investigating
-committee, said: "Now, any fellow who wants to bet on the races or
-anything of that sort cannot be allowed to do so this side of Jackson
-street, because we don't want this section of the town polluted with this
-class of things. We want the boys who have an inclination to bet on horse
-races to go south."
-
-Q. What have you got against the people south of Jackson street?
-
-A. I like them.
-
-Q. Is that the reason you wanted that stuff to go down there?
-
-A. Things are very lively in the lower part of the town, everything has a
-thrifty appearance, and everything----
-
-Q. You mean south of Jackson street?
-
-A. North of Jackson--and things up south of Jackson are virtually
-dead--there is nothing going on at all, and the stores are all empty.
-There is nothing doing, and the property, is depreciating in value, and
-the object was to liven things up a little bit.
-
-That part of the city south of Jackson boulevard to Sixteenth street, and
-from State street on the east to the river on the west, embraces the tough
-part of the second precinct of the second police district. In the year
-1897 of the total number of arrests of women and girls in the city, 17,624
-in number, 8,957, or over 50 per cent, were, as the police term it, "run
-in" from this police district. How often the same women were arrested and
-re-arrested it is impossible to say, or whether they were "pinched"
-oftener than once in the same night. Of this latter number 7,364 were
-discharged by the magistrates, but the larger number contributed one
-dollar each to the justice for signing a bail bond for their appearance
-for trial. In addition, 300 women, known as "women lodgers," were also
-"run in" in this district in 1897. Of these unfortunates 1,746 were fined;
-140 held to the criminal court; 193 released on peace bonds; 209 sent to
-the house of correction; 10 held as witnesses; 10 were insane; 7
-destitute, and 23 were sick and sent to the hospital. Of this total number
-of arrests of women and women lodgers, 9,257 in number, in this police
-district in 1897, only 2,288, or about 39 per cent were convicted of
-offenses by police magistrates, while 61 per cent of them were discharged.
-
-Of the total number of persons arrested throughout the city in 1897,
-83,680 in number, 55,020 were discharged by the police courts, 18,017 were
-fined, 4,138 held on criminal charges, and 2,947 bound over to keep the
-peace. The remainder were sent to various homes, refuges, asylums and
-humane societies. Over 50 per cent of those arrested were discharged. The
-percentage of those who furnished bail for their appearance, it is
-difficult to ascertain. That the practice exists is too well known to be
-proven, that a division of these bail bond fees is made between the
-magistrate and the police; the police furnishing the victims, the straw
-bailor his signature to, and the justice his approval of, the bond. The
-latter collects his fee and divides with the officers, while the straw
-bailor exacts his compensation in proportion to the ability of the victim
-to pay, then hands over a share to the arresting officers.
-
-That such persecution should exist in a civilized community is a disgrace
-to its civilization, that public officers should, for one moment, be
-permitted to engage in such hideous traffic in the liberties of their
-fellows, is a scandal upon the administration of justice, and that
-executive officers of the law, sworn to its enforcement, should be
-ignorant of the infamy of such arrests, or knowingly permit them to be
-made, is malfeasance in office, and subversion of civil rights.
-
-The portion of the fines (not by statute appropriated for other purposes)
-assessed upon, and collected from, this class of unfortunates by the
-justices, is required by the ordinances to be paid to the city at the
-close of each and every month, and is to be apportioned by the city
-authorities as the statutes and ordinances require. The salaries of the
-police magistrates are fixed by agreement with the city. These magistrates
-are chosen bi-ennially after the election of a Mayor, by that officer,
-from the appointed justices of the peace, and are generally of the same
-political faith as is the appointing authority. The system is a blot upon
-the impartial administration of justice. It has become a byword among the
-people as a malodorous cesspool.
-
-From the evidence heard before a legislative committee, that committee
-reported "that the present system of justice, or police courts, as run, is
-a disgrace to the present civilization. It shows that justice courts will
-open in the night time, policemen will go out and drag in men and women,
-100 and 200, and even more at a time; that they are refused a trial at
-night, required to give a bond for which the justice charges them one
-dollar; that professional bondsmen are in attendance who will collect
-another dollar, and oftentimes much more, from the poor unfortunate to go
-on his or her bond until morning, thus making several hundred dollars
-ofttimes in a night to the police justices and other officers connected
-with the court, and this is done, as your committee believe, from the
-evidence, for the purpose of making money for the police justice, the
-professional bondsman, and the police officer in charge of the arrest."
-
-These magistrates are required to report at the "close of each day's
-business," but their night arrests are construed by them as not following
-within the definition of "a day's business." The fees arising from them
-are not, therefore, reported.
-
-Civic bodies have denounced in the bitterest terms the evils of this
-system, and in a recent mayoralty message to the Common Council, in itself
-the hotbed of boodleism, it is said, "The justice shop system with all its
-necessarily attendant scandals is about to be wiped out."
-
-That desirable result awaits legislative action. The general assembly, if
-it has any respect for human rights, for commendable municipal government,
-for the performance of its sworn duty, will lay aside the struggle in
-legislative halls for political ascendancy, and hasten the day when this
-festering sore shall have applied to it an instrument of eradication which
-it alone can wield. It is proper to add that since the foregoing lines
-were written the night fees are better accounted for, under an agreement
-between the magistrates and the city by which the magistrates' salaries
-are raised, as an inducement to them to be honest.
-
-The appropriations for the year 1897, for the maintenance of the police
-force, amounted to $3,356,910. Other sources of income amounted to
-$17,635.03.
-
-The salary warrants drawn against this fund amounted to $3,290,296.26; for
-other expenses, $167,369.63, making a total of warrants drawn of
-$3,457,665.89, leaving a deficit of $83,392.84.
-
-The total income of the city for the year 1897 from saloon licenses was
-about $3,000,000. The saloons are, therefore, the policemen's great
-financial friends in more ways than one, and largely defray the expenses
-of the department.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-    ALL NIGHT SALOONS--CHARACTER OF--THIEVES, THUGS AND PROSTITUTES
-    IN--VISITORS--COUNTRY BUYERS, TRANSIENTS, DELEGATES, YOUTH AND OLD
-    AGE--WOMEN IN--CHARACTER OF--BASEMENT SALOONS--SCENES IN--PRIVATE
-    ROOMS--SCENES IN ALL NIGHT SALOONS--DANCING--MUSIC--MORNING
-    HOURS--ROBBERIES, ETC., PLANNED--GIRLS ENTRAPPED--YOUNG MEN
-    RUINED--QUARRELS--RAIDS--DRINKING--SURROUNDINGS OF--HOUSES OF ILL
-    FAME--ASSIGNATION HOUSES--SLUMMING PARTIES--FADS--SALVATION AND
-    VOLUNTEER ARMY--INMATES OF--HOW MANAGED--PRACTICES IN--
-    SUPERSTITIONS--LUCK POWDERS--SOURCES OF SUPPLY--PATRONS OF--
-    WHOLESALE HOUSE ENTERTAINERS--POLICE PROTECTION--DISEASES--
-    ATTEMPTS AT REFORM--PEOPLE INDIFFERENT.
-
-
-The breeding ground of disorder and crime is to be found in the all night
-saloons.
-
-Despite the stringent ordinances prohibiting the "open door" after
-midnight, in the most dissolute districts throughout the city, along the
-streets and avenues of the north, west and south divisions, under ground
-and on its surface, these dens invite the depraved of both sexes to enter,
-remain, dissipate and carouse through the night. Murders, robberies and
-assaults are the necessary outcome of the unlimited drinking, the ribald
-language, the senseless jealousies, and the heated passions of the motley
-crowds which are at all times the fascinated patrons of these joints. A
-more rigid rule has recently been applied to the larger of the down town,
-or business district, basement saloons. Music is prohibited, and the
-closing midnight hour respected. These are but the depots for the all
-night saloons. When they close, the gathered crowds of dissolute women
-dissolve and betake themselves to the after midnight haunts, there to
-continue their calling--the solicitation of male visitors for drinks,
-meals and the ultimate purpose of their solicitation--prostitution. The
-male frequenters of these resorts belong to all classes of society. The
-"steady" visitors are thieves, thugs, pickpockets, gamblers, variety
-actors, "rounders," that large and constantly growing class in great
-cities which is ceaselessly observing the shady side of life, "seeing the
-elephant," and not infrequently becoming intimately acquainted with the
-beast, and pimps, who fatten upon the sinful earnings of abandoned women,
-whose fondness for their masters increases in proportion to the violence
-the masters visit upon their slaves. The transient custom is comprised of
-not only the old rounder, but also of those of younger experience,
-bursting, or not far advanced, into manhood; those who with a wide
-knowledge of the ways and wickedness of the world, more than their years
-warrant, are out for a "good time;" the observer of those ways; the
-"chiels" who are among them taking notes; clerks, cabmen and their
-"hauls;" the country buyer under the guidance of the entertainer of the
-wholesale house with whom the buyer is dealing; the delegates to
-conventions, out to view the town; the passer through the burg who has
-heard of the lights and shadows of Chicago; the swallow-tailed youth, and
-the middle-aged gentleman fresh from escorting to her home the virtuous
-female companion of the evening's entertainment, the melodrama, the opera,
-or the social function. The women range from the one who has just
-"started out" to the most despicable and depraved member of the sex. The
-former is the observed of all observers, the object of conspicuous
-attention, and a veritable prize to be won by the most dashing attack and
-the most liberal offer. She is under the tuition of her female guide, who
-instructs her "what she has to do that she may not be raw in her
-entertainment."
-
-The basement saloons in the down town district with their brilliant
-electric lighting equipment, their reflecting mirrors and hardwood
-finishings, combine, in most instances, the facilities of the rum shop and
-the restaurant.
-
-Here, from noon hour of the day until midnight, come and go the "sporty"
-women, who have not yet reached the lower degree of a brothel, the
-"roomers," "the cruisers" of the street, the so-called keepers of manicure
-parlors, baths and dressmaking establishments, all bent upon a "mash" in
-its broadest sense, or a "pick up" of any male greenhorn, or sport, who
-can be ensnared by their wiles. Maintaining a semblance of decorum, they
-pass the earlier hours of the evening in drinking with the "guests" and
-in flitting about from table to table, with which each place is abundantly
-supplied. The conversation is loud, and at times boisterous. Its subject
-matter is beyond repetition in polite circles. Lecherous glances,
-libidinous gestures, open invitations, characterize the behavior of the
-audience. Sometimes personal liberties are attempted, but invariably
-suppressed by the management. From the private rooms come sounds of
-hilarity, and the intermixture of words of protest, inducement and
-vulgarity. The withdrawals of couples are marked, and their early return
-and ruffled appearance suggest patronage of not distant "hotels," where no
-questions are asked. Generally, as the midnight hour approaches, the crowd
-decreases, signs of intoxication increase, and the exodus to the all night
-resorts is about completed as that hour is struck.
-
-When the downtown basement resorts close, the profitable work of the all
-night joints commences. The attendants in them are joined by squads from
-the more pretentious and less favored half-night competitors. These
-resorts, as a rule, are all equipped with private rooms, and many of
-them, in summer, have a so-called garden attached. Some have vaudeville
-performances to attract crowds, which end after the midnight hour. Many
-have a "Ladies' Entrance," but most visitors pass through the bar to the
-sitting room beyond. The so-called music of the cracked piano and strident
-male voices now commences, and the hat is passed around by the artists and
-performers, for contributions for payment for their services, the "house"
-paying nothing for such services, but permitting the artists to "work" the
-crowd. Boys of sixteen, and under, join in the gaieties as buck, wing and
-jig dancers, and also pass the hat. As the hours lengthen, as the liquor
-begins its effect, freedom of action enlarges, and restraint is removed.
-Those attitudes at table indicative of respectability are abandoned for
-others hinting at the widest license, or actually, which is not
-infrequently the case, illustrating that license, so far as familiarities
-of the person are concerned. The dance begins, with all its contortions of
-the body derived from the couche-couchee exhibitions of the World's Fair
-times, enlarged upon by the grossness of the two-step waltz of the slums.
-Strolling bands of negro musicians, scraping the violin and strumming the
-guitar and mandolin, or the home orchestra, composed of these dusky
-minstrels, add their alleged harmonies to the occasion, and, with nasal
-expression, roll of coon songs in the popular rag time, with their
-intimations of free love, warmth of passion and disregard of moral
-teachings. At times, with assumed pathos and mock dignity they warble a
-sentimental song with some allusion to "Mother," "Home," or "Just Tell
-Them That You Saw Me." The spree goes on, with fresh additions from the
-bagnios. Women with the most repulsive signs of prolonged dissipation, of
-advanced disease, with the upper parts of the body exposed, not perhaps
-more than is customary at a fashionable charity ball, join in with
-salacious abandon. These women, in the phrase of the Bard of Avon, belong
-to the class of the "custom shrunk," of one of whom a Roman satirist
-wrote:
-
-  "* * * but now,
-   That life is flagging at the goal, and like
-   An unstrung lute, her limbs are out of tune,
-   She is become so lavish of her presence,
-   That being daily swallowed by men's eyes
-   They surfeit at the sight.
-   She's grown companion to the common streets--
-   Want her who will, a stater, a three obolo piece,
-   Or a mere draught of wine, brings her to hand!
-   Nay! place a silver stiver in your palm,
-   And, shocking tameness! She will stoop forthwith
-   To pick it out."
-
-As the morning hours draw nigh blear-eyed men and women in all stages of
-intoxication, creep to their holes to sleep away the day for a renewal of
-their orgies when darkness again falls.
-
-In these all night saloons robberies and burglaries are planned, and
-hold-ups arranged for. To them young girls are enticed when homeward bound
-from summer gardens and midwinter balls. Plans are laid for their ruin
-through drink, and the excitement of an experience new to them, which hide
-from their view all danger signals. Women are beaten and stabbed in them.
-Here young men begin their careers of dissipation, of lechery, and,
-perhaps, of crime, amid surroundings so contrary to the examples of home
-life, that before they are aware of it, they have become hopelessly
-enamored of what is termed a sporting life.
-
-The flippantly spoken word provokes a heated reply, a jealous woman,
-surcharged with drink, precipitates a squabble that swells into a free
-fight, a free fight brings an indiscriminate firing of revolvers, and the
-consequent death--the murder--of some of the rioters follows. Then, and
-not until then, do the police raid the place. For a few weeks it is kept
-under the ban, but gradually the law's grip is relaxed, signs of the old
-life revive, and soon the same scenes made more joyous and boisterous at
-the "new opening" are again enacted, to run the same course until another
-felony is committed, and another temporary closing of the doors enforced.
-
-That the all night saloon where such depravity is permitted to hold sway
-is a menace to the peace, the sobriety, and the safety of the community,
-is a self evident proposition.
-
-A minister in one of his sermons said, "The police wink when you call
-their attention to the fact that hundreds of saloons are running wide open
-all night. It is after midnight that the majority of the crimes are
-committed, and yet these places are allowed to run after hours, and have
-the protection of the police."
-
-The beardless boy and the habitual drunkard are, alike, supplied with
-drink without question. The former is flattered by being called "a dead
-game sport," and the latter tickled with the oft-bestowed title of "old
-sport."
-
-Many of these notorious dens are located in the midst of a forest of
-houses of ill fame. The depraved inmates of these houses, partly clad, are
-the most indecent visitors to the all night saloons. Perched upon the bar,
-or peering out from the private wine rooms, they shout their infamous
-language at the visitors, with invitations to indulgence in the most
-bestial of practices.
-
-Slumming parties, composed of respectable men and women whose morbid
-curiosity has been aroused by tales of the inconceivable vices forming the
-night-life of the demi-monde, are not infrequently found "going down the
-line" dropping into the houses of prostitution, viewing the bar, the
-private rooms, the dance hall, the crap games and the vicious
-surroundings of the all night pest holes. To slum has, in a measure,
-become a fashionable fad. Its purpose is, not to carry into these haunts
-the example of a better life, but to cater to a dangerous spirit of
-inquiry, upon the principle that excitement, even though it be found in
-the midst of the garbage boxes of vice, is relished now and then by the
-best of mankind. The only indication of a world outside, in which
-Christian principles prevail, is occasionally to be found, when some of
-the women garbed in the simple uniform of either the Salvation or
-Volunteer Army, engaged in rescue work, or in scattering a hopeful word,
-through the medium of their publications, pass among the crowd, receiving
-in most instances respectful attention, and, at times, but rarely, a jeer
-from some drunken sot or wrecked woman.
-
-The houses of ill fame, whose stained glass windows with suggestive female
-figures in the nude advertise the abode of the scarlet woman, are as
-luxuriously furnished as is the home of the wealthy and respectable
-citizen. These "creatures of sale," as Shakespeare puts it, are as
-clearly distinguished in public as members of the demi-monde, as if the
-Julian laws were in operation in Chicago. In early Rome, under these laws,
-the courtesan was compelled to dye her hair blue or yellow. Like the
-Grecian courtesan whose distinctive mark of her calling was blonde hair,
-the strumpet of today generally favors a fashion coming down from the past
-ages. The passer-by of these abodes of sensuality is invited by open
-solicitation or unmistakable gesture to enter them, especially by the more
-degraded of the women. A studied decorum is maintained in some of the
-parlors of the older establishments, presided over by a proprietress
-advanced in years, plentiful in wealth, and dictatorial in management.
-Harsh rules are prescribed for the maintenance of the condition of slavery
-into which the girls have fallen. Debts to the house tie them to it by
-bands too strong to be easily broken, in what are termed the aristocratic
-branches of this nefarious trade. These women are none the less free from
-indulgence in unnatural practices than are those of houses of reputed
-lower degrees of depravity. White and colored alike revel in the same
-scenes of carnality which, fragments of history state, prevailed in the
-declining days of Rome and of Greece. The inmates of the lowest of these
-houses, both in dress, or in the absence of it, and in deportment, follow
-the habits of the Dicteriades, or low down prostitutes, of Piræus in the
-time of Pericles. Their appearance in the reception parlors in a state of
-nudity, and their filthiness in practice is a renewal of the habits of the
-Lesbian lovers of the fifth century; or of the flute players of the
-Athenian banquets, accounts of whose indecent dancing and depraved ways
-are found in the most erotic chapters in ancient literature. From them
-come the terms applying to the devotees in these days of sodomitic
-indulgence, forming part of the slang of the neighborhood where they live
-a debauched and beastly existence.
-
-The superstitions of the Grecian and Roman courtesan are carried into the
-beliefs of those of modern days. What the philters or love charms were to
-the former, luck powders are to the latter. They are known along the levee
-as "Sally White's Brand" and "Sally White's Mixed Luck." The former is
-regarded as particularly lucky. It is a compound of "Sally's" own
-prescription, and is secretly sprinkled on the floor, at stated periods,
-as luck is sought after, or is burned in a room and the fumes inhaled. The
-latter is a mixture of perfumed oils and is used in the bath. The women
-are the frequent buyers of Sally's prescriptions, avoiding purchasing on a
-Friday.
-
-The sources from which come the supply to the ranks of courtesans, whether
-inmates of the aristocratic, the middle, or the lowest grades of their
-temples of vice, are many, various and damnable. Aside from the mere
-desire to gratify passion, which medical writers maintain constitutes but
-a small percentage of those who join the army of prostitutes, attributable
-to an innate sense of virtue in the modern woman, cabmen, in spite of the
-municipal ordinances, have been known to drive women entering the city to
-these brothels on the pretext they were hotels. The procuress is at work
-all the while.
-
-  "Thou hold'st a place for which the paind'st fiend
-   Of hell would not in reputation change.
-   Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every
-   Coistril that comes inquiring for his Tib;
-   To the choleric fisting of every rogue
-   Thy ear is liable; thy food is such
-   As hath been belched on by infected lungs."
-
-The department stores, in which starvation wages are paid to girls and
-women, who are subjected to the attentions of designing men, invited to
-lunch, induced to drink; whose love for dress and whose vanity are worked
-upon; those whose want of education in the relations of the sexes brings
-about their speedy fall; the servant turned out from her employment ruined
-by her employer or his son; the seamstress; the victims of unhappy
-marriages and cruel homes; those compelled by poverty or necessity, and
-who support dependent relatives; the "chippies" of modern days; the
-massage parlor graduates; all contribute their distressed quotas to this
-ever increasing tribe of prostitutes.
-
-It gathers in recruits from the overflow of the assignation houses, which
-are scattered over this city in astonishing profusion. They are found in
-boulevard castles and in back alley huts. They do not differ in character
-from those of all cities. Through them come the cast-off women, who,
-having satisfied the temporary infatuation of their seducers, find
-themselves victims of false promises, and the graduates from homes wrecked
-by the discovery of their daylight intrigues. So relentless a warfare is
-waged upon these private, and in some instances most exclusive, resorts,
-by the lynx-eyed police, that in the year 1897, nineteen keepers of such
-places were arrested! Some improvement is noticeable in their suppression
-from the fact that in 1894 seventeen, in 1895 five, and in 1896 fifteen
-keepers were arrested! Interference with this style of accommodation is,
-therefore, possible in Chicago, at or about the time of the arrival of the
-millennium!
