IN CONCLUSION.
That is the source whence comes the power to create, foster and nourish vice and crime.
It is the first and the only absolutely essential link in the vice chain.
THE POLICE FORCE, ASSISTING IN SUCKING THE STAGNANT BLOOD FROM THE CITY’S LEVEES, MIGHT BE SWEPT AWAY BY A WAR OF PROTEST AND REFORM, BUT THE EVIL WOULD GROW ANEW.
New agents could be speedily found. The foundry where the iron manacles for the vice-slaves are forged, would still exist.
The ballot box would still remain to be tampered with.
Guard the ballot box night and day; wipe out the padded registry list; arrest the thousands of “floaters” and “repeaters”; compel prostitutes to register their full names to show their sex; and send to prison the corrupt judges and clerks of election; send to the workpiles the buyers of votes, and you will strike a fatal blow at the Vice Trust.
A debauched ballot box means “redlight” districts.
A debauched ballot box means dens of infamy.
A debauched ballot box means putrefying saloons.
A debauched ballot box means 5,000 registered prostitutes.
A debauched ballot box means protected White Slavery.
A debauched ballot box means notorious gambling.
A debauched ballot box means police corruption.
A debauched ballot box means—
$15,000,000 annual graft to the corrupters!
Because the ballot box remains debauched, the Vice Trust exists. Because it exists, Chicago is a cesspool of the world’s mingled corruptions.
SPEAKING OF FIRE TRAPS.
By Courtesy of The Chicago Daily News.
THERE ARE OTHERS.
CHAPTER III.
Come and See!
A CITY DEFILED.
The Cafe Evil—The Rich Man’s Girl Trap—The Borderland of Hell—Crimes that Thrive by Night—State Street and Its Pitfalls—The Stages of Sin.
It is night. Over the city of 2,000,000 souls is the light of God’s stars and the pale moon.
Thousands tired from the day’s occupation, turn to peaceful sleep for relief.
Innocent children are tucked into their little, white beds. The kiss from loving lips goes with them into the land of dreams. The future has no terror for them, because they know not.
While thousands sleep, thousands sin and perish in Chicago!
Crime loves the protection of darkness. Vice breathes more freely in the night.
From his cavern, creeps forth the monster Vice with sun-down.
He is hungry for his victims. They have been fattened for him. The hour has come for the nightly sacrifice on the altars of debauchery.
Come with us! Come, we will show you the City Defiled!
Down into the heart of the loop district we shall go first.
Right across from where God’s and man’s laws are administered in the County Courthouse, a stone’s throw from one of the oldest churches in Chicago, we shall stop.
It is George Silver’s “Rialto.” It is one of the most popular cafes of its kind in Chicago. It is a place where human souls are valued for just the worth of the body’s hire. An alderman is said to be part owner of this place.
It is a typical example of the hundreds of drinking places for men and women that are found in Chicago.
Virtue is slain there every night. Hearts are broken there and lives ruined. It is no worse than other places of the same type.
It is an underground hell.
Down the steps we go and enter.
We are escorted to a table by a colored waiter.
On a raised dais, a bent-over consumptive looking young man plays a piano. The airs are the popular hits of the day.
A pale-faced youth wipes his purple lips after a hasty sip at a beer glass and advancing to the front of the dais sings a song, usually of sensuous import.
He is extravagantly applauded. He is “sent up” a drink by some pleased patron.
But look about you.
There are more than one hundred tables. At each table sit at least one man and one woman.
In every woman’s face, if you are observant, is written a tragedy, either beginning that night, or in its unfolding or finished years before.
Do you see that “washed-out” bleached blonde with colorless eyes, who smiles at the drinking youth who sits with her? She has lived through the tragedy. Life to her is but an aftermath of unending agony.
The monster Vice has long ago sucked the life blood from her veins. She has been discarded. She lives from day to day on her passing victims.
They are usually unsophisticated youths, proud to sit with her, buy her more poison and peril their young lives by contact with her.
She is coughing. That is the warning signal she knows well but attempts to forget. It is the signal that death has placed his hands upon her. She has fulfilled her mission. Hell must claim its own.
You are attracted by a merry burst of laughter from pretty lips. You turn.
How her eyes sparkle! How her cheeks burn crimson!
Her body moves sinuously to the rhythm of the music.
She smiles even at you as she sips her “fizz.”
She is intoxicated with life. It is lights and shadows, songs and flowers.
She is a favorite among men. A much-sought after girl on the border line of womanhood.
She has no terrors tonight; no haunting nightmares.
Her blood flows fast; her pulse thrills her; her thoughts burn with pleasing fire.
She is reckless. Why not? The world is a bed of roses.
Four months ago she wandered into the paths that lead to hell.
Six dollars a week as a clerk. No clothes, no delicacies, no amusements.
She learned the secrets of the girl who worked beside her; how she purchased the “good things” of life.
Her virginal innocence was the inestimable price!
Tonight she is an habitue of the brilliant cafe.
The path is still one of beauty and fascination. The tragedy is in its inception.
The bright eyes will become dull, the sweet voice harsh, the cheeks pale, the face haggard.
The wine shall have been sipped. Nothing then but the bitter dregs! Oh, the horror of that approaching tragedy!
Her end is inevitable.
An early grave, a house of prostitution or an insane asylum! There is rarely ever a turning back.
Vice buries its tentacles deep in the flesh.