A VICE CAPITAL OF FLESH AND BLOOD.
Think of it!
Almost half a billion dollars!
But the capital in this business is not so many dollars. It is human flesh, human souls, human blood! Can they be measured in dollars?
There is no capital in this hideous trust that stands in banks. The real capital must be turned over and over. The exhausted bodies of men and women fill the incurable disease wards of the hospital, the crippled and broken down inhabit the shacks of the tenements, and thousands are buried in paupers’ graves.
This is the price of the slaves!
There is nothing but the world of infamy. Nothing but the aching, diseased bodies of women. Nothing but the outraged purity of childhood. Nothing but the toiling, unrestrained passions of fiends. Nothing but the lust that is insatiable, the desire that fattens on the poisons it eats.
After years of investigation, acquiring information from politicians, police officials and their subordinates, gamblers, habitues of the levees, and nearly five hundred more vassals of the vice trust, we have placed the protection figure at $15,000,000.
Attorney W. W. Wheelock, counsel for the Civil Service Commission and the man who attempted to break up the Vice-Police-Political graft combine, in speaking of this subject, said:
“I have as yet only scratched the veneer and the surface of this terrifying evil, but the results have made me reel in horror and amazement. At this time I estimate that the yearly graft is $15,000,000.
“The true figure, when all things are considered, must run far above that. It is evident that at least eighty per cent of the police, at some time or other, are grafters. The system of tribute and graft burrows into every legitimate pursuit and finds some undreamed of channel of graft.”
And Ellis Geiger, an alderman, made an astounding statement in full council session, when the subject of appropriation to aid in the police graft investigation was before that body. He said:—
“From the reports of investigators and men who have knowledge of conditions in our city, vice pays tribute of $15,000,000 annually to the police for its liberty of existence.”
Both these men are citizens of high repute, men of intelligence and understanding. Both have placed the vice-graft at a tremendous figure, but they have not carefully studied all the sources of collection. These when considered, make $15,000,000 a very conservative estimate.
What must be the murderous heart and the demon’s soul of a monster that is willing to pay such a price to wallow in the trough of moral filth and physical bestiality!