-
-Singular to say there are moralists who assign the prostitute a position
-of usefulness in modern civilization. One of the most distinguished of
-English writers, in tracing the effects of Christianity upon mankind and
-its beneficent influences in social life, says: "Under these circumstances
-there has arisen in society a figure which is certainly the most
-mournful, and, in some respects, the most awful upon which the eye of the
-moralist can dwell. That unhappy being whose very name is a shame to
-speak, who counterfeits, with a cold heart, the transports of affection,
-and submits herself as a passive instrument of lust, who is scorned and
-insulted as the vilest of her sex, and doomed for the most part to disease
-and abject wretchedness, and an early death, appears in every age as the
-perpetual symbol of the degradation and the sinfulness of man. Herself the
-supreme type of vice, she is ultimately the most efficient guardian of
-virtue. But for her the unchallenged purity of countless happy homes would
-be polluted, and not a few, who in the pride of their untempted chastity
-think of her with an indignant shudder, would have known the agony of
-remorse and of despair. On that one degraded and ignoble form are
-concentrated the passions that might have filled the world with shame.
-
-She remains, while creeds and civilizations rise and fade, the external
-priestess of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people."
-
-The entertainer of the wholesale house who conducts his country customer
-to see the sights of the town, whenever and wherever such sights are to be
-seen, "where everything goes," pays the expenses of the round of
-debauchery from the fund provided by his firm; while from the floating,
-passing, male visitors, no less than from the resident male dwellers,
-young and old, rich and poor, come the thousands of dollars which go to
-the support of the lewd woman of the town, from the street walker, up
-through the mistresses and the shady wives, to the best dressed and most
-brazen wanton in the palaces--the "swell" houses so styled. The
-unrevealable indecencies which attend these infamous resorts are within
-the knowledge of the police, under any and every municipal administration.
-At times their pressure upon these unfortunates is heavier than at others.
-The necessity of raising campaign funds, the personal wants of the
-blackmailers of the police force, the revenges to be gratified for some
-jealousy aroused, or favor refused, all contribute to increase the weight
-of oppression. Meanwhile, in the absence of municipal regulations, which
-seem abhorrent to the average American mind as a recognition of the
-legalization of vice, diseases are wide spread, until, in the language of
-a distinguished physician, the most destructive of them have reached the
-blood of "the best and noblest families of the land." Lecky, in his
-History of European Morals, speaking of the horrible effects incident to
-the non-regulation of houses of this character, says: "In the eyes of
-every physician, and, indeed, in the eyes of most continental writers who
-have adverted to the subject, no other feature of English life appears so
-infamous as the fact that an epidemic, which is one of the most dreadful
-now existing among mankind, which communicates itself from the guilty
-husband to the innocent wife, and even transmits its taint to her
-offspring, and which the experience of other nations conclusively proves
-may be vastly eliminated, should be suffered to rage unchecked, because
-the legislature refuses to take official cognizance of its existence, or
-proper sanitary measures for its repression."
-
-The protests of Christian organizations and of societies for the
-suppression of vice seem to be in vain. The city ordinances prohibiting,
-for instance, the employment of females in massage parlors patronized by
-men, and others, intended to keep the conduct of all manufactories of vice
-within limits, if not to accomplish their suppression, are not attempted
-to be enforced.
-
-Some mitigation of the evils of police aggression has been brought about,
-as has been observed, by placing police magistrates under a salary
-sufficiently large to induce them to partly abolish the practice of
-wholesale midnight arrests, with their consequent fees and bailors'
-exactions. These fees are now accounted for more rigidly and paid over to
-the city, whether they are the result of daylight or midnight arrests.
-These evils are not, however, wholly eradicated, nor will they be, until
-an aroused public sentiment shall give as much attention, public service,
-and personal endeavor, to the attainment of that most desirable end, as is
-given to the building of an armory, the establishment of lake front parks,
-Greater Chicago, the passage of revenue bills, and the defeat of the
-attempt to obtain public franchises without compensation to the granting
-municipality.
-
-Whatever will tend to create wealth for the individual, to increase the
-volume of trade, or add to the attractiveness of the city in the
-improvement or adornment of its public parks, the energetic and pushing
-citizen aids with his personal services, and abundant wealth. Its moral
-attractions receive, in so far as the repression of villainy and of
-disgusting vice is concerned, but little, if any, personal or pecuniary
-assistance from the people. At a recent meeting of the Law Enforcement
-League, a clergyman, who had freely given his time and services in behalf
-of the objects of that association, begged for the paltry sum of $250 with
-which to carry on the work. It was received by contribution from his
-audience after repeated appeals. Had it been a meeting for stock
-subscriptions to some corporation promising large returns, or for the
-purpose of building a monument to some former day hero, or author, the
-appeal would not have had to fall upon the ears of the people repeatedly.
-The request would have been granted upon its first presentation. "This
-work," said the preacher, "cannot be carried on by sympathy, or applause,
-or resolutions, or expressions of good will. There is nothing but hard
-cash that counts in the practical work of enforcing the law."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-    RE-ELECTION OF MAYOR--FALSE ISSUE UPON WHICH RE-ELECTED--VICES IN
-    CHICAGO--"BLIND PIGS"--PROTECTED BY POLICE--WHERE SITUATED--HOW
-    CONDUCTED--CLASSES--DRUG STORES, BAKERIES, BARNS--REVENUE TO
-    POLICE--LOCATED NEAR UNIVERSITIES--LIEUTENANT OF POLICE CONVICTED FOR
-    PROTECTING--COCK FIGHTING--BUCKET SHOPS--WOMEN DEALERS--POOL
-    ROOMS--POLICE PLAY--PULLING OF, FARCICAL--VIEWS OF CHIEF OF POLICE--
-    PLAYERS--LANDLORDS--BOOK MAKING--ALLIANCE BETWEEN, AND POLICE AND
-    LANDLORDS--NEW YORK AND CHICAGO--CHICAGO POLICE FORCE WORST--HOLD UP
-    MEN--METHODS--VICTIMS--POLICE SLEEP--MAYOR'S FELICITATIONS, APRIL 11,
-    1899--ACCOUNTS OF HOLD UPS, SAME DAY--CLASSES OF HOLD-UP MEN--STRONG
-    ARMED WOMEN--STREET CAR CONDUCTORS ROBBED--ICE CHEST AND OVENS FOR
-    PRISONS--HAIR CLIPPERS--PROTECTION TO CRIMINALS--"SAFE BLOWERS'
-    UNION"--FAKES--PANEL HOUSES--BADGER GAMES--NUDE PHOTOGRAPHS--OBSCENE
-    LITERATURE--CONFIDENCE MEN--DIPLOMA MILLS--GAMBLING--WOMEN'S DOWN TOWN
-    CLUBS--SEXUAL PERVERTS--OPIUM JOINTS.
-
-
-That public opinion can be aroused on any question deemed of importance to
-the municipal welfare finds abundant confirmation in the history of
-Chicago, and that that opinion can make itself felt at the polls has but
-recently been most remarkably demonstrated. Admittedly deficient, both by
-friend and foe, in public assemblages called in behalf of its retention in
-power; permitting the violation of the law, in all its departments; openly
-consenting to the unrestrainted lechery of the debauched classes, the wide
-open running of gambling houses, pool rooms and disorderly houses; aiding
-by its refusal, or neglect, to stop the levying by the police of
-protection rates upon poker rooms, crap games, pool rooms and dens of that
-class, the pitfalls and snares set for the young men of the town;
-assessing for political purposes the keepers of disreputable resorts of
-all kinds, and the employes of the city under civil service rules in
-defiance of a law sternly prohibiting that demoralizing practice; an
-administration appealed to, and received, the support of nearly a majority
-of the whole people, upon one fictitiously dominant issue, under which all
-others were adroitly sheltered and wholly hidden from view.
-
-That issue which concerned the people as an incorporated body, rather more
-than as individuals, was practically non-existing. The power to invade
-the rights of the people had been destroyed by State legislation. In the
-absence of new legislation, the extension of railroad franchises is now an
-impossibility, except under the terms of the existing charter. No
-legislation can be obtained in enlargement of such municipal power, until
-the next general assembly shall have convened in January, 1901, unless a
-special session should be called for that particular purpose, the
-probability of which is too remote to be considered. Meanwhile the new
-administration which will be carried on for the next two years by
-practically the same men as for the past two years, can find no refuge
-behind an issue of supposedly overwhelming importance to hide its neglect
-of others, which affect, if not directly, yet indirectly, the financial
-interests of the city. Those matters, to which the administration of the
-city must now give its attention, concern the purity of municipal
-legislation; the proper enforcement of the laws in all departments of the
-city government; no interference in matters of education; no attempt at
-the control of the civil service commission in the strict enforcement of
-the law creating it; the proper letting of contracts, and the preservation
-of pay-rolls from manipulation and fraudulent swelling. The purity of
-municipal legislation is assured by the election of a number of aldermen
-whose records as citizens warrant the prediction that they, joining with
-an already trusty minority, for the ensuing year at least, will conserve
-public rather than private interests, guided by the promptings of each
-individual conscience. There will be no opportunity to filch from them for
-party ends, or for personal advancement, due public acknowledgment of
-their integrity and ability. But the enforcement of the laws governing
-municipal administration in its several departments; the proper
-disbursement of its appropriation funds for street improvements, scavenger
-service, street and alley cleaning, public buildings and parks, etc.; the
-management of the school-board by its own officials, free from political
-suasion; of the civil service commission along the lines contemplated by
-the law free from party dictation, and the elevation of the police force
-to the plane of its non-political duties, for the prevention of the
-spread of vice and indecency, the repression of crime, the protection of
-life and property, are all matters, the non-attention to which can no
-longer be excused upon the theory of the necessity of first destroying an
-attempted private seizure of the public streets, a theory which has gone
-to its destruction by the repeal of an obnoxious law, under which seizure
-might have been accomplished.
-
-So far as the suppression of vice is concerned, the initial duty of
-municipal administration is the education of the police in their duties as
-imposed upon them by law. For years, under every administration, with
-infrequent, feeble attempts at reform, that force has been rapidly
-becoming a fleet of harveyized steel battleships, sailing under the
-flaunting flag of vice, fully armed, and loyally serving the kings of the
-gamblers, the queens of the demi-monde, and their conjoined forces of
-thieves, confidence men, cappers, prostitutes, philanderers, etc., etc. It
-is not in the least fearful of public opinion. If wealth can snap its
-fingers and cry aloud "The public be d--d," so can the force laugh in its
-sleeve, and, aping wealth, echo "To hell" with the public.
-
-It is not different in Chicago from what it is in New York. The temporary
-disappearance from the "Tenderloin" of many of its flagrant vices, and the
-supposed purification of the police force following the astounding
-revelations of the Lexow committee, have given way under the ceaseless and
-insidious assaults of criminal and vicious influences. A New York journal
-recently said: "The reports to the Society for the Prevention of Crime
-show that the city is in worse condition than ever before. No paper would
-dare print all that is done openly in dens of vice that are tolerated by
-the police. The reports seem almost incredible; they show that with few
-exceptions the police force is corrupt from top to bottom. Gambling
-houses, disorderly houses and dives of the worst description flourish
-openly, a regular schedule of rates has been established which the police
-force charge for protection.
-
-The flagrancy of crime which brought about a political revolution five
-years ago exists today as it did then. In some ways there is even less
-attempt at concealment than there was in the ante-Lexow days; in others
-the vice and immorality is more hidden. But it is here, and instead of
-there being one "Tenderloin" ulcer on the city there are now four, each
-fully as extended as was that old hotbed of vice."
-
-What the police force of New York was before the investigation of the
-Lexow committee, so the police force of Chicago then was; and what the New
-York force is today, so is the Chicago force. A new investigation is about
-to begin in New York city. Watch its revelations day after day. Change the
-names, and for every police infamy revealed, every unspeakable vice
-disclosed, every violation of law recorded, their counterparts can be
-found in Chicago, intensified, not modified.
-
-The crimes which these "coppers" should, but do not, give their services
-to repress, are numerous, if minor in character. In flagrant cases of
-commission arrests may follow, and often do. It is the unused means of
-prevention deadened by the purchased indifference of the officers, that is
-the most glaring of police sins.
-
-The location of "blind pigs," or those places in which liquor is sold
-without a license, both within prohibition districts as well as without
-them, must either be known to officers traveling beats whereon they
-flourish, or such officers are too ignorant to belong to the ranks. It is
-not ignorance of the officers that prevents their suppression. Superiors
-are paid a price for non-interference. The patrolman follows his orders,
-permits the illicit traffic to be carried on by those who pay that price,
-and reports only those who do not pay it, but who seek to conduct the
-prohibited business without contribution to the permissive fund.
-
-In the most respectable settlements of the city, in the very heart of
-prohibition districts, in which there would be spasms of protest and
-whirlwinds of indignation if it were even suggested that the lines
-separating the prohibitive from the non-prohibitive districts should be
-abolished, are to be found the highest grade of the breed of "blind pigs."
-They are the brilliantly lighted, well arranged, and aristocratic types of
-the modern drugstore, where, as the evening shades descend, a band of
-friendly Indians assembles to discuss the events of the day, conduct wars,
-shape the destinies of nations, and draw their inspiration from spiritus
-fermenti op., a drug commonly known, however, as whisky, when obtained
-without a prescription at the bar of the ordinary licensed saloon. These
-whisky jacks express amazement at the want of proper regulation of the
-sale of liquor, while aiding in its unlawful traffic. They are typical
-Archimagos; high priests of hypocrisy and deceit. They are the open
-mouthed reformers who shout for a rigorous application of the law for the
-regulation of saloons outside of their own prohibition districts, for the
-maintenance of prohibition within those districts, and who wink at their
-own infractions of the license laws, behind the prescription case--their
-private bar.
-
-This form of attack upon the license law exists all over the city, more so
-perhaps in prohibition districts than without them, but each drug store,
-as a rule, has its patrons from whom a yearly revenue is derived by the
-accommodating and equally guilty proprietor who vends his drinks without
-compliance with the law.
-
-The other class of "blind pigs" owes its existence to a prearranged
-bargain between a policeman and the members of that class, who, for the
-entertainment of friends, and the turning of a penny, embark in the
-business without fear of arrest. As the sale of liquor for use upon the
-premises as a beverage is lawful when licensed, every combination to evade
-a license is not only an evasion of the penalties of the license law, but
-it is a conspiracy to rob the city of a portion of a large revenue,
-sufficient almost to support the police force. The city is thus plundered
-by its own servants who take its place in fixing the amount of the
-license, and who appropriate it when collected to their own use.
-
-Some of these institutions are to be found in the rear of bakeries, in the
-costly barns of the wealthy classes with coachmen as bartenders, and at
-the gates of the silent cities of the dead.
-
-They are a fruitful source of revenue to the police, and, consequently,
-difficult of discovery, since their patrons must be well known as
-non-squealers, and the police are too loyal to turn informers.
-
-They exist in surrounding country towns and in classic neighborhoods, in
-Evanston and Hyde Park particularly. Both of these localities are the
-seats of institutions of learning; the Northwestern University at the one,
-and the University of Chicago at the other.
-
-A Lieutenant of Police was arrested for extorting money for protection
-from the keeper of a blind pig in Hyde Park. It developed, in the course
-of his trial, that he was to pay part of the insurance premium to a
-brewery company. To such an extent has this blackmailing scheme gone, that
-its proceeds are distributed not alone among patrolmen and superior police
-officials, but also to brewing companies united in a trust affecting the
-price and the quality of the poor man's beverage.
-
-The national pastime of the Filipinos is of common occurrence in Chicago,
-and escapes the watchful eyes of the police, although its uniformed
-members pass the door of the saloon with which the principal pit is
-connected. The entering crowds, and the crowing of "birds," never fail to
-announce the on-coming of the main, except to sightless eyes and deafened
-ears. No underground or out of hearing place is selected for these
-exhibitions of cock fighting. They are held in the rear of saloons, or in
-barns or stables connected therewith by covered ways of approach. One
-geographical division of the city is generally pitted against the other.
-
-Usually the indignant police, even with early information of the time and
-place where and when this inhuman amusement is to be held, arrive upon the
-scene when the fight has ended, the lights extinguished, and the sports
-scattered. Although the city council possesses the charter power to
-prevent these disgraceful combats, that power remains unacted upon, and
-the offense falls within the definition of disorderly conduct, the penalty
-prescribed by ordinance, upon conviction for that offense, being a fine of
-from one to one hundred dollars.
-
-Bucket shops have nearly disappeared from the public gaze. They are,
-nevertheless, still carried on in secret, for the purpose of enabling men
-and women to gratify their natural propensity for gambling. The active
-efforts of one man, having the courage of his convictions and with the
-support of a commercial organization, which is the only competitor of
-these gambling concerns, have kept them in comparative subjection. Yet,
-such is the resistance made by them, that this man, aiding also in the
-discovery and punishment of gambling in general, ran the risk of the
-destruction of his life, his home, and the loss of the lives of his
-family, by the explosion of a bomb thrown at night into, or against, his
-house, by some miscreant or miscreants, with the evident intent of
-"removing" him as an impediment to the transactions of their murderous
-employers.
-
-The police, after much effort to discover the perpetrators of the outrage,
-finally dismissed it from further examination, upon the theory that this
-man had himself "put up the job," to accomplish the destruction of his
-wife and children, and of his own life. Through this heroic man's efforts,
-together with those of a fearless and outspoken clergyman, as in New York,
-and not by reason of police assistance, but in spite of police resistance,
-the convictions in the criminal court, in the past year for gambling, are
-wholly due. The latest accessible reports show that in the year 1897 the
-number of places closed during the two preceding years was one hundred and
-forty-six, and that at the end of 1897 there were twenty-nine still in
-existence, including tape games and fraudulent brokers' haunts. These
-institutions possess a peculiar fascination for women. Three of them,
-patronized wholly by the female sex, were found under one roof. Of the
-leading one, a writer in a city daily newspaper, in a vivid description of
-its general surroundings, said:
-
-"The atmosphere of the rooms is stifling and poisonous. The odor is rank
-with the effluvia of bodies, which, in many cases, present the appearance
-that would justify the belief that they have been strangers to the bath
-for weeks. To go into these rooms out of the fresh outdoor world is to
-almost suffocate at first. * * * The effects are plainly visible in the
-faces of the women. They had, with few exceptions, leathery, sallow skins,
-drawn and tense features, hard lines about the mouth, and wrinkles between
-the eyes, while the eyes themselves had acquired a restless, half cunning
-expression, composed of cupidity and uncertainty. As for their nervous
-systems they are wrecks. Take the hand of any woman in those rooms,
-especially if she has just made an investment, and the nervous vibration
-is plain--her hand quivers, her whole body is tense, her bulging eyes fix
-themselves on the board."
-
-Alluding to the men who hang around, furnishing "pointers," and looking
-for an invitation to a fifteen-cent lunch, one of the speculating women
-said of them, "These men are the lowest creatures who come up here; most
-of the women are respectable, but these men are lazy, dirty, ignorant and
-infinitely low, and all they are after is to get money and a free meal out
-of women."
-
-"The ages of the women range from twenty-five to seventy years. The older
-women peered anxiously through their spectacles at the board and whispered
-quietly to a companion; wisps of ragged gray hair escaped and waved below
-the little black bonnet. Heavy, thick-soled shoes stuck out from the hem
-of the modest black gowns; they grasped worn silk reticules in their
-nervous fingers, and got out the small sum which, in most instances, they
-did not have the nerve to invest."
-
-Describing the condition in life of these women, the reporter was told
-that some had been wealthy, and were now poor through speculation; while
-"more than two-thirds are the mothers of families and are eking out a
-little income, in many instances supporting an idle, worthless man, who
-should himself be out in the world earning a living."
-
-"If they make 75 cents a day it is a big day for them," said the
-reporter's informant. "How little you realize the state to which many of
-these women are brought! Many of them are almost penniless. Frequently
-they come here in the morning and borrow money with which to begin the
-day's operations."
-
-Pool rooms, as a general rule, run wide open; occasionally they are
-"closed for repairs" caused by a police raid, forced by some flagrant
-outrage against the law. They flourish in the most public places, with no
-restriction upon admission to any visitor. The daily races all over the
-country are posted on large black boards covering the walls, with a list
-of the horses entered and a minute of the odds which will be given or
-demanded by the house, from which the room's judgment of the "favorite"
-can be ascertained.
-
-The money is handled openly, bet openly, and paid openly. City detectives
-assist in their management, and "play the races." Raids contemplated by
-the police are tipped off to the managers, and when the officers arrive
-the game has closed.
-
-The incidents attending an actual pull are in the main more laughable than
-impressive. The "hurry up" wagon takes its load away, and before many
-moments have elapsed the same faces are seen again returning to the one
-attractive spot in their daily lives. These rooms are munificent
-contributors for protection. They pay from $600 to $1,000 per month. They
-hold back telegraphic messages of the results of races until their
-confederates have placed bets. They are patronized by women of,
-apparently, all classes. In one raid eighteen women were captured, fifteen
-of whom claimed to be married. All of them, of course, gave fictitious
-names; three had babies in their arms; three claimed they were wives of
-policemen; a few were well dressed, and all were undoubtedly devotees of
-gambling, sporting women who fancied they had discovered the way to lead
-an easy and money-making life.
-
-The following extract, taken from the examination of the head of the
-police force of the city, will show the view entertained by that official
-of the nature of his duties, in this regard.
