Is there any power that can dig down deep enough to uproot this crying evil?
THE LODGING HOUSE PERIL.
In one lodging house in the Eighteenth Ward there is room to accommodate 200 men.
During the lapses between elections but 75 to 100 men occupy these unsanitary quarters. At election they are crowded.
The occupants of these rooms are then registered under meaningless names and cast ballots.
A majority of the men who count the ballots in these wards are also corrupt. They help the stuffing of the ballot boxes. They are the supposed defenders of the greatest privilege given to the American citizen;—that of self rule. They are in reality, the slaves of the Vice Trust.
Occasionally the regular residents of the lodging houses work at employments that they secure through the licensed labor agencies. But, no matter how great the demand may be for laborers, no agency dares furnish these men with work just previous to elections. What agent will deny that to send voters out on the road to work at election time would mean ruin through the loss of his license to do business?
As a specific proof of our statement of the debauchery of Chicago’s ballot-box, we print below the affidavit of a young man who voted six times at the primary on September 15, 1910.
The affidavit is one of a score secured by Mr. Farwell of the Chicago Law and Order League.
The affidavit follows:—State of Illinois, County of Cook, SS.