Vice and Graft.
Police Collectors—The Prostitute’s Graft Price—The Kimona Trust—Laundry Trust—The Woman and the “Cadet”—Terrible Examples—To the Woman: Death—How About Your Daughter?
From the enemies of moral progress and from those who find it to their personal interest to exploit the shame of women and the crimes of men, the cry has been raised:—
Vice, segregated and otherwise, is absolutely essential in a large city. Passions must be given an outlet; lusts must be allowed to exhaust themselves.
That view, in the face of earnest study of the subject, is a pernicious fallacy.
Take away from man the open temptation; cleanse his paths of the thousand lures to evil; bar his coming in contact with the lost woman as far as it is possible and you will minimize vice to a marvelous degree.
It is on the fallacy and sophistry of the theory that passions of men must be satisfied, that Chicago today carries on its terrible exploitation of vice.
It is on that theory that the Vice Trust has built its superstructure, created its gigantic business, bartered its thousands of women for flesh-prices and harvested millions of dollars annually.
Vice exists under the conditions which we have depicted, because the Vice Trust—the all powerful coterie of police and politicians,—wish it.
The would-be municipal leaders, are the powers behind the city’s ignominy and shame!