-
-Before the senatorial committee appointed January 6th, 1898, to
-investigate scandals in connection with the police force, its Chief was
-interrogated and answered as follows, viz.:
-
-Q. How many pool rooms have you pulled, how many men have been arrested
-and convicted for pool selling since you have been chief?
-
-A. I understand one fellow has been found guilty and fined $2,000.
-
-Q. But he was arrested by the Sheriff of Cook County, indicted by the
-grand jury because the police would not do it?
-
-A. I don't know whether it was because the police would not do it, or
-because they could not do it.
-
-Q. Well, it was because they did not do it. Do you mean to say that you,
-as Chief of Police, with 3,500 sworn men----
-
-A. Don't say 3,500 men. It is 2,500 men; don't make it quite so strong.
-
-Q. Do you say to this committee, that with 2,500 sworn men in this city
-you are powerless to stop the public running of pool rooms in this city?
-
-A. I will say that I am powerless to stop a man from making hand books, or
-selling pools confidentially to his friends.
-
-Q. Do you know of any pool rooms being conducted in this city during the
-months of October, November and December?
-
-A. I don't know of my own knowledge; I never was in one.
-
-Q. Did any of the 2,500 men ever report anything of that kind to you?
-
-A. I never had any definite report on that subject.
-
-Q. They were giving the people a liberal government?
-
-A. Yes, things were running very easy.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Q. I will get you to state if it is not a fact that a large number of pool
-rooms were running openly with telegraph operators in the place, pools
-were being sold, money paid, and everything running at full blast?
-
-A. I never was present; I don't know anything about it.
-
-Q. Was there any complaint to you of that kind of thing being done?
-
-A. No particular complaint at all. The newspaper boys often came around
-and said there was pool selling going on at different places.
-
-Q. Could not the police of the city of Chicago as readily have found these
-people who have been fined for gambling as the Sheriff?
-
-A. Well, I don't know. I presume if a _desperate effort had been made to
-look that kind of thing up we might, possibly, have been successful_.
-
-Through these resorts, which offer inducements for betting on distant
-horse races, the confidential clerk, the outside collector for business
-houses, the employes of banks, young men in all grades of employment
-involving the handling of the funds of their employers, together with the
-men of moderate salaries, working men, and the large number of sports who
-live by their wits, are assisted in a downward career, until defalcations,
-destitution in homes, and a still more acute phase of living on one's
-wits, are reached, followed by flight, arrest, conviction, imprisonment,
-the breaking up of homes, and the necessity for the resort of the broken
-sport to the tactics of the hold-up man.
-
-Yet they are tolerated, until their shameless management becomes a public
-scandal. Then follows a pull, a period of purification of very slight
-duration, and again a slow start. Speedily again they are in as full
-gallop as are the horses whose names they post, and as around the race
-track the horses go, so around the vice track the pool rooms go. The
-losing patrons pass under the wire at the end of their foolish struggle to
-win, some to the penitentiary, some to despair, and some to suicide.
-
-The keeper and the landlord who knowingly permits his premises to be used
-for the selling of pools, are, under the laws of the State of Illinois
-enacted into an ordinance by the Municipal Code, guilty of a misdemeanor,
-and are liable to punishment by imprisonment in the county jail for a
-period not longer than one year, or by a fine not exceeding $2,000, or
-both.
-
-The police make no complaints to justices for arrests, nor to their Chief,
-according to his testimony. The keeper pays a high rent, while the
-landlord, perhaps some sanctimonious deacon of a church, who thanks God
-that he is not as other men are, accepts his monthly returns with unctuous
-satisfaction, shouts his amens louder, confesses his sins more meekly, or
-excuses his violation of the laws of the state with a more emphatic shrug
-of his shoulders and a more fervid rubbing of his hands.
-
-Book making, "in which the betting is with the book maker," and pool
-selling, in which the betting is among the purchasers of the pool, they
-paying a commission to the seller, are both denounced by the statute, and
-the court of last resort of the state.
-
-The unholy alliance between the police, the keeper of these law breaking
-and despicable haunts, and the conscienceless landlord, could be summarily
-dissolved. The police could be made the enemy of both. Their warm
-friendship for, and silent participation in the profits of, the
-partnership, can be destroyed by an executive order which needs but to be
-issued, with no possibility of an early revocation, to be implicitly
-obeyed by the sellers and "bookies." If not obeyed, then drastic measures
-within the power of the police to employ should be applied. As these lines
-are written, some evidence is visible of action by the police. A raid has
-been made! The inspector, under whose order it was conducted, said, "The
-sooner these men begin to learn that I mean what I say, the better it will
-be for them. I want my officers to understand, also, that they will have
-to be more vigilant." Threatening words, such as these, are common
-utterances by police officials, but heretofore as their echo died away
-their fierceness disappeared. No administration could lay claim to higher
-praise in any city in the land than that its police force is the guardian
-of the people's rights, the stern foe of crime, and the relentless
-suppressor of vice and indecency through the enforcement of the laws
-created for that suppression.
-
-If this is done in Chicago, a few of the devil's aids in the diffusion of
-wickedness will disappear from sight so completely that Asmodeus would
-vainly tear off the roofs of the houses in a search after proofs of his
-demoniacal power.
-
-While the police force is so closely leagued with pool rooms, and
-subjected to the power of the money their keepers are willing to pay for
-permission to carry on their demoralizing business, it is a matter of
-impossibility to destroy them. Vice works incessantly; the means for its
-destruction are employed spasmodically. New York City furnishes an
-astonishing instance of the political power exercised by a combination of
-the law breakers.
-
-The Lexow committee demonstrated the almost total depravity of an officer,
-charged with a command over its "Tenderloin."
-
-The city labored and Greater New York was born. It would seem that greater
-crime and greater political power in the criminal classes were born at
-the same birth. That officer became Chief of Police of the expanded
-metropolis. He had been indicted under the scathing revelations against
-him made by the Lexow committee, and yet despite the evidence of his
-depravity, and the protests of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, he
-was, through the power of politics and crime, foisted upon the new
-municipality as the ranking officer of its police organization. The result
-was inevitable. New York, the greater, is now declared to out-Satan New
-York, the lesser. A new committee is probing into its police management.
-At the outset of its proceedings it wrung from this officer replies so
-self condemning as to stagger one's faith in the possibility of such a
-quality as obedience to official oath in a police officer.
-
-The Chief was asked: Q. Perhaps you can tell how it is and why it is, that
-even while this committee is sitting in session here, the pool rooms are
-open all around us, and I have in my pocket money that my men won in the
-pool rooms?
-
-A. Perhaps some of my men have it, too. They are looking after it just the
-same as you are.
-
-Q. But the pool rooms are running?
-
-The Chief did not answer, but complained to his questioner that he had not
-been informed of the facts "officially."
-
-The examination then proceeded as follows, viz.:
-
-Q. Do you mean to say, as Chief of Police, with the men and money at your
-command, you can't close the pool rooms?
-
-"No," replied the Chief, "we do the best we can, as we did when you were a
-Commissioner."
-
-"I closed the pool rooms," shouted his questioner. "You did not," retorted
-the Chief; "they were alleged to be, on reports of commanding officers,
-then as now."
-
-"Yes," said the questioner, "but there was some fatality about that
-business, if you know what I mean."
-
-"Some forced fatalities," sneered the Chief. "Well, sir," said the
-questioner, "here are three great evils of importance--gambling houses,
-pool rooms and policy shops--and you cannot recall from your own
-recollection--you who are in charge of the enforcement of the laws--a
-single arrest in any one of these classes of crimes within a month. What
-do you do for your salary as Chief?"
-
-A. "I look after the force as a whole; I look after all reports that come
-in touching all matters of the kind you refer to and all kinds of crime."
-
-The questioner called the Chief's attention to a newspaper and some
-advertisements it carried. In spite of the questioner's declaration that
-the paper was a Tammany organ, and that all Tammany men were supposed to
-buy it and read it, the Chief declared that he never had done so. The
-questioner made the Chief a present of a copy of the paper, and asked him
-to read over the massage advertisements. The Chief thanked him and said,
-"I will attend to these places because I do not believe in such disguises
-for disorderly houses. Such places are usually in tenement houses and
-flats. I will attend to them and drive them out."
-
-"Will you make the same pledge about pool rooms," demanded the questioner
-quickly?
-
-"That I cannot promise," replied the Chief.
-
-"Why can't you promise it?" asked the questioner.
-
-"Because they conduct that sort of business in places where we can't get
-at them, and you know it, but I will try and stamp it out."
-
-Chicago and New York methods quite agree, with the advantage in favor of
-New York. In the latter city, the Chief of Police "will try" to stamp pool
-rooms out. In Chicago, the Chief, in his reply to similar questions, said:
-"While a man may come to my office and give information that a certain
-individual is violating the law somewhere and it is a trivial offense, I
-do not pay so much attention to it as I do when a report reaches my office
-that a man has committed a serious crime, such as murder, that a serious
-crime has been committed on the outside. I should naturally abandon that
-part of it, and take up the more serious offense, and I have been looking
-up serious crimes, such as burglary, robbery and the hold-up people, and I
-have made a desperate effort to suppress that."
-
-It was in this connection reference was made by the committee to the fact
-that one of Chicago's policemen had shortly before been arrested for
-holding up a citizen and robbing him in the daylight hours, which called
-forth the reply already quoted in these pages to the effect that this
-particular star had been tried, that he was a member of the police force
-for ten years, was a good officer, but got drunk and became a "little
-indiscreet." For this he was dismissed from the force, but reinstated
-because "many people" vouched for him. It seems almost incredible that
-that man is today a member of Chicago's police force; yet such is the
-shameful fact.
-
-Without the aid of the telegraph, the daily newspaper and the race cards,
-pool rooms and book making could not survive. They are the means of giving
-vitality to this form of gambling. The telegraph furnishes the press with
-"events" all over the country, upon which pools and books are made up. The
-news of the result of a particular race is flashed by wire at once from
-the race track to the pool rooms all over the land. There is scarcely a
-daily newspaper in any city that does not devote a page of its issue to
-sporting events. Many of them have their "forms" or "forecasts" of races,
-which are the guesses of their sporting men as to the probable results of
-each race to be run on a particular track. The race card is distributed
-every evening throughout the city; to cigar stores, saloons and billiard
-halls. It contains the "results" of the day, together with information as
-to the entries for the following day's races. Through these sources the
-sporting community keeps in touch with the world.
-
-A Chicago afternoon newspaper upon the occasion of the opening of a race
-track in an adjoining state presented in its issue its "Form of Today's
-Races." To those unacquainted with the lingo of the track its guesses are
-delightfully humorous.
-
-Predicting the possible result of the first race, the form says: "B. L.
-looks the best of the lot on paper. If the trip from the east did not take
-the edge off H. S. he should win easily, as he showed considerable
-sprinting ability in his last out. L. P. has a burst of speed which may
-put her inside of the money and with a good boy up is worth a show bet.
-The others are a poor lot and of uncertain quality, so that the finish
-will probably be B. L., etc." Of the second it remarks: "Of these
-youngsters which have started C. has been the most consistent and is
-undoubtedly the best, but T. is rounding too rapidly and may run ahead of
-the mark. F. A. is a sprinter, but if pinched does not like the gaff. M.
-E. and M. are green ones, and this is the first time they have faced the
-barrier, so there is no line on them. C. T. and F. A. should be the order
-of the finish." It says of the third race: "M. is a soft spot, and, if
-fit, she should win as she pleases. It looks as if the real race should be
-for the place and the show money, and will likely be between M. and A. H.
-and T. are also partial to the going, but as the latter has not started
-recently, T. should be the better if any of the others named are
-scratched. The result will likely be M. A., etc." Of another, a colt race,
-its forecast is, "H. is such a good colt that he looks like a 2-to-5 shot
-in this bunch, and that will be about what the books will lay against him.
-Of course, he has dicky legs, but the soft undergoing will undoubtedly
-suit his underpinning. The finish should be H. K., etc." The final race is
-thus placed in the form: "At the best this is a bad lot, and hardly worthy
-of doping, as so much depends on the jockeys and start that any one of the
-probable starters has a chance to get the big end of the purse."
-
-To this necessity has journalism come at last! While it urges the
-suppression, in thundering tones, of all manner of gambling, it is driven,
-by the necessity of competition, to aid the most injurious of gambling's
-many attractive methods. Another Chicago newspaper, the columns of which
-every morning contain the world's news of sporting events, said a short
-time ago, editorially: "Chief K----'s assurance that he will do his best
-to suppress gambling will be accepted in good faith. He has made a start
-in that direction, and the farther he goes the more plainly he will see
-that for the police to suppress gambling is a mere matter of lifting their
-hands. Gambling of the sort that the police department is expected to
-suppress does not flourish save by the connivance of police officers. It
-is quite true that to extirpate the vice of gaming is beyond the power of
-the police. Nobody has expected them to do that. While the board of trade
-and the stock exchanges remain open one form of the vice will be practiced
-publicly beyond the reach of the police. And so long as cards and dice
-boxes are to be procured, degenerate human nature will practice the vice
-in secret. But the police can stamp out the open and flagrant practice of
-gambling in forms inhibited by the law as easily as they can wink at it.
-It is a matter of saying "Yes" or "No." A poolroom or a policy shop may
-open now and then, but it will quickly shut again if the police are in
-earnest."
-
-The assistance derived from the telegraph and newspaper by the gambling
-fraternity is commented upon by a modern writer, his subject being "The
-Ethics of Gambling." He remarks, "But it is time to emphasize the fact
-that the real supports of the gambling habit in its present enormous
-extent are the telegraph and the newspaper. Half the race courses in the
-country would be abandoned almost immediately if newspapers were
-forbidden to report on betting, and if telegraph offices declined to
-transmit agreements to bet, or information which is intended to guide
-would-be bettors. How this is to be done it is not for me to say. My
-present object and duty are exhausted in pointing out the fact that the
-national life is being deeply injured, the State seriously weakened by the
-wide spread of the gambling habit, and further, that this habit in its
-present extent and intensity, is nourished most by the daily press and the
-telegraph. It must certainly be in the power of the State to deal with
-this, the most potent instrument by which the gambling fiend fights his
-way into home after home throughout the length and breadth of the
-country."
-
-"Hold up" men find Chicago their least dangerous and, perhaps, their most
-profitable field of operations. In all the various forms of this robbery
-upon the street in day or at night time, or in raiding saloons and stores,
-it is merciless in its methods. Robbery accomplished, brutality follows.
-The criminals who resort to it at night, not satisfied with acquiring
-their victim's property, usually knock him unconscious with the butt end
-of a revolver, with a billy or sand bag, or blind him with cayenne pepper,
-and in that hapless condition leave him to be found, no matter what may be
-the state of the weather. This form of criminality is a winter's
-occupation. It is occasionally, but rarely, followed in the summer months.
-
-Women are held up in the streets at midday, in the evening when returning
-home from labor, on the street cars, and at the doors of their own homes,
-and within them. No class is exempt from the attacks of these marauders.
-The poor suffer with the rich. They are of such frequent occurrence that
-it is believed not one-fourth of their number is reported to the police.
-The inefficiency of the force to prevent them is proverbial, and that
-inefficiency finds much of its origin in the utter disregard of the rules
-of the department requiring patrolmen to travel their respective beats.
-The discipline of the force in this respect is nothing; it is worn away by
-abrasion.
-
-The colder the night and the warmer the nearest saloon or kitchen range,
-there will the patrolman be found. In the former case he is merely
-dreaming of his duty; and in the latter, he is engaged in a terrific
-struggle between love and duty. Some back door of a house of ill fame is
-open to him for shelter, for wine, and oftentimes for food. The
-good-hearted landladies of these abodes know full well that one way to
-reach the patrolmen stationed in their neighborhood is through their
-stomachs, not because they are officers, but because they are men. In
-localities away from the bagnios, some servant girl, friendly to the
-"copper," protects him from the inclemency of the weather. To her he gives
-his time and his devotions at the city's expense. If on some, or on any
-winter's night, an observation flight could be taken through the air, and
-over the city, by the Chief, that official would believe his occupation
-was gone; for, except here and there as some of his subordinates were
-wending their way at the appointed hour to a patrol box to report, he
-would fancy he was a general deserted by his army. Closer inspection
-would, however, reveal to him that never an army had such comfortable
-winter quarters as has his. While the patrolman thus enjoys his siesta,
-or indulges in his love making, the hold up man lies in wait on the
-unguarded beat, to slug and rob the first belated wayfarer whom he may
-confront.
-
-The number of hold ups in Chicago in the year 1898, it is believed,
-exceeded in number those of any two large cities in the United States
-combined. The press, in fact, claims that their number was greater than in
-all of the cities of the United States. They were of almost daily
-occurrence. They are just as numerous, and just as ingenious and murderous
-in design, since the continued administration was inaugurated, as before.
-
-In the morning edition of the daily press of April 11th, 1899, the
-re-elected Mayor's felicitations to the council in his annual message
-delivered on the previous evening were published in these words:
-
-"The people of Chicago have reason to congratulate themselves on the
-successful manner in which the police department has coped with crime. It
-is acknowledged on all hands that Chicago is a singularly good place for
-thugs and thieves to avoid, and this notwithstanding the fact that the
-size of the police force is utterly inadequate."
-
-The evening papers of the same date report the following as examples of
-how the thieves and thugs avoid Chicago:
-
-"L. was arrested early yesterday morning for alleged participation in a
-daring hold up, which occurred near the corner of Van Buren and State
-streets about an hour before. A cab containing Mr. and Mrs. L. B., who
-live on Pine street, and Mrs. C. D., of North Clark street, approached the
-curb. As the three occupants alighted four or five men rushed at them. One
-drew a revolver and shouted: "Hands up." The other made a dash at Mrs. D.,
-who displayed some valuable jewelry, and snatched a watch worth $225 and a
-diamond ring valued at $125. The highwaymen then disappeared around the
-corner."
-
-"Attacked by Three Negroes.--Stanton Avenue police are looking for three
-negroes who held up Albert T., of 37th street, at 33rd and Dearborn
-streets last night and relieved him of $4.00 and a watch. T. was standing
-under the shadow of a building at the corner when three negroes
-approached him. One of them drew a revolver and threatened T., while the
-other two searched him. Many people were passing at the time, but the
-party escaped all notice in the deep shadows."
-
-"As Thomas L. and Joseph S. left Ald. K.'s saloon early today, S. says he
-was robbed of $2.45--all the money he had."
-
-"Robbed in a Saloon.--August J., bound for Minneapolis from Finland, came
-to Chicago last evening. He met a woman, and the two went to Samuel M.'s
-saloon on State street, where J. claims the woman held him up at the point
-of a revolver and took all his money--$25. J. reported the matter to the
-Harrison street police, and Officers C. and S. arrested Albert B., the
-bartender. He was arraigned before Justice F. today on a charge of being
-accessory to robbery. The woman has not been arrested."
-
-Following this, two men boarded an outgoing railroad train at night, and
-at one of its stopping stations captured a passenger who was standing on
-the rear platform of a coach, dragged him away, robbed him of a small sum
-of money, a lady's gold watch, took a plain gold ring from his finger,
-then bound and gagged him and threw him into an empty freight car near by.
-
-Within three weeks after the publication of this effusive compliment to
-the police, a citizen sent the following communication to an evening
-paper, which, together with the comments of that paper upon it, is here
-inserted, as the best criticism of the Mayor's optimistic view of the
-efficiency of his police force:
-
-"April 26, 1899.--Editor the J.: Not fewer than 15 flats and residences in
-the district bounded by West Adams street, Kedzie avenue, Homan avenue and
-Washington boulevard have been plundered recently. The thieves reside at
-----, a fact well known to the police, but all the efforts of the
-suffering tax payers are unavailing in having them arrested.
-
-"The police authorities will not act. The rascals have been at their
-present abode (----, first flat) since early last autumn. Their landlord
-is (well, I won't mention his name) well known.
-
-"Our community has become so terrorized that no one dares remain out after
-dark. Can't you assist us in our troubles? The police don't act.
-
-  "RESIDENT OF THE DISTRICT."
-
-The comments of the paper read as follows, viz.:
-
-"The author of the above is a well-to-do West side manufacturer. He says
-in a note which came with this communication: 'Do not under any
-circumstances couple my name with it. We are all afraid of our lives,
-believing that the thieves are so desperate that they would murder any one
-disclosing their method and abode.'
-
-This is the district in which George B. Fern and Cora Henderson met their
-deaths under such mysterious circumstances.
-
-Here is a partial list of the happenings of recent date in this one
-neighborhood, the first four named cases being within one business block:
-
-GEORGE B. FERN, dry goods merchant, 1393 West Madison street; found in his
-store with bullet hole in his head, mask and revolver with one chamber
-empty at his side; police say he committed suicide; coroner's jury
-returned a murder verdict; the grand jury also declares it was a case of
-murder.
-
-CORA HENDERSON, blind woman, 1385 West Madison street; found dead in her
-house, hole in her skull; murder theory worked upon by police; later
-theory advanced that she might have met her death by a fall.
-
-F. W., tailor, West Madison street; robbers drove up to his store in broad
-daylight while he was eating in a restaurant next door and intimidated
-clerk with revolver, loaded in tailor's cloth, drove away.
-
-W. H. D., West Madison street, grocer; hole drilled in his safe; burglars
-scared away when D. came to open store.
