In one block between South State and South Dearborn streets which was canvassed by the Daily News, five places were found openly admitted to be disorderly houses. Some were in flat buildings, the other tenants of which apparently were respectable, some raising families of children.
Many white owners of real estate who speak in horrified whispers of vice dangers view such dangers with complacency when these are thrust among colored families. Two years ago a woman of the underworld and her gambler husband decided to open a "high-class" resort on the South Side. She got a location as a neighbor of reputable colored people by purchasing the home of a former alderman and leader in a church, the one of which the Rev. John P. Brushingham, secretary of Mayor Thompson's Morals Commission, is the pastor. The woman was one of the most notorious of the demimonde. An oil painting of her, as she was before her husband in a fit of jealousy bit off a part of her nose, for years hung in a saloon of international reputation.
These are some of the influences which the colored population is forced to combat in its fight for decency and good citizenship. A few secure political preferment and others profit by catering to the city's vices, while the rank and file are hedged around by demoralizing influences and the race is discredited unjustly.
HOMES OCCUPIED BY NEGROES ON FOREST AVENUE
(Note pavement and smoke.)
Classified in text as "Type C."
REAR VIEW OF HOUSES OCCUPIED BY NEGROES ON FEDERAL STREET
Classified in text as "Type D."
Another chapter of this series dealt with gambling in the South Side district. Here are two excerpts:
Colored men are in active control of the gambling situation in the big part of their district in the second ward. Back of them are white police officials at one end of the line and white politicians who keep them in power at the other end of the line. When second ward, and even some adjacent ward, gambling is discussed by gamblers on the inside, certain colored men are always mentioned. They are called "the syndicate," and their approval is said to be necessary if the police are to let anybody run in the ward.