CHARACTER OF THE VICE CORPS; ITS WORK.
Every hobo, degenerate and criminal at large, knows when Chicago’s elections come due. From Maine to Washington, from Florida to Northern Michigan comes the immigration to Chicago.
Six hundred lodging houses and cheap hotels in the First, Eighteenth and Twenty-first wards—the vice territories of the city—throw open their doors to the hired assassins of the ballot.
The vice kings have issued the order. The army is given lodging.
The barrel-houses, whiskey halls and underground hells furnish the nutrition for the human vultures.
That is part of their agreement of existence. They, too, are concerned. A defeat of their rulers would mean financial ruin and the loss of a channel to protection for their crime doings.
Soaked with destructive liquor, fed with de-energizing food the “floaters” and “repeaters” wallow in the mire, waiting to do their filthy service and then depart.
The sub-leaders of these men are the appointed guardians of the ballot, clerks and judges of election, principally.
They, too, are corrupt. Recent elections have even resulted in fixing election crimes on them and sending some to jail.
The question, “Shall this city (Chicago) become anti-saloon territory?” was to have been placed on the ballot, April 5, 1910. Sixty-eight saloonkeepers and bartenders qualified as judges and clerks for this election. No “floater” or “repeater” would have been prevented from voting by these clerks and judges.