-
-MRS. FRANK W., Washington boulevard, house entered; $200 stolen.
-
-MRS. MARGARET D., Washington boulevard; house entered; $200 worth of
-property taken.
-
-MRS. WARREN F. H., Warren avenue; house entered; $500 worth of property
-taken.
-
-MRS. CHARLES C., Washington boulevard; hearing a noise at her front door,
-went onto the porch; a burglar who had been trying to force an entrance
-into the second story dropped at her side, revolver in hand; he escaped,
-frightening off pursuers with his revolver.
-
-DR. F. F. S., West Monroe street and Homan avenue; two men attempted to
-hold him up in his office; frightened away by the arrival of a patient.
-
-PROF. CHARLES E. W., Chicago Piano college; chased by mounted foot pad.
-
-MRS. ELIZABETH H. T., M. D., Warren avenue; swindled out of $60 by men who
-had a 'sure thing' on the races.
-
-JOHN V., West Monroe street; swindled by same game.
-
-WILLIAM H. P., bookkeeper for C. S. & Co., West Monroe street; house
-robbed.
-
-HERMAN W., West Monroe street; house robbed of diamonds, jewelry and
-silverware; Mrs. W. coming home, encounters robbers as they were leaving;
-they politely raised their hats and walked on.
-
-H. S. B., real estate, West Adams street; candidate for president of M.
-club; house robbed.
-
-ARTHUR W. C., Illinois Credit Company, West Adams street; house robbed.
-
-JOHN G., grocer; attempt made to swindle him out of $100 by men with 'tip'
-on races.
-
-The above list was obtained by a brief canvass of the neighborhood.
-
-The house given as the abode of the "thieves" is situated right in this
-neighborhood, which is one of the best residence districts. It is a gray
-stone structure and is said to be owned by a well known West side
-politician. In this place lives at least one of the men who have swindled
-numerous West side residents of this district by means of the 'tips' on
-the races. These men, it is said, have operated successfully for a year,
-few of their victims making complaint on account of the unenviable
-publicity the affair would thus attain. This gang, too, has headquarters
-in a West Madison street block within a few doors of the Fern store.
-
-This neighborhood is included in the Warren avenue police district. None
-of the officers at this station, or any of the Central station detectives
-familiar with the case, believes that the 'jockeys' have anything to do
-with the 'holdups' and robberies of flats, and laugh at the idea advanced
-by the author of the letter to The J--."
-
-The names and addresses of these victims are printed in full in the
-newspaper referred to, but for obvious reasons they are not used in
-reproducing the article.
-
-Immediately following the publication of this startling list of crimes, a
-grand jury submitted to the court the following report. The reader can
-harmonize, as best he may, this official statement, with that of a
-lighthearted and self satisfied Mayor who controls, or does not control,
-as one's thought may elect, the Chicago police force.
-
-"In closing our work the members of the jury desire to report to your
-honor some slight comment on the various matters which have been brought
-to our attention during our session, and to submit for recommendation to
-the proper authorities suggestions that may check the amount of crime
-which has been brought to our notice.
-
-"Our city seems to be the asylum of habitual criminals of all classes, who
-have terrorized the people to an alarming degree. We would particularly
-call attention to several instances within our knowledge where persons
-have been found dead, investigation made by the proper authorities,
-verdicts rendered according to the evidence with recommendations by the
-coroner's jury that the guilty be brought to justice. These deeds wherein
-the perpetrators in several instances have not been detected are largely
-due to the fact that this city is made an asylum for habitual criminals,
-and we strongly recommend that every measure be taken to close the gates
-of the city to such people.
-
-"Were the statute of the state regarding the arrest of vagabonds more
-strictly enforced by the proper authorities the number of habitual
-criminals at large could be largely reduced and Chicago made a less
-attractive place of residence for this class. The law itself is broad and
-ample in its provisions. Places under the guise of saloons, duly licensed,
-are merely rendezvous for thieves, murderers and prostitutes, and
-notwithstanding the fact that such vile places are well known to the
-authorities they are permitted to continue without molestation. The
-defilement of our youths of both sexes should receive the severest penalty
-of the law. It is our duty to protect and guard the manhood and womanhood
-of the young.
-
-"The continued violation of the ordinance fixing the closing hours of
-saloons is a great factor in the number of crimes committed in the city,
-and we earnestly recommend a strict enforcement of the ordinance."
-
-Apparently, a few of these criminal gentry regard Chicago as a safe field
-for their labors!
-
-Boys in their teens, men and women, both black and white, the latter of
-the strong armed class, comprise this coterie of criminals. The strong
-armed women, generally negresses, have the developed muscles of the
-pugilist and the daring of the pirate. They entice the stranger into dark
-passage ways, that innocent stranger, so unfamiliar, but so willing to be
-made familiar with the wickedness of a great city, who seeks out its most
-disreputable quarters and scours its darkest byways, to report to his
-mates, on his return to his country home, the salacious things that he has
-heard of, and a few of which he witnessed. In these dark and dangerous
-ways the strong armed women garrote and rob their victims, or they entice
-the innocent, but lustful, stranger to their rooms, and there, through the
-panel game, or by sheer strength or drugged potations, appropriate the
-innocent stranger's valuables. Mortified and humiliated, the stranger
-usually has nothing to say to the police of the affair. Then the
-emboldened strong armed women go upon the street in couples, and rob in
-the most approved methods of the highwayman. Alone, one of these notorious
-characters is said to have pilfered to the extent of $60,000. She was, and
-is, a terror to the police force. Released from the penitentiary not long
-ago, she is now undergoing trial for a fresh offense. Approaching a
-commercial traveler from behind, she is charged with having nearly
-strangled him, and then robbed him of his money and jewelry.
-
-"Only one man ever got the best of E. F.," said detective Sergeant C. R.
-W., of Harrison street station, who had arrested E. F. frequently.
-
-"Once she held up a cowboy and took $150 from him. He came up to the
-station hotfoot to report the robbery. We were busy and a little slow in
-sending out after E., whereupon the cowboy allowed he'd start out after
-her on his own hook. He met her down by the Polk street depot, and the
-moment he spotted her he walked right up close to her and covered her with
-two six-shooters.
-
-"You've got $150 of my money, now shell out nigger," he said.
-
-"Go and get a warrant and have me arrested then," replied the big colored
-woman, who wanted time to plant the coin.
-
-"These are good enough warrants for me," returned the cowboy
-significantly, as he poked the revolvers a trifle closer to her face.
-"Now, I'm going to count twenty, and if I don't see my money coming back
-before I reach twenty, I'll go with both guns."
-
-"When he reached eighteen, E. weakened. She drew out a wad and held it out
-toward him. But the cowboy was wise and would not touch the roll till she
-had walked to the nearest lamplight under the escort of his two guns and
-counted out the $150. Then he let her go and came back to the station and
-treated."
-
-Conductors of street cars are often the victims of the hold up men. Here
-in Chicago they invented the plan of placing the saloonkeeper in the ice
-chest, while the looting of the place went on. In another instance a baker
-was imprisoned in a hot oven. Women in their homes are thrust into
-closets, gagged and bound, while their houses are ransacked and their
-property stolen.
-
-The want of an energetic police is the cause of the prevalence of such
-abominable offenses as hair clipping, or the severing from the heads of
-young girls upon the public streets their braids of hair. One of these
-perverts was arrested and excused himself upon the ground that it was a
-mania with him, and that the temptation to cut off the braids of hair from
-every young girl he met, was almost irresistible. If detectives, instead
-of lounging around their daily haunts for drinking purposes, loafing in
-cigar stores, and playing the pool rooms, were mingling with the crowds
-upon the streets, offenses of this character would be nearly impossible,
-although this particular weakness seems to lead its impulsive perpetrators
-to less crowded thoroughfares, and selects the hours of going to and
-returning from school, as the most favorable parts of the day for its
-gratification. It may be prompted by a morbid desire, but it is none the
-less a serious offense, which, as yet, the criminal law has not defined,
-and has therefore not provided a proper penalty for its punishment. No
-evidence, so far as it is known, has yet been adduced to show that the
-braids of hair are ever sold to dealers in that article, such as wig
-manufacturers, etc. If such evidence should be forthcoming, the ingenuity
-of the average criminal for the discovery of new methods of despoliation
-will receive additional confirmation.
-
-One peculiar method of protection to the criminal classes is in vogue. A
-new thief arrives in the city; his arrival is noticed by a detective and
-the fact reported to headquarters. The thief is invited to visit the
-Chief. Upon his appearance, permission is given him to remain, provided he
-"does not work his game" within the city. He can plunder all the
-neighboring towns he may select, but the price of his remaining in
-security in Chicago is, that he shall be good and gentlemanly to its
-people. The "Safe Blowers' Union" has its home in Chicago, from which it
-radiates, as the spokes of a wheel, to the circumference of its limit of
-operations. It is a trust; a protective association. It pays for the
-privilege. It attacks the country bank, blows it, in the silence of the
-night, to pieces with dynamite if necessary, and murders if interfered
-with. It returns with its loot to the city, makes its dividends among its
-membership, police included, and awaits the pressing necessity for a
-renewal of its suburban raids. It is under the king's mighty shield, the
-king of the criminals, over whom he reigns with leniency, and whose gifts
-he accepts with condescension.
-
-The fakes of a great city are beyond enumeration. There are fake
-information bureaus, fake advisory brokers, fake safe systems of
-speculation, fake music teachers, fake medical colleges, fake law schools,
-fake lawyers, fake "Old Charters for Sale," fake corporations, fake relief
-and aid societies, fake preachers and fake detective agencies. The latter,
-and the street fakers, are friendly with the police. So are the fruit
-vendors, and the all night lunch counters on wheels. The latter stand
-where the officers say they shall stand, and the location once found, the
-officers at once become landlords.
-
-As to private detective agencies, without reference to agencies of an
-established local and national reputation, they are principally
-constituted of thieves, pickpockets, blackmailers, and porch climbers.
-
-In the trial of a case before the Criminal Court of Cook County, a few
-months ago, a witness acquainted with their inside history, swore that
-there were men connected with these fake organizations who would commit
-murder for $50. They enter into conspiracies to ruin the private character
-of men and women in divorce cases, and for blackmailing purposes. Three of
-these hounds were lately convicted of conspiracy in less than one hour, by
-a jury in the same court. These three worthies comprised the entire
-agency. Their punishment was fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary.
-They were employed in getting revenge on a man, who was supposed, by their
-employer, to have been the cause of his discharge from his commercial
-position. In getting this revenge they fell upon their shadow, pummelled
-him with great severity, and badly injured him. So grievous was the
-offense, that the State's Attorney demand no less a punishment than the
-jury awarded.
-
-They manufacture testimony in divorce proceedings, at the suggestion and
-upon the request of the parties willing and desirous of cutting the
-matrimonial tie; or, upon the instigation of one of the parties, they will
-endeavor to entrap and compromise the other. They revel in the destruction
-of the character of a good woman, as the vulture revels in the foulness of
-a carrion. The man of wealth must be on his guard against their attacks,
-for they would as lief magnify his peccadillos into felonious crimes and
-attempt his plunder by blackmail, as they would accept the earnings of the
-Mistresses Overdone, the exhausted bawds, whose pimps they are.
-
-Theirs is only another but a more vicious form of depravity than that
-practiced by the panel house keepers, who send their single workers upon
-the streets to entice men to their abodes, where they are met by the
-expert workers of the game. While thus entrapped, and indulging in the
-sensuality which aids so readily in his allurement, the adroit "creeper"
-enters the room through a movable panel, or by some other prearranged
-method of ingress, and takes the watch, the coin, or "any other old thing"
-of value, found about the removed and scattered clothing of the greenhorn.
-The police are as well acquainted with these "single workers" as they are
-with the street walkers. They know their haunts, and their fields of
-labor. The hotels, and places where crowds are gathered in the early
-evening, attract the "single workers" as the most promising ground for a
-successful capture.
-
-"Badger games" are not infrequently played in Chicago. Such as are
-successful are generally kept from the police records, through the
-preference of the blackmailed subjects to say nothing about them, in dread
-of their personal exposure. A man, generally one of means and standing, is
-marked for conquest. The first class hotel is the scene of operations of
-the female in the case. Fashionably dressed, handsome, with jewels for
-adornment, she strikes up a flirtation with the selected person. Fool
-like, as most men are in the case of handsome and well gowned women, he
-responds to the invitation, an acquaintance is formed and an assignation
-made. The place is of the woman's selection and known of course to her
-paramour, styled her husband. The room is entered, compromising situations
-reached, when, suddenly, the indignant husband appears, the woman screams
-in terror, and a storm rages. It is calmed by the payment of the price
-demanded for concealment, and the "sucker" escapes with a load removed
-from both his pocketbook and his mind.
-
-A noted instance of this kind happened to a wealthy and prominent
-merchant, whose indiscretions in the acceptance of inducements for sexual
-enjoyment held out to him by a stylish and beautiful woman, and his
-blindness in not observing his surroundings, enabled the fake husband to
-photograph him in _flagrante delicto_. Under threats to distribute the
-pictures it is reported he paid $10,000 for them and the negative. This is
-a fact easily susceptible of proof. One at least of these proofs did not
-accompany the package he received, which was supposed to contain all of
-the pictures.
-
-Photographing from the nude is not the fad of the harlot alone. Women
-infatuated with their shapes begin with the exposure of a beautiful foot,
-arm or well rounded bust, then a leg, etc., etc., until they stand before
-the camera almost in _puris naturalibus_. These pictures are taken for
-pure self admiration, the love of self study and comparison with the forms
-of celebrated actresses, or the paintings of the masters, famous in art
-for their conceptions of the perfect woman. They differ from those obscene
-pictures designed for sale, for which purpose the depraved couple are
-photographed in situations, attitudes and conditions, natural and
-unnatural, which appeal to the grossest instincts in man, and shock, also,
-the moral sense of every one not in himself a sexual pervert.
-
-The latter are eagerly sought after, are quite salable, and are carried
-about the persons of fast young men about town, with intent, upon
-opportunity, to influence the passions of women. They are the solace of
-the aged sport, who, having lost all recollection of the ordinary affairs
-of his youth, still fondly retains the memory of the amours of his younger
-days, and of the orgies of his middle age. Then recalling with sadness the
-first appearance of the lamentable indications of his decline, he
-contentedly yields the passing of his power--"sans teeth, sans eyes, sans
-taste, sans everything."
-
-These are the men, who, if they had lived in the early days of the Roman
-Empire at or about the date of the Floralian games, would have been the
-principal patrons, or, if at the time of the prevalence of the
-Bacchanalian mysteries, the prominent members, of societies organized for
-the purpose of gratifying unnatural desires; or if they had been Romans in
-the declining days of that empire would have figured as the most frantic
-and most lustful of the worshippers of Priapus.
-
-The methods of the vendors of obscene literature are innumerable, and all
-are formed along the lines of extreme caution and cunning. They are keen
-judges of human nature, quick to detect the inquisitive stranger, or the
-sporting gent of the town, and adroit in introducing their filthy stock.
-The purchaser is more than liable to be swindled in the deal, as the fakir
-requires immediate concealment of the purchase, which, when examined by
-the vendee in the quiet of his own room often turns out to be a harmless
-work resembling only in the binding the supposed purchase.
-
-The confidence men, who invite the incoming visitor to view the scene of
-the great explosion on the lake front, and suggest trips to other places
-where startling events have not occurred, discover, by skillful
-questioning, the weaknesses of their dupe. They arouse his innate, but
-dormant, wish to take a chance at some game that seems to him certain of a
-rich return. He is easily induced to play and allowed to win a small
-stake, merely to excite greater interest and establish the conviction that
-he can "beat the game." Naturally he plunges ahead, until the moment
-comes, set by his trappers, when he is cheated, robbed and goes "flat
-broke." The dupe may, or may not, report his loss to the police. If he
-does, and it happens to be one of consequence, detectives may be detailed
-to search for the swindlers; but if the loss is small in amount, however
-important to the loser, the dupe is more likely to be laughed at than
-aided by the officers of the law.
-
-To this class belong cabmen who rob drunken men, and "divvy" with the
-police; commission houses, which secure consignments of goods for sale by
-false representations; grocery grafters, who solicit throughout the
-country orders for groceries, claiming to represent wholesale houses, ship
-an inferior grade and collect C. O. D. at the prices charged for the
-superior grade; Board of Trade sharks, who "welch" their clients' money by
-charging up fictitious losses, when the figures will not appear to lie;
-the false claimants for personal injuries alleged to have been caused
-through the negligence of wealthy corporations, such as street car lines,
-manufacturing companies and rolling mills, or by the city, from defective
-sidewalks, unguarded street excavations, etc., etc.; bakers who sell
-unlabeled and underweight bread; the gold brick and gold filings sharper;
-the electric and mining stock swindler, and the advertiser seeking a
-governess to accompany himself and family abroad. These men have
-"irresistible tendencies" to work their several games. They cannot help
-it, they say. Like kleptomaniacs, or "Jack the Hair Clipper," they are
-impelled by nature to the commission of their crimes. In their own
-judgment they ought not to be punished, because they are the victims of
-defective brains. But they are just as cunning as the hair clipper, just
-as conscious that they are law breakers as he was when he mailed to the
-Chief of Police in his own words the following note, enclosing some of the
-braids of hair he had clipped from the head of a young girl, viz:
-
-    "A clue for J. K.'s cheap skates. Will send more when I get cheap
-    stuff like this.
-
-        Jack."
-
-Of this same class are men who conduct "diploma mills" and make doctors,
-especially in one day. They sell their parchments as freely as a
-saloonkeeper does his beer, and then claim that because a college confers
-distinctive degrees upon men of prominence, without a course of study and
-examination, they are justified in launching doctors by the score upon
-unsuspecting communities, "without study and examination," to discredit
-the medical profession, and send men, women and children to premature
-graves. Like McTeague, who acquired his knowledge of dentistry from the
-seven volumes of "Allen's Practical Dentist," they obtain their knowledge
-of diseases from quack publications, newspapers and magazine articles.
-They use nothing but "the purest of the earth's productions in their
-treatment, and no minerals or poisonous materials of any kind are ever
-permitted to enter your system." Their prices range from "one dollar up."
-"A positive guarantee is given in every case treated, so you have nothing
-to risk in any way. Your money back on demand if not satisfied." They can
-wash kidneys so clean, that if you are a woman and have not extended your
-arms in years, after taking the first box of kidney pills you "can raise
-them, and twist your hair," and after the second, "dress yourself, perform
-your household duties," and "life will again take on a bright hue" for
-you. Bald heads respond to the "remarkable effects" of their discoveries,
-with joyful alacrity. Gray hair goes into hiding, and "thick and lustrous
-eyebrows and eye lashes" blossom forth on one application, as lilac bushes
-do in the spring time at the first touch of the warmth of the sun's rays.
-Their remedies are "no longer experiments, they are medical certainties."
-They "create solid flesh, muscles and strength, clear the brain, and make
-the blood pure and rich." For humanity's sake, distinguished Mayors,
-ex-Mayors, city treasurers, scholars, soldiers, ex-state senators and
-senators, representatives, lawyers and judges, lend their beaming
-countenances, when fully restored to health, for the uses of these quacks,
-until the daily press has become a portrait gallery of rebuilt and
-revitalized men, who, if disease had the clutch upon them they so
-felicitously describe--in the stereotyped words of the quack--ought to
-have been dead, buried and mourned long ago. These distinguished men in
-American life, are merely selling their faces for promotion purposes, much
-as the titled Englishman sells his title.
-
-Of all the sources of police graft, in addition to pool rooms and policy
-shops, gambling is the most prolific. There are in Chicago over 7,000
-saloons and nearly 2,000 cigar stores. The number of gambling houses
-proper is unknown, but the list swells into the hundreds. The saloon and
-cigar stores have as a general rule a gambling annex. Gambling houses
-proper, as known some years ago, have no longer the permanency they then
-had. Roulette and faro, especially, are sleeping, and awaken only at
-infrequent intervals. The negro game of craps, and the national game of
-poker, particularly stud poker, have become the substitutes for the wheel
-and the lay out. In two-thirds of the saloons and cigar stores poker and
-stud poker are played, and in many of the saloons, especially the all
-night variety, the crap table is part of the necessary equipment. It is
-estimated that poker games are in progress in over eight thousand of the
-saloons, cigar stores, barber shops and bakeries, every night, while
-gambling houses with the roulette and faro barred, add over one thousand
-to the number. Craps are shot even at the doors of some of the theaters.
-All this is known to the police, tolerated by the police, and taxed by the
-police. Take the average cigar store for illustration. In the rear are
-rooms neatly fitted up and supplied with three or more poker tables. The
-rake off to the house goes on just as in the regularly equipped gambling
-house. The games are played by men of all classes in life below the
-society men and men of wealth, who get their amusement at the club. The
-clubs all forbid poker, but the tabooing order is "more honored in its
-breach than its observance." In the cigar stores and saloons, workingmen,
-artisans, clerks, and the loafing skin gambler, participate in the game.
