WHY THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN.
In this little volume each page is a sign post of warning, for the Chicago man and woman, and particularly, for those who visit or intend visiting this city.
This book is not a mere setting forth of facts without explanation of the reason for their existence.
It is a clear, truthful analysis of crime, vice and graft from every standpoint.
It is the first story, as far as we are aware, of the monstrous Vice-Graft system.
We have given a general outline of crime and its relation to the conscienceless, fattening Trust.
In the later chapters we shall treat of the hideous and most important evils of the city, in detail.
The “Debauchery of the Ballot,” the “redlight” districts and their machinery and thousands of ruined women, the White Slave Traffic, the gambling games and their alliance with the police, the “Vampire Trust,” petty crimes that flourish, buried plague spots of the city, and other startling features in the kingdom of crime will be separately and truthfully treated.
We are telling a terrible story. It is the story of—
—CHICAGO—
THE WICKEDEST CITY IN THE WORLD!
Mr. McCutcheon in The Tribune.
CHAPTER II.
The Debauchery of the Ballot.
The Sacredness of the Ballot—Its Corruption by the Vice Trust—Methods of Corruption—Affidavits Showing Corruption—A Cleansed Ballot Box—A Cleansed City.
American advancement has its foundation in the principles of government by the people, for the people and of the people.
Every American citizen, in theory at least, is an ideal autocrat. He is the judge of his personal conduct; the maker of his surroundings; the master in his home; the ruler of his nation by his power of representative government.
Ideal democracy is God’s highest gift to his best creation.
Prostituted democracy is hell’s highest triumph; is evil’s best instrument.
Individual right to create a governing power is an American citizen’s first prerogative.
The most sacred thing in the mechanism of self-government of the United States,—is the Ballot Box.
Tamper with the ballot box and you aim a body blow at the constitution of the United States.
Defile its sanctity and you destroy the purity of our democracy.
Chicago is a seething mass of corruption, vice, graft and iniquity today, as has been generally shown in the first chapter. That must be admitted.
Previously we have spoken of her evils in a general way.
The Vice Trust rules supreme. It is almost impregnable. The secret of that herculean strength and power is—
The Debauchery of the Ballot Box!
The ballot of Chicago has been debauched, sold and enslaved!
Not more than ten men, powers in the political world, by insidious methods have poisoned it, killed its political value for municipal betterment, and made it the armament of their corrupt forces. With its aid they have built up the monstrous Vice combine, and with it they retain year after year the sceptre of vicious tyranny.
Investigations have proven the debauchery of the ballot. Investigators have shown that the corrupted ballot box has won disastrous, political victories. Investigation has demonstrated that all the forces of moral-decaying vice have been used to destroy the honesty of the ballot, so that vice might flourish and pay its tribute to its sleek-faced, big-bellied masters.
It is our intention to show in this chapter how the debauched ballot box is the secret power of the forces that make Chicago the wickedest city in the world.
Granted the necessary political despotism to rule and pass sentence of life and death on good and bad, what opportunity have the powers for good to destroy the parasite?