-The latter is quickly spotted, and placed under the ban. The proprietor
-requires the games to be square, in so far as he can control them. The
-losses of the cigar store players are more severe upon them than are
-those of the gamblers who play for higher stakes. The wages of the
-workingman, clerks and artisans are their only gambling capital. They have
-no bank accounts to draw upon. The home suffers; wife and children are the
-indirect victims. Theirs is a cash game. When wages are exhausted, the
-unearned wage is mortgaged to the loan "sharks." These greedy and
-heartless wretches lure the clerk earning a fair salary to borrow from
-them at reasonable rates, and upon a "strictly confidential" basis. The
-employer is not to know of the transaction. The clerk is soon in the
-shark's strong jaws. He must pay what is demanded, or the employer, the
-rules of whose establishment forbid dealings with the "shark," will be
-made aware of the violation of his rules, and the clerk's embarrassment
-commences. Rather than risk discharge from his position, and to escape
-from the "shark" jaws, the frightened clerk pays in monthly installments
-double the amount of his loan, plus a sum for a fee to an attorney who was
-never retained. All this is so much blood money, flowing from the wounds
-made by the "shark's" sharp teeth.
-
-The minor is not prevented in the cigar store joints from gaming any more
-than he is prevented from drinking at the saloon bar. Nightly, over this
-vast city, young men are succumbing to the terrible fascination of gaming.
-Nightly, temptations, almost irresistible, are preying upon their minds.
-The honesty of their intentions is gradually undermined, and almost before
-they awaken to a realization of the truth, they have committed some theft
-and commenced a downward career. Men who filled high positions of trust
-and earned large salaries are today inmates of the state penitentiary, led
-away by the fascination and excitement of the gaming table. The evils of
-gambling, the intensity of the love of the average man for indulgence in
-its exhilaration, the wide spread use of it in the home, the club, the
-stag parties, and so on down to the lowest joints in the slums, have been
-the themes of every writer who attempts to depict the daily life of great
-cities.
-
-It exists in the form of prizes in progressive euchre parties, in social
-gatherings, in the raffles of the church fairs, the voting for the most
-popular man or woman, as city or county stenographer, popular firemen or
-policemen; in guessing contests in the solution of puzzles; or wherever
-the element of chance enters into the affairs of life, from which
-amusement is sought to be drawn. Whether it is a wheat deal on the board
-of trade in which millions are involved, or the cast of the dice by
-newsboys and boot blacks in the alleys and upon the sidewalks of the city,
-the controlling passion is there--the passion for gain at the whim of
-chance. Judgment may prompt the wheat deal, but unless judgment promises
-large profits the incentive to engage in the manipulation of the markets
-is absent. The possible toil and mental worry is overlooked in the hope of
-great gain without correspondingly prolonged labor. Millions fly away in
-great gambling speculations as easily and as swiftly as the penny of the
-newsboy takes its flight from one to the other of the inveterate little
-gamblers, to be found among these sharp witted waifs of the street. It
-goes on in billiard halls, where "hap hazard" is openly played; at saloon
-bars where the loser at dice "pays for the drinks." It is to be seen in
-beer halls, summer gardens, among well dressed people who carry the dice
-with them, of the usual size, or smaller, with fancy box-guard, and who
-"shake" for the drinks and dinners, not so much as a matter of gambling,
-as for the zest it gives to their party, or their outing. It controls
-political picnics in the fakers' attractions that follow them, and in the
-prizes offered to the winner, of boys' and girls', women and fat men's,
-races, or for which artistic cake walkers and ragtime dancers compete.
-Civil and criminal trials are even chosen as events upon which to place a
-wager. The frequency of elections, the daily horse racing contests
-throughout the world, base ball games in season, prize fights between
-professionals, club athletic contests, policy shops with their daily
-drawings, and lotteries, all arouse the cupidity of the seeker after quick
-gains without physical labor. "Bet you five" settles many a mathematical,
-historical, political or economic proposition, contrary to the truth.
-
-Races, accompanied by the usual retinue of book makers, are conducted by a
-wealthy club, many of whose members are leaders in civic bodies formed
-for the betterment of local government, and consequently for the
-suppression of vice. Grand juries report month after month their inability
-to obtain the co-operation of the police in gathering evidence against
-gamblers and landlords whereon to found indictments. Each grand jury when
-empanelled hears from the bench the monotonous song "Gentlemen, bucket
-shops exist, investigate them," together with such musical accompaniment,
-as may be added by the judge, in the way of moralizing upon their
-wickedness.
-
-Fashionable women have their down town clubs. There they meet, smoke
-cigarettes, take their drinks from the sideboard "just like men," gamble
-for excitement, lose their pin-money and diamonds with the abandon of a
-virgin, "willing to be rid of her name."
-
-The vice and fascination of gambling are so well known and understood by
-great merchants that they employ a corps of detectives to keep watch over
-their confidential employes, whose movements are the subject matter of
-daily reports to their employers. The bond companies, which insure the
-honesty of clerks and managers entrusted with the handling of money,
-receive from their spotters the earliest reports of the actions of
-employes indicative of living beyond the yearly salary paid them by the
-houses with which they are connected.
-
-Gambling, although condemned by all moralists as a degrading vice, is
-recognized by some as aiding the development of certain qualities of
-immeasurable service in the intensity of the struggle for business
-existence prevailing in the aggressive commercialism of this age. Lecky
-asserts: "Even the gambling table fosters among its more skillful votaries
-a kind of moral nerve, a capacity for bearing losses with calmness, and
-controlling the force of the desires, which is scarcely exhibited in equal
-perfection in any other sphere." Whatever may be the meaning of the phrase
-"controlling the force of the desires," it is certain that among the young
-men of today, in all classes of society, the desires for intoxicants and
-sensuality are past control when associated with gambling. In its most
-seductive forms its principal aids are the gilded saloon, and the harlot's
-enslaving smile. The necessity for means with which to gratify aroused
-passion in both respects, comes through contact with the gaming table;
-hence, the houses of ill repute, assignation houses and the innocent
-looking "Hotel" nestling in the middle of the down town business blocks,
-are the direct allies of the gambling hells in the development of
-crime--in adding to, rather than in "controlling" the force of the
-desires. "Sensuality," said a distinguished writer, "is the vice of young
-men and of old nations." Another, tracing the effects of gaming on human
-passions, wisely observes, "the habit of gambling is very often allied
-with, and is even an incentive to, the practice of other vices, whose
-darkness is beyond dispute. The ordinary aspect of a return from a race
-meeting will fully confirm this. There we find that drunkenness,
-licentiousness and gambling go hand in hand, a well assorted trio whose
-ministry to separate passions is not inconsistent but consistent with
-mutual incitement and co-operation in the destruction of the honor and
-purity and strength of men."
-
-While gambling is not now conducted "openly," a word which has reference
-only to the maintenance of down town establishments in which faro and
-roulette were formerly played, it is conducted under police protection all
-over this city in forms more inviting, more disastrous to the embryotic
-gamblers who patronize it, than if the large establishments were in full
-operation as of yore. The latter could not invite the younger class of
-gamblers to enter the play, because of their lack of capital; the smaller,
-widely scattered, and police guarded, cigar store and saloon games, accept
-smaller sums of money, parts of a dollar, for a stack of poker chips, from
-the anxious entrant to the game. Prior to the last election a leading
-evening newspaper accused the city executive with farming out the slum
-district to two aldermen of unsavory reputation, with leave to them to
-extort money from gaming houses, high and low, within its limits, for
-their personal benefit, in consideration of their opposing, in the
-council, the passage of ordinances relating to the extension of street car
-privileges. Its condemnation of this bargain was severe, and yet, later
-on, it was the most persistent of that executive's supporters for
-re-election.
-
-The coon gamblers, thieves, thugs and pimps were all on the staffs of
-these aldermen. They followed these worthies into the campaign, under the
-leadership of the eminently respectable newspaper referred to. Inspired by
-such leadership "Spreader," "Sawed Off," "The Cuckoo," "Book Agent,"
-"Deacon," "Grab All," "Duck," "Shoestring," "Scalper," "Humpty," "Hungry
-Sid," "Seedy," "Talky," "Whiskers," "Noisy," "Fig," "Old Hoss," "Slick,"
-"Ruby," "Sunday School," and "Mushmouth," captains in the corps of sports
-felt themselves respectable, led their followers from the barrel and
-lodging houses with a rush to the polls, and achieved a startling victory.
-Over all this horrible saturnalia of vice, the colors of the police force
-float in token of protection. The brave men of that force, morally
-degraded by the obedience they are compelled to yield to unworthy
-superiors want merely the opportunity to perform their full duty, not only
-as patrolmen but as patriotic American citizens. The time when they will
-be permitted to do so seems far distant, unless an aroused public opinion
-shall speedily pronounce against the further continuation of a policy of
-protection to crime and debauchery supported by the men chosen to war
-unceasingly with both.
-
-The dens of the sexual pervert of the male sex, found in the basements of
-buildings in the most crowded, but least respectable parts of certain
-streets, with immoral theaters, cheap museums, opium joints and vile
-concert saloons surrounding them, are the blackest holes of iniquity that
-ever existed in any country since the dawn of history. A phrase was
-recently coined in New York which conveys--in the absence of the
-possibility of describing them in decent language--the meaning of the
-brute practices indulged in these damnable resorts, and the terrible
-consequences to humanity as a result of unnatural habits--"Paresis Halls."
-
-No form of this indulgence described by writers on the history of morals,
-no species of sodomy the debased minds of these devils can devise, is
-missing from the programme of their diabolical orgies. In divine history
-we read of the abominations of the strange women of Israel, with their
-male companions, in their worship of Moloch, Belphegor and Baal, and of
-the death penalties pronounced by Moses against the participants in them.
-To suppress the brutish immorality, and prevent the spread of disease
-arising from it, the Jewish law giver put to death all his Midianite
-female captives except the virgins. Profane history tells of the infamies
-of the Babylonian banquets, of the incestuous and "promiscuous combats of
-sensuality" of the Lydians and the Persians; of the Athenian Auletrides,
-or female flute players, who danced and furnished music at the banquets of
-the nobility and wallowed in the filth of every sensual indecency, and of
-the polluted condition of Roman life, prior to, and as the Christian era
-dawned, but in all the untranslatable literature of eroticism no
-description of the debaucheries of the ancients, if freely interpreted
-into English from the dead languages in which they are preserved, could
-depict the nastiness these yahoos are reported as having introduced into
-our midst, and rendered more hateful and disgusting by the squalor of
-their underground abodes. The young are lured by them, ruined in health
-and seared in conscience. The very slang of the streets is surcharged with
-expressions, derived from, and directly traceable to, the names of these
-unmentionable acts of lechery.
-
-Not content with the private and crafty pursuit of their calling, they
-must flaunt it in the faces of the public and under the very eyes of the
-police, in a series of annual balls held by the "fruits" and the "cabmen,"
-advertised by placards extensively all over the city. At these
-disreputable gatherings the pervert of the male persuasion displays his
-habits by aping everything feminine. In speech, walk, dress and adornment
-they are to all appearances women. The modern mysteries of the toilet,
-used to build up and round out the female figure, are applied in the
-make-up of the male pervert. Viewed from the galleries, it is impossible
-to distinguish them from the sex they are imitating. Theirs is no
-maid-marian costume; it is strictly in the line of the prevailing styles
-among fashionable women, from female hair to pinched feet. The convenient
-bar supplies the liquid excitement, and when the women arrivals from the
-bagnios swarm into the hall, led in many instances by the landlady, white
-or black, and the streets and saloons have contributed their quotas, the
-dance begins and holds on until the morning hours approach. The acts are
-those mainly suggestive of indecency. Nothing, except the gross language
-and easy familiarity in deportment, coupled with the assumed falsetto
-voice and effeminate manners of the pervert, would reveal to the
-uninformed observer what a seething mass of human corruption he is
-witnessing. As the "encyclopedia of the art of making up" puts it, "the
-exposed parts of the human anatomy" usually displayed in fashionable
-society are counterfeited so perfectly, the wigs are selected and arranged
-with such nicety, the eyebrows and lashes so dexterously treated, and the
-features so artistically touched with cosmetics, as to make it very
-difficult, at first glance, to distinguish between the impostor and the
-real woman. The big hands and tawdry dresses, the large though pinched
-feet and the burly ankle, betray the sex of the imitating pervert.
-
-No reason, except that the police are paid for non-interference with these
-vice pitted revels, can be given for their toleration. The city's
-officials are either in collusion with their projectors, they are
-incompetent, or are the willing tools of these stinking body scavengers.
-These beasts look with disdain upon the votaries of natural pleasures, and
-have an insane pride in their hopeless degradation.
-
-The opium joints are closely related sources of iniquity to the pervert's
-haunts. Under one of the worst of the all night saloons, conducted by a
-politician of the first ward, who belongs to the party of the Bath House
-and Hinky Dink, and who "touched" the Hon. Richard Croker of New York for
-a small loan, the largest of these execrable cellars is protected. It is
-but a step from the wine rooms of the saloon to the solace of the pipe.
-The depraved of both sexes in those moments when despair seizes them, when
-some recollection of childhood, or of home, arouses in them the dormant
-good still remaining in their hearts, when, as they look into the future,
-they can discern no ray of hope, but are appalled at the frightful end
-which must be theirs, shut out the horrors of their situation in life by
-seeking a paradise built upon "the baseless fabric of a vision." In this
-joint, since reference to it was written, a man died from the effects of
-smoking the pipe. The woman who accompanied him, the bartender and the
-keeper of the joint were placed under arrest. The police expressed
-amazement at the revelation of the existence of the joint, as did the
-proprietor of the saloon. It was, of course, closed, and a number of other
-like resorts were then raided. Press comments upon this death appeared as
-follows:
-
-"In spite of the fact that there are plenty of laws against them, opium
-dens and objectionable grogshops are among the hardest things in the world
-to exterminate. The only reasonable explanation for this is that their
-proprietors must have influence with officers who are employed by the
-people to execute the laws. 'The police close these places,' said an
-officer despairingly, referring to dens like that in which the man Adams
-died Sunday night, 'but they spring up again in a day.'
-
-"The police seem to be downcast over it. Yet the causes of the 'springing
-up' are as plain as the nose on one's face, and the means of removing them
-as evident as one's hand.
-
-"Access to the den in which Adams died was had through the delectable O.
-saloon, operated by S. V. P., and the den itself was rented by V. P. The
-levee statesman says he had no idea his basement was used for an opium
-den. He thought the procession of drunken and dazed men and women who
-tottered through his saloon and went down his basement stairs all night
-were going for their laundry.
-
-"V. P.'s statement is entitled to as much consideration as the guileless
-protestations of the gentleman who is caught with the chicken under his
-coat. V. P. is responsible for the opium den and as soon as the law lays a
-hand, in earnest, on the landlord the opium dens will cease 'springing
-up.'
-
-"The police knew that an opium den was running in V. P.'s basement. They
-had been amply warned of it. If they had raided the place a few times and
-sent the proprietor and inmates to the bridewell it would have stayed
-closed.
-
-"There is a little virtue in sticking to one's native vices. Western races
-come honestly by drunkenness and gambling. But why tolerate the deliberate
-importation and cultivation of this strange oriental bestiality? This
-ingrafted vice must make its own soil. Why should the police treat it so
-leniently? A hundred-dollar fine for every person found in an opium joint
-and a modicum of police activity, with the demanding of a strict account
-from the guilty landlord, will quickly put a damper on the opium dens.
-Every month that they are tolerated they get a firmer root."
-
-These resorts are patronized by others than the fallen women and the
-criminal classes. Like slumming, it is a fad "to hit the pipe just once"
-by some adventure seeking people in other walks of life. The habit of
-opium smoking is easily acquired, and, when acquired, the smoker becomes a
-slave to its use. There are between two and three hundred of these smoking
-rooms in Chicago. The number of persons addicted to smoking opium cannot
-be stated with accuracy. Estimates vary from ten to twenty thousand, the
-number probably lies between these two estimates. In the Chinese quarters
-the penetrating odor of opium smoke is plainly perceptible and is thrown
-off from the garments of passing Chinamen, or is detected as one enters a
-restaurant or laundry presided over by the oriental. The "dope" soon
-affects the complexion, and the features wear a dejected appearance. The
-movements of the victims are listless, almost lifeless. In the saloon
-referred to, a constant procession of men and women, old and young, come
-and go up and down the stairway to the region below. It is not guarded
-with any degree of care, because it is protected from the law's
-aggression, except occasionally, when by way of diversion it is pulled.
-Then its patrons get a quiet tip to keep away, consequently few occupants
-are found. The old pipes and a small quantity of the dope are graciously
-permitted to be borne away in triumph by the officers. New supplies are
-provided, and the baleful business resumes its accustomed routine.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-    COMMON COUNCIL--BOODLERS--BRIBERS--COUNCIL OF 1899--POWERS OF--MISUSE
-    OF--PRICE OF VOTES--PASSAGE OF BOODLE ORDINANCES--PUBLIC WORKS
-    DEPARTMENT AND BUREAUS--ILLEGAL CONTRACTS--STREET REPAIRING,
-    ETC.--CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION--HISTORY OF--PRESENT BOARD TOOLS OF
-    MAYOR--EXAMINATION BY--EXAMPLES OF--ATTACKS UPON LAW--SPECIAL
-    ASSESSMENTS--ASPHALT RING--FIRE DEPARTMENT--COUNTY GOVERNMENT--INSANE
-    ASYLUM--SALE OF "CADAVERS"--CONTRACTS--SHERIFF'S OFFICE--JURY
-    BRIBERS--JUDGES--REVENUE LAW--TAX DODGERS--TOWN BOARDS--CORONER'S
-    OFFICE--PRESS TRUST--CIVIC SOCIETIES--BERRY COMMITTEE'S
-    REPORT--BAXTER COMMITTEE--OPENING TESTIMONY--CONCLUSION.
-
-
-For a generation the Common Council of Chicago has been governed by a
-majority of "boodlers." Aldermen have been, in that period, fairly
-representative of the wards by which they were elected. The various
-nationalities, clustered together in such a manner as to give rise to the
-naming of a ward according to the nativity of its inhabitants, such as
-Polish, Swedish, Bohemian, German, Irish, etc., have selected as their
-representatives in the Council, men who, as a rule, in private life were
-honest. Their selection was usually upon strictly party grounds. The
-"independent" voter, in municipal elections, is a growth of quite recent
-years. The class appears to be increasing with great rapidity and to be
-finding a means of concentrating its strength at the polls.
-
-As honest as an alderman may be when he first takes his seat, he soon
-finds himself surrounded by influences which appear to exert a fascinating
-power over him. He must elect to be for or against the gang. Prior to the
-allowance of a yearly salary the temptation to join the gang was
-heightened by the promising returns, in a pecuniary way, which the gang
-could almost guarantee the incoming member. An alderman "once prepossessed
-is half seduced" and, since it is almost axiomatic that the total
-seduction of a prepossessed alderman is a mere matter of time and
-opportunity, the fall always comes when some high spirited, progressive,
-and perhaps, God-professing citizen, offers from his purse a goodly
-compensation to the gang for the grant of some public privilege. Thus the
-public privilege is seized upon by the aldermanic gang as a private
-privilege which it disposes of to the broad-clothed briber at a price
-satisfactory to its members. The bribers are found in that sanctified
-element of the community which attends church under the pretext of fearing
-and worshipping God.
-
-  "But yet, O Lord! confess I must,
-   At times I'm fash'd wi' fleshly lust;
-   An' sometimes, too, wi' worldly trust
-       Vile self gets in!
-   But thou rememb'rest we are dust,
-       Defil'd in sin."
-
-On secular days, its leaders, the accomplished, in thieves' parlance, the
-"slick" bribers, whisper their temptations into the ears of public
-servants willing to become their private tools, like the devil in the
-garden of Eden, "who squat like a toad close to the ear of Eve."
-
-The "gang" spots its man with remarkable foresight, and year after year
-its power to manage public affairs to its own private advantage has
-become more and more felt by the public.
-
-For the first time in a generation, in this year 1899, it is believed an
-honest majority is in control of the council. The pleasurable fact is that
-the majority was elected upon a non-partisan basis, the recommendations of
-a civic body, as to the honesty and capacity of the candidates in the
-several wards, having been acted upon by the voters in preference to those
-of party nominating conventions.
-
-It is, however, too early to predict a new era in the history of the
-council. "All signs fail in dry weather," and at this moment there are no
-indications of an approaching shower of "boodle." The street car franchise
-question is drowsy and will not be awakened until the corporations
-controlling the lines are ready to do so. That they will not do so until
-some legislation is enacted in 1901, is too apparent to require an effort
-to prove. For one year at least there is a majority in the council which
-will, it is hoped, protect public rights; and it is also hoped that in
-1900 this majority will not only be retained, but also greatly augmented.
-Projects may be hidden which in the near, or not distant, future, will
-come forth to plague the consciences of a number of newly admitted members
-and put their integrity to the severest of tests.
-
-The power of the Common Council, as confided to it by legislation, over
-the affairs of two millions of people, is too immense to be wielded by a
-single ordinance making body. Under our form of municipal government it
-controls the finances and the property of the city, regulates licenses to
-sell liquor and to carry on various classes of business, such as
-auctioneers, distillers, grocers, lumber yards, livery stables, money
-changers, brokers, junk stores, billiard, bagatelle and pigeon-hole
-tables, pin alleys, ball alleys, hackmen, draymen, omnibus drivers,
-carters, cabmen, porters, expressmen, hawkers, peddlers, pawnbrokers,
-theatres, shows and amusements, and many other classes of occupations.
-
-Its power over the uses to which the streets may be applied is, in one
-sense, limited; in another almost unlimited. While limited by the charter
-to the power to lay them out, open, widen and improve them, prevent
-encroachments and obstructions thereon, lighting and cleansing them, its
-power to regulate them is almost unlimited. "To regulate" the use of the
-streets is a broad power, and while several distinct grants of power of
-regulation are contained in the statute, such as preventing the throwing
-of ashes and garbage upon them, their use for signs, sign posts, awnings,
-etc., the carrying of banners, placards, advertisements, etc., therein,
-the flying of flags, banners or signs across them from house to house, or
-traffic and sales upon them, nevertheless, the uses to which they may be
-applied in the way of business enterprises for advertising purposes, are
-as numerous and as varied as the minds of the originators of the schemes
-are original and unique.
-
-For the right to use, therefore, in a given way in a given ward, the
-"gang" alderman long ago established and still maintains a schedule of
-rates. They are graduated from the insignificant charge for permission to
-"string a banner," or establish a fruit stand, up to the highly
-respectable "rake off" demanded for the use of them for switch tracks, or
-street railway purposes. It is not so many years ago that a leading
-morning newspaper furnished the public with some information on this
-subject, upon the occasion of the passage of an ordinance granting
-valuable privileges to a railway corporation. Four members of the council,
-not the "Big Four" of olden times, but the modern "Big Four" leaders of
-"de gang," were said to have received for their manipulation of the
-ordinance, and the organization of their followers for its support, the
-quite comfortable sum of $25,000 each. Their supporters were to receive
-$8,000 each for their votes, while the "go between" received $100,000 and
-a few city lots. The standard price per vote for valuable franchises is
-$5,000, yet in a pinch of private necessity, a few votes can be commanded
-at lower figures. The contingency of a possible veto is provided for, so
-that in that event one-fourth must be added for the second vote to pass
-the measure over the veto. Thus it has gone on not only with respect to
-street railway grants, but also for electric lighting, telephone
-conduits, gas pipes, private telephone wires and that long list of uses
-devised by business men for the advertisement of their personal interests.
-The peanut stand privilege, the fruit stand privilege, the bootblack
-privilege, the banner privilege, all pay cash to some "gang" alderman, as
-do the policy rooms, pool rooms and saloons with wine room privileges.
-
-It is an amusing, as well as an instructive sight, to witness a meeting of
-the council upon an occasion when some well announced "boodle" ordinance
-is called up for passage. The plan of campaign has all been arranged
-beforehand, and the floor leader selected to command the movement. Let it
-be an ordinance for granting the right to a street railway company to lay
-down its tracks, and operate its line, in a given street. The
-preliminaries have all been gone through with, the signatures of property
-owners verified, and the price to be paid for favorable votes agreed upon.
-When the ordinance is taken up its opponents are generally in a
-disorganized condition. There is among them, as a general rule, no
-coherence of opposition. The main object to be attained, viz., the defeat
-of the ordinance as it is presented, is lost sight of in the effort "to
-make records" by the introduction of amendments, reflecting some
-individual idea of the member who offers it, without having submitted it
-to his associate opponents for their judgment. Consequently they disagree
-among themselves and fall to fighting each other, thereby weakening their
-opposition. Meanwhile the "gang" sits smilingly by, under instructions to
-vote down all amendments. When one is offered, of comparative
-unimportance, the quick-witted lobbyists of the corporations, Jew and
-Gentile, convey a tip to the leader of the "gang" that the amendment "is
-all right," "quite agreeable," "will be accepted," etc., whereupon the
-gang's leader obligingly informs the chair that it is his profound belief
-the amendment is a very proper one, and it is graciously accepted. The
-opposition having some little encouragement, present other amendments,
-which are, of course, defeated. Sometimes debate is permitted. If the
-speeches could be reported verbatim and the words spelled out as
-pronounced, it would make Mr. Dooley reflect on the style of modern
-oratory, as presented by the "mimber from Archey Road." The question
-coming to a vote upon the passage of the ordinance, the roll call begins.
-From the "Bath House" on the right comes, on the first call, the familiar
-"Aye." That response is repeated by every member of the gang without
-explanation, and in a stolid way, indicating contempt for public opinion.
-The measure is now out of the way. Preparations are made for the next.
-Settlements have to be made and everybody satisfied before new matters
-involving "boodle" can be presented. Occasionally there is a loud "kick"
-by some slow-witted member who fails to secure his full share of the
-"swag," but he is usually placated in some manner best known to the
-combination, and business goes on in the old way. The division and
-distribution of the "boodle" are matters of great secrecy and adroit
-management. It is forced into the pockets of some, or finds its way into
-them in mysterious ways. It is discovered under a plate at a restaurant,
-or under a pillow at bedtime; but it seldom passes into the open hand,
-held rearwards, as the caricaturist pictures the "boodler."
-
-A newspaper thus spoke of the members of the council belonging to the
-party it represents. "The average ---- representative in the city council
-is a tramp, if not worse. He represents or claims to represent a political
-party having respectable principles and leaders of known good character
-and ability. He comes from twenty-five or thirty different wards, some of
-them widely separated, and when he reaches the City Hall, whether from the
-west, the south or the north division, he is nine cases out of ten a
-bummer and a disreputable who can be bought and sold as hogs are bought
-and sold at the stockyards. Do these vicious vagabonds stand for the
-decency and intelligence of the party in Chicago?"
-
-This is a picture drawn a few years ago, but it correctly sketches a
-number of the hold over members of the present council, and a few of the
-old timers re-elected.
-
-The new members of the council, one-half in number, are committed, by
-their ante-election pledges, to the policy of refusing the grant of
-privileges to individuals or corporations without compensation to the
-public. Whatever of benefit the public may derive from this policy, it is
-not quite clear that it will operate as a preventive of "boodling." The
-ingenuity of the "boodler" combines the cunning of the sneak thief, with
-the boldness of the highway robber in devising the ways and means to find
-and secure his "stuff." It is a matter of congratulation that the boodling
-species is dwindling away from the public view. How long it will remain in
-concealment depends upon how long the independent voter wishes to keep it
-concealed.
-
-The department of the city government to which is committed the control of
-its public improvements consists of a number of bureaus. The Commissioner
-of Public Works controls, as part of his executive department, the City
-Engineer, Superintendent of Streets, of Street and Alley Cleaning, of
-Water, of Sewerage, of Special Assessments and of Maps. When it is
-considered that this means the care and management of 1,111 miles of
-improved and 1,464 miles of unimproved streets, 112 miles of improved and
-1,235 miles of unimproved alleys, making a total of 3,924 miles of
-streets and alleys, the letting of contracts for their repair, improvement
-and cleaning, and all the details of engineering, sewerage and water pipe
-extension bureaus, involving the expenditure of millions of dollars, the
-vastness of the public interests entrusted to the Commissioner may be
-realized. Under every administration the department is assailed for
-frauds, stuffed pay rolls, favoritism and boodling. The administration now
-in power (and which has been in power for two years) has not escaped
-criticism. Powerful as that criticism was, and founded in truth as it was,
-it apparently did not affect the minds of a majority of the voters.
-Contracts were let by this administration, in direct violation of the law
-which provides for a letting to the lowest bidder, after advertising for
-bids, where the amount is in excess of $500. Yet a political favorite, who
-was himself at one time spoken of as a probable appointee to the office of
-Commissioner, but who stepped aside, as it is charged, as the result of a
-deal, obtained thereby a contract for street repairs amounting to
-$230,000, which was never advertised for, but let to him privately in such
-a manner so that the vouchers in payment were drawn in sums less than $500
-each. So grossly evasive of the law was this transaction, that it involved
-the stoppage of payment of the warrants by the Comptroller of the city. A
-re-measurement of the work was ordered by him. This developed the
-astonishing fact that, even if the contract had been properly let, there
-was nevertheless an overcharge, swindling in its nature, to the extent of
-$60,000. The Comptroller was, therefore, compelled to withhold his
-sanction to the payment of the vouchers. In some manner, however, they
-were paid after some slight reductions were made. This was a blow at the
-sterling integrity of the Comptroller, whose public services in thoroughly
-reorganizing his office, and placing it on a business basis, and whose
-devotion to public interests cost him his life, are the only conspicuous
-acts, free from shame, egotism, or corruption, of an administration to
-which he loaned the strength of his good name, and upon which he shed the
-splendor of his ability and personal honor. He will be long remembered as
-the one oasis in a desert of maladministration. Both in private and in
-public walks Robert A. Waller lived an honorable life. He died mourned by
-all who knew him.
-
-  "His life was gentle, and the elements
-   So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
-   And say to all the world: This was a man!"
-
-The attempt to let the contract for the use of a tug for service to the
-cribs, or water intakes, in the lake, was another breach of the law so
-flagrant, as to attract public attention for a time. Its consummation was
-prevented by the threat of court proceedings, which, at once, led to the
-insertion of an advertisement for bids. But here again fraud was
-attempted. The specifications were so drawn as to call for boats of
-certain dimensions, exact compliance with which was almost impossible,
-except to one towing company to which originally the contract was about to
-be let without a bid. This company's bid was $13,000; the lowest bid was
-$3,500. Still the city authorities hesitated to award the contract to the
-lowest bidder, but public opinion, and the known ability of the bidder to
-fulfill his contract regardless of his boats' dimensions, compelled the
-letting to him, thereby saving to the city the sum of $9,000. Vouchers
-about which there was a doubt as to their legality, have been paid to a
-contractor, who was appointed a brigadier general of volunteers, but who
-resigned the appointment immediately, it is said, for business reasons, or
-because he could not be assigned to a pleasing command. These vouchers
-amounted to $50,000, and their payment, it is rather uncharitably said,
-induced the gallant contractor to become an independent voter. There is no
-difference between the manufacture of an independent voter in this manner,
-and his manufacture by putting him on the pay-roll without work. This
-method seems to have been adopted by the public works department of the
-city government, following, perhaps, an old precedent.
-
-The purchase of water meters, under specifications with which only one
-company could comply, and the laying of water pipes without letting
-contracts in a lawful manner, are notorious instances of unblushing
-frauds committed by this department. It is almost incredible that a dynamo
-should be bought in parts, so that it could be purchased from a friend,
-and paid for in sums less than $500; yet this was done. Thus a piece of
-machinery having a fixed price as a whole, was not only purchased
-illegally, but paid for in such a manner that its price, as a whole, was
-doubled when bought in pieces. So it was with other electrical apparatus;
-so it was with the protection to fire hydrants. Instead of advertising for
-bids for the work of shielding the fire hydrants from the severity of the
-winter's cold, they were divided up into companies like those of a
-regiment of soldiers, each having its contract commander, who received his
-pay on vouchers each calling for less than $500. The present commissioner
-is an old politician, who has held several official positions. It is but
-just to say of him, that, with the general public, he bears a good
-reputation. His political enemies are not by any means complimentary in
-their allusions to him, those particularly in the ranks of his own party.
-He is energetic, self confident, amiable, and a particularly able bluffer
-when occasion demands it. Without being profound he is efficient, and
-without being remarkably efficient, he is not at all valueless.
-
-The Civil Service Commission has reached its present age, nearly five
-years, after suffering all the diseases incident to poor nursing. It is
-not by any means a vigorous child as yet, but as it gains in strength it
-will perhaps grow in wisdom. When it recognizes the fact that the people
-permitted it to be born, it will also recognize the further fact that its
-parents require of it obedience to their wishes. They demand the
-enforcement of the Civil Service Law as it is written, for the public good
-and not for partisan advantage. They would impress upon the commission the
-conviction of their belief that without a properly administered civil
-service law, municipal government is a menace to republican institutions;
-that without it the experiment of municipal ownership of "public
-utilities" is hazardous, and that the increasing intelligence of the
-people and their wider knowledge of the science of government have taught
-them that the political maxim, "to the victors belong the spoils," is a
-relic of the barbaric days of politics, in which wide open primaries,
-stuffed ballot boxes, captured polling places, and thugs were the
-governing elements of elections.
-
-The civil service law was placed upon the statute book at the instance of
-those who had made the study of municipal government a duty, and who from
-that study realized that the growth of great cities, in population,
-material wealth and industrial development, demands commensurate changes
-in the manner of governing such communities. The basic principle of the
-law is the elimination of the spoils system, and the substitution of the
-merit system. The banishment of the professional politician, that
-individual who lives upon the spoils of office, is a result certain of
-accomplishment under the proper administration of this beneficent statute.
-Foreseeing this result, the professionals in all parties united against it
-and have sought, and are still seeking, to undermine its provisions and
-destroy its utility.
-
-The law was put into operation by a board of commissioners not one of
-whom had ever been an active party man. No body of men ever met for the
-performance of a public duty, who were less tainted with partisanship than
-were these gentlemen. They studied the law carefully, and acquainted
-themselves with its text and its spirit. Their selection was satisfactory
-to the public, and was a guarantee of honest endeavor to place the affairs
-of the city under the control of the law's terms, in all the departments
-to which those terms applied, and which could be brought within the
-classified service. They formulated adequate rules, after consultation
-with able men familiar with the workings of the federal civil service law.
-Open to criticism as some of these rules were as being more theoretical
-than practical, nevertheless they were built upon the basis of selection
-by merit alone, regardless of politics, and were adapted solely to that
-end. For two years it adhered to the law, enforcing against the party to
-which the majority of the commissioners belonged a rule which required
-that no person holding an office which fell within the classified service
-could take an examination for that position without resigning the
-position. The law continued to work during 1895 and 1896 as smoothly as
-new machinery can. In the Spring of 1897 a new city administration came
-into power of a different political complexion from that under which the
-law was placed in force. It was then found, to the amazement of the
-public, which, however, in the hurly-burly of life soon subsided, that
-these commissioners were incompetent. One placed his resignation in the
-hands of the Mayor and was almost immediately appointed to the office of
-comptroller by that officer. The efficiency of his service in his new
-office, and the quality of his character, have already been referred to in
-these pages.
-
-Suddenly the same Mayor addressed the late associates of the Comptroller
-as follows, viz.: "You will please take notice that I have elected to, and
-I do hereby remove you from the position of Civil Service Commissioner in
-and for the City of Chicago for the following causes. First: You are and
-have been in your performance of the duties of said office incompetent.
-Secondly: In the performance of said duties you have been guilty of
-neglect of duty." A new commission was appointed, which proceeded to
-reverse the rule above referred to, whereupon nearly all the employes of
-the city were discharged. No examinations having been held for these
-positions there was no eligible list from which to select their
-successors. Consequently, in such a case, appointments were made under a
-section of the statute to fill the vacancies for sixty days, during which
-time examinations were held to obtain an eligible list. These appointments
-were, of course, all made from the Mayor's party. He could not do
-otherwise in view of the public utterances he had made during his
-campaign, when he said if he retained any employes appointed under a prior
-administration of a different political belief, "it will only be for
-menagerie purposes."
-
-When the examinations were held and a list certified, it was found that in
-every instance the sixty day men passed at its head. Such a uniformity of
-results was in itself evidence of a disregard of the law. From the highest
-position for which examinations were held, down through all grades, to
-the lowest, such as barn men, the sixty day man was always marked up to
-the head of the list.
-
-During the years 1897 and 1898, no less than seven different persons were
-selected as civil service commissioners, until a board was found willing
-to act upon the Mayor's interpretation of the statute. One instance of the
-abuse of the law will suffice to show the methods resorted to, for the
-purpose of selecting a party man to fill a vacancy in office. An
-examination was held of applicants for the position of "foreman of street
-lamps repairs." The man who passed at the head was a sixty day man. At
-thirteen years of age he became a sheet metal worker's apprentice, and
-with the exception of a short period when he was engaged in keeping a
-saloon and made a failure of it, he continued to follow that occupation.
-He is a heeler for one of the most notorious of the aldermanic gang. It
-will be observed in contrasting the questions asked him, and those asked
-his superior, an applicant for the office of Superintendent of Street
-Lamp Repairs, that a lower degree of educational qualifications is
-required of the Superintendent, that of his subordinate, the foreman of
-the gang of repairers. These questions were propounded to the foreman,
-viz.:
-
-"If the hypothenuse of a right angle triangle is 35 feet and the base 21
-feet, what is the altitude?
-
-At 30 cents a square yard what is the cost of lining with metal a cubical
-room 13 feet long?
-
-If it takes eight men five and one half days to make 100 lamps, how long
-will it take six men to make 350 lamps?
-
-A building is 302 feet high; the walk and court measure 90 feet; what is
-the length of a straight line running from the top of the building to the
-opposite curb?
-
-At 25 cents a square yard what is the cost of a sheet of iron sufficient
-for the construction of a cylinder pipe closed at both ends 28 feet long,
-the diameter of whose base is 28 inches?
-
-What is the capacity in gallons of a sphere 15 inches in diameter?
-
-If 24 gallons of water flow through a 2 inch pipe each minute how many
-gallons will flow through a 3 inch pipe under the same conditions?
-
-What is the length of the diameter of a circle whose area equals 1,386
-square yards?
-
-Name the materials used in the construction of a street lamp?
-
-Name three essential qualifications requisite for a foreman?"
-
-A street lamp could not be repaired, as a matter of fact, by a person
-unable to answer these questions! This truth must be apparent to any
-unbiased mind!
-
-All the other applicants could answer the last two questions only, simply
-because they were honest; but the metal worker answered them all, and was
-marked 100, although he had not been at school since he was thirteen years
-of age, and does not appear to have been much of a student since that
-time.
-
-The Superintendent's examination ran as follows, viz.:
-
-"What are the duties of Superintendent of Lamp Repairs?
-
-What experience have you had to qualify you for this position?
-
-How many lamps should a tinner complete in a day?
-
-How many signs should an etcher complete in a day?
-
-If a special assessment were levied and confirmed, what would your duty be
-to secure the erecting and lighting of the lamps?
-
-On what part of the city property should those posts be set?
-
-If posts were to be erected how would you determine what class of posts
-would be required?
-
-What is the general duty of Superintendent of Lamp Repairs regarding
-repairs to lamps?"
-
-The attacks on the civil service law come from all sources. A party
-convention in 1898, in its platform said, "We pronounce the Civil Service
-Law inefficient, mischievous and hostile to the regnant principles of
-popular government. We demand its repeal."
-
-The next convention of the same party resolved: "We pledge the ------party
-to the strict enforcement of this, the Civil Service Law."
-
-The Mayor's consistency and that of his party are identical. If the two
-removed commissioners were incompetent and neglectful, so must the third
-have been, and yet that equally incompetent and neglectful commissioner
-was appointed to an office, the very highest in the gift of the Mayor.
-
-Acting upon the demand of his party for the repeal of this law, the
-Corporation Counsel began his attacks upon it by a multiplicity of
-opinions calculated to gradually remove it from the statute book.
-Ordinances were passed in accordance with these opinions, creating new
-heads of departments and exempting them from the civil service rules.
-Positions, filled by civil service appointees, were abolished. The same
-positions were re-created under a new name, filled by a sixty day man who
-was then examined, and certified to the head of the list. The police
-department, the city treasurer, and other branches of the local government
-which have attempted by judicial proceedings to emasculate the civil
-service law, have in every instance been foiled by the decisions of the
-Supreme Court.
-
-The Special Assessment Bureau of the board of public works, has for many
-years, in conjunction with the alderman, had the origination and passage
-of ordinances for paving streets, laying sewers, sidewalks, drains, water
-supply and service pipes, etc. Under a law recently enacted, and now in
-force, all ordinances originate with a board, named the Board of Local
-Improvements. The right of petition on behalf of the property owners, is a
-feature of the new law which smiles at the property owner, while it "winks
-the other eye." It holds out a hope, as do other provisions of the law, of
-reduced assessments, but, so far, the practical benefit to the owner of
-real estate has not been made apparent. Since the year 1861 and including
-the year 1897, the enormous sum of $90,402,790.44 has been levied upon
-real estate for the payment of public improvements. During the year ending
-December, 1891, the amount levied was over six millions of dollars, and
-during the following year ending December 31, 1892, just preceding the
-World's Fair, the assessments reached the sum of over fourteen millions of
-dollars. Reference has already been made to frauds in the letting of
-contracts for street improvements. They are split up and let to favorites
-without advertising, so that each payment will fall under $500, although
-the improvement may be a mile in length. The asphalt ring is just as
-potent as ever. It fights every effort of other dealers in asphalt to
-procure a contract and it generally succeeds in foisting upon the people
-its quality of asphalt at a higher price than that offered at a lower
-price, by other bidders, perhaps equally as good in quality and which has
-been successfully used in other cities. Failing recently to stampede the
-board, the ring accepted contracts at a figure submitted by its
-competitors. This, however, is a familiar trick of trusts, and will last
-for a very short period of time, unless the board manifests a disposition
-to consider the merits of the material of competing contractors. The ring
-will not abandon its struggle so easily. It is powerful, uniting in its
-behalf the combined efforts of politicians of all parties, who are
-connected with the asphalt corporations as stockholders and officers. The
-Board of Local Improvements not long since made the announcement that it
-was preparing to levy special assessments during the coming year to the
-amount of $10,000,000. The people may weep and protest, while the
-contractor smiles and urges.
-
-The one department of the city government, unsurpassed by any of its kind
-in the world, is the Fire Department. The officers and men are of the best
-material, of the highest courage, and serve under the strictest
-discipline. They are fire fighters, not politicians. Their chief is a man
-of independence of character, honest, taciturn, a strict disciplinarian--a
-general in command of a corps of which he is justly proud. He tolerates no
-political interference with his men. In this respect, particularly, he is,
-always was, and always will be sustained by the entire community. Any
-attempted management of the department which would tend to lessen its
-efficiency meets with the chief's stern resistance. Aside from his own
-moral and physical courage, his admirable sense of duty, and the fact that
-the public honor him and support him, he has the powerful assistance of
-the board of underwriters in any case of damaging intermeddling with his
-command. Knowing his worth and the merits of his department that
-intermeddling would bring, instantly, a threat of the rise in insurance
-rates from this board, a threat which would touch the pockets of many
-property owners, and consequently one which would solidify them in support
-of the chief. He shares with his men the dangers of their calling. The
-gallant men, who during the past year lost their lives in saving the
-property and lives of others, testified by their sacrifice to the
-hazardous nature of that calling. A recital of the heroic deeds of those
-men would not be surpassed by the stories of gallantry in the field of
-battle with which the pages of American history are replete. While Dennis
-J. Swenie's strength holds out he will command his famous batallions to
-his own honor, and to that of the city of which he is so faithful and
-loyal a citizen.
-
-Even the possibility of his being supplanted in his command, which
-appeared recently in the failure to reappoint him at the first opportunity
-afforded the Mayor, aroused the people to a united protest, which,
-indications prove, was timely and effective. The omission to send his name
-to the council with the first of the Mayor's appointees, may have been, as
-it was claimed "accidental," but it is nevertheless the belief that that
-omission was in the nature of a test of public opinion. If so, the power
-of public opinion retained him in command, despite political purpose to
-the contrary.
-
-With the exception of this department all the others of the city are
-merely run on political lines, as adjuncts of the political party in
-power, notwithstanding the civil service law. The abuses of that law may
-become fewer in number, not through any merit of the present board, but
-because it has about exhausted itself in filling all the offices with men
-of one political faith by means already explained.
-
-The departments of the County government under a feeble civil service law,
-different from that applicable to the city, are conducted in the same
-manner as those of the city for the benefit of machine politicians and
-their regiments of ward and township workers. They are as corruptly
-managed as those of the city government.
-
-The institutions at Dunning for the insane and the poor, are generally
-managed by ward politicians, whose appointments are in the nature of a
-reward for party services, or rather, services to some particular boss.
-Recent reports of grand juries note some improvement in their conduct. On
-the whole, however, they are regarded in the nature of spoils by the ring
-of party loafers, whose views of government consist, mainly, in doing the
-greatest good to the greatest number of the ring.
-
-The traffic in dead bodies, or "cadavers" goes on, as it did when exposure
-came about a year ago through detected shipments to the State of Missouri
-for the use of a medical college in one of the towns of that state. These
-pauper dead "escape," in the language of the employes, from the "killer"
-ward in which they are stored, a place selected to lay out a corpse suited
-for the dissecting table. It has been a matter of more than rumor and
-given currency by the press, that subjects for the dissecting table are
-selected before the breath has left their bodies. This statement finds
-more or less verification in the disclosures of the Missouri case before
-alluded to.
-
-Contractors for county supplies pay a percentage of their prices to a
-county ring, and, consequently, a poorer quality of food, fuel and
-medicines, is furnished to these institutions than the contracts call for,
-which cost the contractor an additional sum by way of boodle to obtain
-them.
-
-The sheriff's office has had a standing shame for many years in the cost
-of dieting prisoners. The county board allows the sheriff for dieting,
-twenty-five cents a day for each prisoner confined in the county jail. The
-cost of a day's dieting is estimated not to exceed ten cents, according to
-the greed of the sheriff. From this one source alone the sheriff's office
-is regarded as one of the most lucrative offices in the county. The excess
-above the actual cost is clear profit to the sheriff.
-
-Some of the bailiffs of the courts have been discovered within the past
-year as jury bribers, willing to take any side offering the most
-lucrative terms. The principal in this disreputable business fled, and
-now an unseemly quarrel is raging between the city's detective department,
-and the sheriff's and state attorney's office as to which was to blame for
-that escape.
-
-The judges of the Courts of Cook County are men of integrity. Some are
-able jurists, but of late years the standard for judicial qualifications
-has been, through party machine nominations, considerably lowered. These
-judges are charged by the law with some duties the nature of which is
-purely political. Thus, the selection of justices of the peace for the
-city, the poor man's court, is confided to them. No scandals, so far, have
-attended the exercise of this duty, but their selections have not, as a
-general rule, earned the confidence of the people. "J. P." means nowadays
-one who will give judgment for the plaintiff. The evil practices, the
-frauds and swindles, which have their origin in the system now prevailing
-for the conduct of justice courts, has given rise to strenuous efforts to
-reform them by state legislation. This will ultimately be accomplished.
-While the members from the rural districts, in each recurring state
-legislature, are difficult to manage, in the one session of their term in
-the lower house in matters affecting a large city, nevertheless, when
-fully informed, they have granted such remedial legislation to Chicago for
-which its civic bodies have made timely application.
-
-A new revenue law has just gone into operation, designed to abolish the
-inequalities of taxation which grew up and were fraudulently fostered
-under the repealed law. What its effect will be it is difficult to
-predict. The personal property holders, those with long lines of stocks,
-bonds, valuable house furnishings, large bank accounts, and concealed
-wealth, are very likely to feel unkindly towards the stringent provisions
-of this law. They have been evading their just share of taxation for
-years. They are today the most ignorant of the many people calling at the
-assessor's office to make out and verify under oath their respective
-schedules, simply because it is so many years since they were called upon
-to pay a personal property tax, that they have forgotten all about the
-form.
-
-The holders of large real estate interests, who, for years, have been
-paying assessors to exempt them from assessment, or reduce their
-valuations, are, also, most probably confronted with the impossibility of
-escape from paying their proper share of general taxes. This iniquitous
-system has been denounced in the press for years. A year ago a town
-assessor was convicted of the offense, and heavily fined by the court. The
-tax evaders are as vicious a class in a community as are sneak thieves.
-Their payment to assessors to lower their valuations is the worst species
-of corruption. The payrolls of the town assessors present the most
-conspicuous instances of corruption to be found in any department of the
-county, or city, government. Many men are carried on their pay rolls and
-paid from five to ten dollars per day who never do one moment's work in
-the making of the assessment. They are simply being nursed for political
-purposes. In one of the wealthiest towns a payroll fell under the writer's
-observation, which showed a clear steal of $2,200 for a period of two
-weeks only. These officials designated a personal friend to whom all
-money was paid. One-fourth of these payments were handed over to the
-"solicitor" who brought in the "business," one-fourth to the "friend," and
-the remaining one-half went to the assessor. Men in high station in
-national and state councils, state and national committeemen, city and
-county officers, lawyers, politicians and sporting men were engaged in
-this business of boodling, throwing upon the owners of small real estate
-interests more than their fair share of the burdens of taxation. In an
-address delivered in this city by an ex-President of the United States, he
-said that as Lincoln had declared this country could not exist half slave
-and half free, so he declared "it could not exist half taxed and half
-free" from taxation, that the sin of tax evasion was a new danger to the
-integrity of the Republic and that its evil lay in the "evasion of just
-taxation by the rich, and the consequent thrusting of an extra burden on
-the poor." The corporations engaged in the manufacture of gas, in the
-management of traction companies, of live stock exchanges, of packing
-companies, railroads, steel companies, sleeping car builders and
-merchants owning large landed properties, have had their agents regularly
-employed in procuring a reduction of their valuations for assessment, who
-were nothing more nor less than bribers. Whether these crimes will be as
-freely attempted under the new law remains to be developed, but some of
-the distributors of personal property schedules are again playing their
-old trick of taking money from the poor under promise of returning them as
-non-holders of taxable personal property. An arrest of one of these
-robbers, who had accepted one dollar from each of a number of women has
-been made. The men elected as assessors and as members of the board of
-review are men of good character and able judgment. The only indication of
-danger is that a political boss who has lived and thrived at the public
-crib and whose political methods have always been unscrupulous has been
-appointed chief clerk of the board of review. His salary is large enough
-to keep him out of temptation, if he has not forgotten the ways of the
-righteous. He was an expert "adjuster" in politics. In assessments the
-"adjuster's" occupation should now be gone. The difficulty lies in
-teaching an old adjuster new tricks. The old system of assessment for
-general taxation was denounced by an official of the county as "nothing
-more nor less than a gigantic legalized swindle, reeking in corruption, a
-harbor for 'grafters,' 'petty thieves,' and 'sharks,' and an enormous,
-unnecessary and galling burden on the tax payers, the expense of which has
-no justification in reason and should have none in law."
-
-The new system abolishes but one of the evils of the old. In place of town
-assessors, a board of five assessors is established whose work is subject
-to review by another composed of three members. Their labors are, in turn,
-passed upon by the State Board of Equalization, before which for years
-railroads and other corporations have had their adjusters, agents or
-brokers, and before which they will continue to appear and accomplish, as
-they always have accomplished, the placing of the lowest possible
-valuations upon railroad properties, and a reduction of capital stock
-valuations. The board of assessors now values all the real estate in Cook
-county in place of the assessors in the separate towns within the county.
-
-These towns, six of which are wholly within the city limits, are, through
-their officials, plunderers of the public, robbing the funds of the towns
-by increasing their salaries out of all proportion to the services they
-are required to render, and which could well be dispensed with to the
-greatest advantage of the people. In the year 1898 they cost the treasury
-$395,411.55. Absolutely nothing is apparent as the result of this looting
-of public funds. They occupy, in the business parts of the city, expensive
-offices, which are open for public use not to exceed four months in the
-year, and afford, for the remaining months, club accommodations for the
-hangers on of the political crooks who manage party affairs. Card playing
-and gambling are their principal occupations. In the division of the
-proceeds of the robbery, the justices of the peace participate. They are,
-by virtue of their offices, members of the town board. Their services are
-not worth ten dollars per annum, but they receive compensation ranging
-from $200 to $500 per annum.
-
-As illustrating the tendency of these town boards, from which the
-assessment of property for taxation has now been taken away, the following
-are the valuations of real estate and personal property for the past three
-years as equalized by the state board. The foundation for the assessments
-was laid by the town assessors. It will be observed that, notwithstanding
-the increase in population, the value of real estate and personal property
-has been steadily declining. The decline is a measure of the boodling
-propensities of the assessors. Their percentage of award "no fellah can
-find out."
-
-VALUATIONS FOR ASSESSMENT.
-
-                                  1896.           1897.           1898.
-  Real estate                 $195,684,875    $184,632,905    $178,801,172
-  Personal property             34,959,299      33,594,167      29,601,393
-  Population, school census      1,616,635                       1,851,588
-
-The value of the taxable real estate in Chicago, according to these
-figures, decreased in two years $18,883,703, and the value of taxable
-personal property $5,357,906. During the same period the population
-increased 234,953. As wealth and population increase in Chicago, values of
-property decline. At ten per cent of its cash value, which is the basis
-adopted by assessors for years for taxation value, taxable real estate in
-Chicago is, in round numbers worth $1,788,000,000.
-
-It is impossible to average the per cent paid for reductions in valuations
-to the assessors. Of the eighteen millions in reduced valuations in 1898,
-as compared with 1896, it is safe to say five millions were purchased. As
-the rate of taxation was between nine and ten dollars on one hundred
-dollars the amount of taxes paid by those who should not have paid them
-was $500,000. The assessors were "not working for their health," but for
-about fifty per cent of the taxes saved to their principals, with the aid
-of the friend and the agent who brought the business, or say about
-$250,000 of "graft."
-
-The coroner's office is also one which not infrequently gives rise to
-scandals. There are open charges made that some of the juries, called by
-that official, have found exonerating, instead of incriminating, verdicts
-for a money consideration in the division of which the office
-participated. An unseemly quarrel between the coroner and the police
-revealed the fact that both have favorite undertakers to whom the bodies
-of those meeting sudden death from accident, or otherwise, are taken. In a
-dispute as to which should control a corpse a most painful truth became
-public that it was carted about from one undertaking establishment to
-another, and that even the law was invoked to obtain possession of it by
-means of a writ of replevin.
-
-The office of the recorder of deeds is one of the most important in the
-county affairs. Generally speaking it is well conducted, although its
-records are not as presentable to the eye as are the books of a
-first-class mercantile firm. Female labor is employed mostly in recording,
-i. e., spreading an instrument at large upon the records, while male labor
-keeps up the tract books, indices, etc. The employes of both sexes are
-favorites of political bosses. The abstract branch of the business of this
-office is a sublime failure. For years it has cost the county a large sum
-of money to make good the deficiency--expenses largely exceeding earnings.
-Its abstracts cannot compete with those of private corporations, which
-employ experts in that business, and pay them in proportion to their
-ability, merit alone being their recommendation. The abstract makers
-employed by the county are shiftless and incompetent. The Torrens system,
-or the registration of titles, will, in time, but not for many years to
-come, supersede the abstract system, but not until the public shall have
-gained more confidence in its merits than it has yet acquired in
-recorder's abstracts of title.
-
-It was not the purpose of these pages to pursue inquiry into the
-corruption existing in both the municipal and county governments. The
-primary intent was to refer to the vices and crimes which prevail by
-reason principally of police partnership in their joint proceeds. Both
-governments are corrupt, and appear to be so because the people consent
-they shall be corrupt. The lessons the public learn from day to day,
-through the columns of the press, are forgotten. When election day
-approaches a revival of the facts through the press is then charged to
-political trickery, and its charges of maladministration are disregarded
-as being invented for party purposes. The press condemns while the evils
-are prominent, then it condones, and becomes the subservient and truculent
-supporter of the men who permitted vice and debauchery to attain its
-stalwart growth. The people believe there is a trust press, banded
-together to obtain favors through school leases, bank deposits of public
-funds and personal appointments in return for services to be rendered
-their municipal benefactors. The only non-member of the trust is the organ
-of the street car corporations and such exposes of villainy as it may
-present are set down as means to an end--the effort to obtain public
-privileges without compensation to the city. Newspapers, therefore, in
-municipal affairs no longer lead public opinion. They cannot again become
-its leaders until they free themselves from the suspicion of conserving
-their own interests by the sacrifice of those of the public. The greatest
-of them delivered but feeble blows during the recent mayoralty campaign,
-while the lighter weights, who were fighting for a candidate for renewed
-honors, had been for two years most unmercifully pounding him for his
-persistent assistance rendered to the vicious classes, in their indulgence
-in crime and debauchery.
-
-The various civic societies formed for the improvement of municipal
-government, pay attention solely to matters removed from the insidious and
-ceaseless advances of crime, close their eyes to evidences of disease
-apparent on the body politic, and merely dream of higher ideals. They
-leave to one society the task of the suppression of vice. They give to it
-neither sympathy nor pecuniary assistance. It begs its way in meetings of
-its sympathizers, warns the community of the prevalence of crime and
-indecency, but the community rushes on in the business struggles of the
-day from year to year, trusting--as it always has trusted--in its public
-servants for the full performance of their sworn duties--a trust so
-constantly violated that municipal government has become merely the
-synonym of the rule of the criminal classes.
-
-A special session of the Illinois Legislature was called by the Governor
-in 1897. Among the subjects included in the call was one suggesting the
-passage of an act "to establish boards providing for non-partisan police
-in all cities of the State containing over 100,000 inhabitants." Pursuant
-to the recommendations of the executive's message, a resolution was passed
-by the Senate for the appointment of a committee of seven members of that
-body, which recited the recommendation of the Governor; that a bill had
-been introduced providing for the establishment of non-partisan police
-boards in all cities containing the necessary population; that charges and
-scandals had arisen in regard to the management of the police force in
-Chicago, and that the committee be clothed "with full power to act" and to
-investigate "fully the subject" and report its findings as early as
-possible to the Senate at the special session.
-
-The committee consisted of one people's party, one democratic senator and
-five republican senators. From the moment of its selection it was branded
-as a partisan committee, appointed not so much to obtain information
-which would enable an unbiased judgment to be formed upon the merits of
-the proposed bill as to accumulate political capital for the use of the
-republican party. The committee proceeded with its investigation, and on
-February 10th, 1898, submitted its report, which was adopted February
-15th, 1898, by a vote of thirty-three republicans and one democrat, eight
-democrats voting in the negative. The only democrat voting in the
-affirmative was a member of the reporting committee.
-
-On the last day of the special session, no legislation having been enacted
-on the subject of the proposed bill, a resolution was introduced providing
-for a continuance of the committee, which recited that it had "unearthed a
-most deplorable state of affairs in the management and control of the
-police force of Chicago," and that "the most flagrant violations of the
-civil service law have been brazenly practiced by those in authority in
-control of that police force." Nothing resulted from the latter resolution
-continuing the committee.
-
-The report covered the investigations of the committee into the
-operations of the civil service law, and the manner of its enforcement,
-finding that it was a plaything in the hands of the party then in power,
-and an object of constant and premeditated attack. It also found the
-grossest abuses in the management of the police pension fund and in the
-workings of the police force as an organization. That crime was protected
-and lewdness tolerated by it, and that in fact it was a powerful ally of
-the criminal classes, and practically made an unofficial livelihood off
-unfortunate women of the town, thieves and their fences, gambling resorts
-and their keepers, and the patrons and keepers of the all night saloons.
-It found the Chief of Police was cognizant of the facts, and yet took no
-steps to correct them. That Chief from whose testimony quotations appear
-in these pages, was re-appointed to command the police force for the next
-two years.
-
-The findings of this committee made but little, if any, impression upon
-the public mind. There were no revelations as to the condition of criminal
-affairs, and the relations of the police therewith, which were new to the
-people, with the possible exception, perhaps, that it was not known how
-utterly inefficient and irresponsible the Chief of Police was. From that
-moment every newspaper has, if not demanded, at least suggested his
-removal from office. In this respect it but voices the sentiments of the
-entire community. It is a paradox why, in the face of this public feeling,
-a majority of the people supported for re-election the staunch friend of
-the dishonored head of the police force, unless upon the hypothesis that
-he would not continue to be a part of the new administration. If so, the
-hypothesis soon failed. The Mayor thought he would "hold him for a while."
-
-The lesson to be learned from the failure of this committee's report to
-attract public attention to the prevalence of criminality and obscenity in
-Chicago as fostered by the police force is this, that an investigation
-concerning the methods of government of a city administration controlled
-by the Democratic party, without a kindred investigation of the methods of
-a county administration controlled by the Republican party is too
-partisan to suit the sense of fair play and of justice entertained by
-every American citizen. It matters not that the order for the
-investigation had reference only to the passage of legislation for the
-regulation of the police force in cities of a certain population, and
-that, therefore, the scope of the inquiry was limited by the terms of the
-order. Perhaps it was as broad as it could have been made, under the
-governor's call, which, by the provisions of the constitution fixed the
-subjects upon which only legislation could be enacted in special session.
-Either the call should have been broader, or this particular subject
-matter should have been omitted from it, and left for the regular
-session's consideration. Then all matters pertaining to the manner of
-conducting both city and county affairs could have been investigated free
-from the delimitations of an executive call. Nevertheless, the fact
-remains that the report of the Berry Committee, as it was called, is a
-stinging indictment against the police force of Chicago, which sooner or
-later must be tried at the bar of public opinion. It will, in a measure,
-have blazed the way for a new committee of inquiry, whose sittings have
-just commenced, in so far as the police department is concerned.
-
-The Baxter Committee was formed under a resolution of the Senate. It
-consists of five republican and two democratic senators. The resolution
-refers "to the management and control of the police affairs" of Chicago,
-and "the conduct of the municipal government thereof, in reference to the
-expenditure of public money and the enforcement of the law in its several
-departments." This language would limit the scope of the committee's
-inquiry to city affairs only. The resolution, however, closes with words
-granting authority to the committee for a "full, complete and perfect
-investigation of any and all the said subject matters herein named, and
-such other subjects as they may deem wise and prudent to investigate in
-the interests of good government."
-
-If this committee is wise it will not confine its efforts to ascertaining
-how the city government is managed. It will command public approval if it
-will extend its inquiries into the affairs of the county government as
-well. This the community will demand; with less it will not be satisfied.
-The great mass of both parties is concerned with what will be of the most
-advantage to good government, not with what will be to the greatest
-advantage of either party. Hence, if this inquiry has in view a partisan
-purpose its sessions will merely reproduce tales of the street familiar to
-the ears of the people, and with which the legislature has been familiar
-for a decade. To associate these crimes and debaucheries with one
-administration will in one respect be unfair, because they have progressed
-under other administrations as well, but it can emphasize the one great
-and astonishing truth, that never in the history of the city has a police
-force been permitted to become the bed-fellow of these monstrous evils, to
-protect them and contribute to their overwhelming power, in such a
-shameless, openhanded and defiant manner as it has in the past two years,
-as it is still permitted to do, and as it will probably be permitted to
-do, for the next two years.
-
-That committee will find nothing in these pages unknown to the observing
-citizen. The great mass of the people read and forget. These evils are
-hinted at herein, and gathered together. They may impress those who are
-unaccustomed to taking notes of passing events. That the growth of crime
-in Chicago, and the prevalence of bestiality is not generally believed by
-the majority of its people is a self-evident proposition. It would be an
-insult to their intelligence and virtue to assert they knew the facts. It
-is not a criticism of their intelligence to say they do not know the
-facts. It is rather to their credit that in the pursuit of their business,
-the care of their homes, and the cultivation of their morals, they judge
-the great community in which they live by their own standard, and firmly
-believe that as they know themselves to be good citizens, they believe
-their fellow men are likewise good citizens. While they rest in this
-conviction vice is eternally at work, immorality undermining and crime
-attacking the power of government, capturing one and then the other of its
-strongholds, until today the criminal classes constitute the balance of
-power in every city election, and can handle it as they may choose, by
-the mere concentration of the voting strength of the keepers of eight
-thousand saloons and their hangers on.
-
-The appointment of a comptroller and corporation counsel acceptable to the
-public, both being men of sterling integrity, and known ability, is merely
-a partial promise of reform. The new comptroller is a worthy successor to
-the deceased Waller, while the new corporation counsel takes his office,
-with a reputation for probity and legal acumen which are guaranties that
-neither will be used in an attack upon the people's laws. But the police
-department and the public works department are still under the same
-direction. They give no promise of departing from the protection of
-criminals on the one hand, nor the illegal letting of contracts on the
-other. Both of these are inviting fields for the Baxter committee to
-explore, and when they shall have thoroughly done so, if they shall turn
-their attention to county affairs, they will probably find pastures just
-as prolific of the rankest of weeds.
-
-The Baxter committee began its hearings on the 18th day of May, 1899. Its
-opening witness confirmed the truth of many of the facts set forth in
-these pages. He paid protection money for keeping a gambling house, until
-the demands for a contribution to a campaign fund became too exacting,
-when he was "told he had better quit." "As an ounce of prevention is worth
-a pound of cure," said the witness: "I quit."
-
-He testified that gambling was going on everywhere a few days before the
-committee began its work, named a number of the resorts, and related some
-of his losses in a few of the games in which, although a professional
-gambler, he was "skinned."
-
-Officers were found in them, and protection to the games openly boasted
-of. The club organization, it develops, is the gambling idea of evading
-the laws, the theory being that none can gamble unless they are members.
-The practice seems, however, to be that every man is a member who will not
-squeal. Houses of disrepute were visited, and the indecencies alluded to
-in foregoing pages witnessed by the sergeant-at-arms of the committee.
-His testimony in this respect was too realistic for publication.
-
-A member of a recent grand jury submitted a list of all night saloons he
-had visited, and found doing business, between the hours of one and five
-o'clock in the morning. The list contained the names of forty-six saloons,
-located on eleven different streets. His information was not as startling
-as was the fact that his joint feat of pedestrianism and absorption of
-drink is, perhaps, unequalled in sporting or drinking records. He drank in
-each of the places visited--total drinks, forty-six in four hours. Length
-of route covered four miles; width, about one-half mile; square miles
-traversed--two! Can any sprinter, carrying the same weights, surpass this
-achievement?
-
-The witnesses so far called before the committee are mostly from the
-detective force, and from among lodging house keepers. Their replies are
-evasive, and when not so, their memories are clouded. All they had ever
-known of the subjects upon which they are interrogated had fled from their
-recollection. "I don't remember," avoided many a pitfall.
-
-The methods of the committee do not impress an observer as having been the
-result of much consultation or careful preparation for their work. There
-is an apparent indifference on the part of some of its members to reaching
-results, or to remaining steadily in the pursuit of the purposes for which
-it was organized. Political influences are undoubtedly at work to shorten
-the lines of its inquiry, and the length of the days it shall devote to
-their development. This investigation is not wanted by local politicians
-of either party. It rests with the committee alone to determine whether
-its work shall be well done or not. To maintain the dignity of the State
-is their first duty, let their investigation reveal what it may and strike
-whom it will.
-
-A people who voluntarily submit to taxation for the construction of such a
-stupendous improvement as the drainage canal costing $28,000,000, who
-apply their surplus water fund to the building of a complete system of
-intercepting sewers, who compel the abolition of the murderous grade
-crossings, through the elevation of railway tracks, all for the
-improvement of the sanitary condition and safety of their homes and lives,
-are entitled to the best protection the state can give them against the
-domination of criminals and debauchees, even if the management of its
-police force should thereby be placed in the hands of state agencies, or
-under some other supervision which will compel it to dissolve its
-relations with vice, and prevent it from utilization for political ends.
-
-Submission to the exactions of trusts, in the shape of telephone and gas
-companies, does not require them to submit to a trust of criminals and
-police officials. The element to which it is estimated $70,000,000 is
-annually paid in Chicago for its drink bill, must be so regulated, as that
-it shall cease to furnish the balance of power in elections, to exercise a
-baneful influence over the police, to ruin the young, to encourage
-debauchery, and breed criminals. A municipal government that cannot, or
-will not, control these vicious agencies, will ultimately be condemned by
-a public-spirited people, if they can be, as they sooner or later will
-be, persuaded to devote a few hours, taken from their business or
-pleasure, to a vigorous uprooting of a system under which such iniquities
-can be born and develop to such menacing proportions. There must be an
-awakening to the fact that
-
-  "They say this town is full of cozenage,
-   As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
-   Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
-   Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
-   Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
-   And many such like liberties of sin."
-
-
-
-
-APPENDIX.
-
-
-From the daily press a few accounts are culled, and added by way of
-appendix, as to the perpetration of crime and the habits of the police in
-connection with it.
-
-The Baxter Committee unearthed the following account of the degree of
-protection afforded to citizens by police officers, and the easy-going
-indifference with which the Chief of Police regarded the affair when it
-was first called to his attention.
-
-On the night of March 3d ult. a woman returning from a drug store was
-stopped by two detectives and charged with soliciting men upon the
-streets. She denied this offensive charge, told where she had been and
-where returning, and showed a bottle of medicine she carried as
-confirmatory of her statements. This happened about 8:45 o'clock. She was
-then within twenty feet of the entrance to the house in which she lived.
-Notwithstanding her denial, the officers went to the house with her. One
-of them then said, "I'm an officer; open this door!" Another woman with
-whom the arrested woman was boarding asked, "What is the matter?" One of
-the officers replied, "This woman was on the street soliciting," to which
-the boarding house keeper replied, "You are mistaken." "Well," said the
-officer, "if you want to stop her give me $15," and the reply was, "She
-has no money to give you or to any one." The boarding house keeper,
-thinking the men were common thieves, then whispered to the accused woman,
-"Go with them and I will follow you." The officers took their woman to a
-corner and into a saloon, where they compelled her to give up a pair of
-diamond earrings for ten dollars which were handed to her by the
-bartender. The boarding house woman followed, and prevented the detectives
-from obtaining the ten dollars, but finally they grabbed the bill from the
-accused woman's hands. The women were then released and returned to their
-home. Taking a sealskin sack with them they returned to the saloon, and
-were handed the diamond earrings, but not without leaving the sack in
-their stead. The women saw the detectives return, and drink at the bar,
-paying for their tipple with the money they had snatched from the hand of
-the one.
-
-While the parties were wrangling on the street a police sergeant and two
-officers in uniform passed. One of the women cried out, "Here are two men
-robbing this woman!" The sergeant replied, after observation, "I have got
-nothing to do with this." One of the women asked, "What are you for?" Then
-the sergeant, having discovered the men were detectives, said to one of
-them, "They are all right. Get what you can." The sergeant then left.
-
-The women now demanded that the detectives show their badges of authority.
-They were shown. Demand was then made that a patrol wagon should be
-called. This was denied, but accidentally one came along the street
-returning to its station. When the accused woman caught sight of it she
-fainted. The boarding house keeper raised such commotion that one of the
-detectives said, "For God's sake, shut that woman's mouth up or she will
-make us trouble!" They then ran away.
-
-The next day the boarding house woman called on the Chief of Police and
-told the whole story. He referred her to the Lieutenant at the station of
-the precinct in which the indignity occurred. To him the entire facts were
-given, and written down by the desk sergeant. The men were there
-identified.
-
-On the following day one of the detectives went to the women's house,
-accompanied by a brother-in-law, whose wife was a personal friend of the
-boarding house woman. The detective had a copy of the woman's statement as
-she had made it at the police station. He begged for mercy, crying, "he
-had nothing to say for himself." He piteously pleaded he had a mother in
-the hospital, a mother-in-law who was dying, and three small children to
-support. Suggestions were made, and the woman's feelings worked upon so
-that she was induced to leave the city.
-
-Meanwhile the boarding house keeper made a statement at another police
-station, in which she suppressed the facts as to the diamonds and the
-money. She was asked to appear before the police trial board, and
-refused. Thereupon the charges against the detectives were dismissed.
-
-It developed before the Baxter Committee that the Chief of Police had been
-told all the facts. The papers got hold of an account of the affair, and
-the Chief called upon the boarding house keeper. In the course of his
-conversation, this woman trying to protect the officers through her
-aroused sympathy, was asked by the Chief, "What about those diamond
-earrings and sealskin sack?" The woman answered, "If you don't know, I
-don't." He then asked, "Didn't you tell that to me?" She answered, "If you
-can't remember, I can't." She was then questioned by the Chief whether
-these officers were begging her to quash the matter, whether they were
-offering her money for that purpose, etc.
-
-The Chief stated the reporters were hounding him to death, when the woman
-asked him "why he did not show her statement?" He replied it was locked
-up, "if they want any information they can get it from you."
-
-One of the men is still a member of the detective force. The other
-resigned and went into the saloon business, and appeared before the
-committee entering a partial denial of the woman's story. The knowledge of
-the Chief of all the facts was fully shown before the committee.
-Notwithstanding this, he does not appear to have taken any steps to keep
-the matter before the trial board, or to institute any other proceedings
-to bring these detectives to punishment.
-
-This is not at all surprising in the face of the fact that this officer
-is, as is shown in court proceedings, a veritable czar in his own
-estimation.
-
-The following account is taken from the _Chicago Democrat_ of May 27th
-ult. A similar report of the case is contained in the other dailies.
-
-"Judge Brentano held, this morning, that Chief of Police K. did not have
-the power to have a man restrained of his liberty at his (K.'s) request.
-The decision was brought about on the hearing of a petition for a writ of
-habeas corpus filed by Attorney F. A. D. for the release of Edward H., who
-was arrested last Monday morning at Twenty-ninth and State streets on
-account of the shooting of Officer James S., which resulted from an
-attempt of a number of officers to enforce the
-disarmament-of-colored-people policy of the Chief of Police.
-
-"The man had been confined in the county jail, and the return of the
-sheriff, when the prisoner was brought into court, read: 'Edward H. has
-been detained in my custody at the request of J. K., Chief of Police for
-the city of Chicago.' Judge Brentano evinced great displeasure when he
-read the return of the illegal detainment of the prisoner. 'A man,' said
-the court, 'cannot be held at the simple request of K. or any other
-person. K.'s word is not sufficient to keep any man in custody. I won't
-tolerate any such actions, for if the man was guilty of shooting an
-officer, or committing any other crime, Mr. K. has had sufficient time and
-knows how to take the proper steps to punish the prisoner.'
-
-"'The court certainly would not allow this man his liberty when he is
-under arrest and has not been booked or complained against before a
-justice of the peace owing to the neglect perhaps of such a high official
-as Mr. K.,' remarked the assistant city prosecuting attorney.
-
-"'I certainly would, regardless of whose neglect it is,' said the court.
-'The prisoner is discharged.'
-
-"No witnesses were heard, the prisoner being discharged on the ground that
-it was shown in the return of the sheriff that H. was simply being
-detained to please Chief K.
-
-"Attorney D. had witnesses in court to show that the prisoner had been
-beaten and injured by the police who arrested him, both before his arrival
-at the Twenty-second street station and after he was installed in a cell
-at that place.
-
-"Prisoners who were in the station at the time H. was taken there were in
-court to testify that the officers who had charge of the prisoner beat and
-struck him in such a manner that they thought H. would be killed.
-
-"The prisoner's face and condition in court were the best evidences of the
-treatment he had received.
-
-"Both of his eyes are closed, swollen and discolored to such a degree that
-they stand out in bold contrast to his own color, which is a dark copper.
-Two gashes, each six inches long, on the top and front of his head bear
-testimony to the means said to have been used by the officers in carrying
-out their chief's new disarmament policy.
-
-"It is also alleged that the prisoner was confined in a dungeon cell while
-he was in the custody of the Twenty-second street police.
-
-"After his discharge the injured man had to be helped to the elevator by
-two of his friends because of his injuries. The names of the officers who
-assaulted the prisoner were not obtainable, for the reason that the
-prisoner had not been booked and the officer making the arrest had not
-signed any complaint."
-
-Two observations will arrest the attention of the average reader. They
-must naturally occur to his mind. First, What sort of a Sheriff is he who
-will keep a man in jail, without a proper commitment? Second, What kind of
-a lawyer must he be who will suggest to a court the propriety of depriving
-a man of his liberty, without due process of law, at the mere request of
-such "a high official" as the Chief of Police?
-
-The return of the Sheriff in this case to the writ of _habeas corpus_
-should have been treated as a contempt of court.
-
-Pool rooms are operating as of yore. The _Daily News_ of May 27 ult.
-contains the following, viz.:
-
-"The saloon of J. H. D. at E. and N. C. streets was converted into a pool
-room yesterday afternoon at the time the ticker began to record the
-winning horses in the races at the various tracks throughout the country.
-A dozen men assembled in the barroom where the ticker was located and
-placed bets, while a number of women sat in the back rooms and also
-chanced their money.
-
-"The women's wants were looked after by a young man who answered to the
-name of 'Dude.' After each race he carried them the slip printed from the
-ticker showing the winners and handed their money to those who had been
-lucky. During the interval between the races the schedule of the next race
-was discussed by all who intended to place money, and 'Dude' would come
-from the rear room with a handful of bills to place on some race by the
-women.
-
-"On the inside money was passed over the bar indiscriminately and a clerk
-was busy keeping track of those who placed bets. From the conversation
-which passed between those in the barroom one might judge that he was in a
-genuine poolroom, where the interference of police was not to be feared.
-
-"All the men present merely gave their initials when they risked their
-money, and these were carefully preserved on paper until the ticker
-decided whether the money was lost or won. The man who passed as 'Dude'
-had charge of the pools apparently, and all the money which was placed
-went through his hands. After taking it he would call the initials of the
-man placing the bet and then hand the money to the man behind the bar."
-
-The ticker was presided over by a large, smooth-faced, well-dressed man
-and anything which came over the machine which was not a report on a horse
-race was of no interest. The reports of the score at the various ball
-games were soon shown the waste basket, while the lists of the horses
-which earned places were preserved and hung on hooks after they had been
-carefully inspected by those present.
-
-A number of stylishly dressed women were seen to enter the place, and,
-according to information furnished the _Daily News_, women have been in
-the habit of visiting the D. saloon for some time for the purpose of
-placing bets on the races. Two young women came from the direction of L.
-S. avenue about 4 o'clock and entered the place apparently as though it
-was nothing new to them.
-
-"The 'ladies' entrance' is on the E. street side. The rooms for women are
-arranged in the east half of the double-flat building on E. street, while
-the saloon faces on C. street.
-
-"J. H. D., who conducts the place, came in yesterday afternoon while the
-betting was at its height, and, bedecked in diamonds, walked leisurely
-behind the bar and, picking up a Racing Form, turned to the 'boys' and
-asked how 'things were going.' He was told the winners in the races which
-had been reported during his absence and seemed pleased with what was told
-him.
-
-"The saloon is known as 'D.'s O. P. C.,' and has been conducted at this
-place for the past five or six years. The license for the place is in the
-name of Mrs. J. H. D. It is said that D. was formerly in the saloon
-business here, but sold out and went to New York, where he put on a
-vaudeville show and sunk several thousand dollars trying to make it pay.
-He finally failed, it is said, and came back to Chicago and reopened his
-saloon.
-
-"At the Chicago avenue police station nothing was known apparently of the
-gambling at the D. saloon on the races. Capt. R. said that he told a
-couple of his men some time ago to watch the place, but he said they had
-reported nothing irregular. The captain seemed surprised when he heard of
-how affairs were, and Inspector H. was apparently very indignant at the
-thought that anything of the sort was going on in his district. He at once
-gave the captain orders to send a couple of men to the place and if
-anything was found to be going on there to stop it."
-
-The result of the visit of the Inspector's officers is thus stated in the
-_Tribune_ of May 28th ult. Its headline is suggestive, in view of the
-particulars given in the _Daily News_ of the occurrences by its reporter.
-
-"REPORT NO GAMBLING."
-
-"A report that a poolroom was being conducted in the saloon of J. H. D.,
-E. and N. C. Streets, was investigated yesterday by Detectives B. and R.,
-who visited the place at 3 p. m., and reported no gambling existed there.
-It was said that during Friday afternoon bets on the races were accepted
-in the saloon and that men as well as women frequented the place."
-
-The newspapers contribute evidences of the absence of crime in Chicago,
-and of police operations as follows, viz.:
-
-From the _Daily News_ May 27th ult.
-
-"Officers from the Attrill street police station are scouring the west
-side in an effort to apprehend burglars who created havoc in the vicinity
-of Humboldt Park boulevard and Western avenue during the early morning
-hours of yesterday. Among the residences visited by the night prowlers
-were those of: (Here follows a list of eleven burglaries.)
-
-"In addition burglaries at the following places in the immediate
-neighborhood have been committed within the last few days: (Here follows
-a list of four burglaries.)
-
-"One of the burglars rode from house to house on a bicycle. Two revolvers
-dropped by the visitors were found in the yard of the E. residence. The
-territory suffering the nightly raids is embraced in the suburb of
-Maplewood, and citizens have armed themselves in their own defense,
-asserting that police uniforms have not been seen on the streets concerned
-for weeks."
-
-From the _Democrat_ May 27th ult.:
-
-"Burglars forced an entrance into the store of the Guarantee Clothing
-Company, State street, last night and stole nearly $1,000 worth of goods.
-
-"Apparently the thieves took their time, and the police say they must have
-used a wagon in removing the goods. Persons living in the flats above
-heard nothing unusual during the night, and the police are unable to
-comprehend how the thieves could remove the great amount of property
-without attracting attention.
-
-"This morning a clerk opened the front door of the store. It looked as
-though a small cyclone had passed through the establishment."
-
-This burglary took place between two police stations, from neither of
-which it was far distant. It is probable that if one officer had gone over
-his beat just once that night, its perpetrators would have been caught in
-the act. Some neighboring saloon was, perhaps, more needful of police
-protection!
-
-Some tremendous effort is being made, however, to suppress policy shops
-and clean out all night saloons! Witness the following, viz.:
-
-From papers of May 27th ult.:
-
-"Detectives D. and D. of Chief K.'s office raided a policy shop in the
-basement of the building at 6 Washington street last night and destroyed
-the fixtures of the place and confiscated the sheets, records and other
-paraphernalia.
-
-"The shop was in a small room under the sidewalk and was reached through a
-barber shop. S. H., the police say, was the agent in charge of the place,
-and represented the O. R. & G. company of Fort Erie, Canada. No arrests
-were made, but Chief K. says the place will remain closed."
-
-"Two hours after midnight Sergt. M. and Officers M., O'B., H. and F.,
-from the Harrison street police station, raided the C. L. saloon at State
-street, arresting sixty inmates. The majority of these were boys. There
-was one man with gray hair and wrinkled face.
-
-"Shortly before the police court convened at 9 o'clock the entire crowd
-was marched into Inspector H.'s office and from there to the courtroom,
-where the cases were disposed of by Justice M. Every sort of a plea
-generally used in court was brought into play by the defendants. Some
-cases were dismissed, while other prisoners were fined $25 and $50. The
-police claim about half of those arrested were criminals.
-
-"The arrests were made because of the large number of complaints against
-the saloon."
-
-The raid on the policy shop belongs to the spasmodic line of operations of
-the police. Fifty of them could be made if some mysterious reason did not
-exist why they are not made.
-
-The saloon referred to belongs to the all night class, and is one of the
-most notorious of the kind. It has been protected in the past, and still
-would be if it were not for the fact that "a large number of complaints"
-have been made against it. These are not new to the police. They have been
-made before, but something must be done for appearance sake while the
-Baxter Committee continues its probing! That this place was a resort for
-criminals is not a recent discovery by the police. They always knew it.
-
-To cull the press for proofs of the truth of the charges made in the
-foregoing pages, would result, in a few days, in the reproduction of a
-mass of evidence on the total inefficiency of the police force. Such as
-are here given are examples of the many the scissors could find.
-
-The reader can multiply them, in his mind, ten fold in a week's time, and
-then reach a result far short of the facts.
-
-
-The whole story of the alliance between the police, the saloons and the
-justices is told in the following cartoon taken from the Daily News of
-June 23, 1899.
-
-[Illustration: CAUGHT COMING AND GOING.]
-
-THE DIVEKEEPER (to Harrison street police officer)--"I've got my dollar a
-head out of them. Now you can drive them into court and give the justice
-his chance."
-
-
-
-
-
-
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