Mrs. Hermann was only one among a number of other Madams who appeared before the Committee, but none succeeded in exciting so much sympathy on the part of the senators. The scandalous way in which the poor woman had been fleeced, and bullied, and ultimately reduced to penury by the very officials to whom she was paying protection money, roused the indignation of the Committee. If the police had protected her in return for their fee, it would have been a different matter, but, as Senator O’Connor remarked, indignantly, in addition to paying the monthly tax, and the initiation fees, raids were got up as an excuse to enable a policeman or a class of criminal lawyers to extort money out of her. Senator Pound remarked that it was the practice to protect such women until they became wealthy, and then squeeze it out of them and leave them destitute. They say that there is “honour among thieves,” but there seems to be none with the policemen who handled Mrs. Hermann.
Another Madam, whose case attracted considerable attention, was one Augusta Thurow, whose misfortunes brought her into intimate relations with Senator Roesch, and led to the appearance of that redoubtable politician in the witness-box. The relations between her and the Captain of the Precinct seem to have been on straight business lines. About a dollar a month for each girl in the house was the regular tariff. When beginning business she went round to see the Captain and told him that she was willing to do the right thing, but she had not much money, and could not pay a very heavy initiation fee. He met her fairly, and said that he would send the wardman round, and she was to do what he told her. When the wardman came he said, “You wait until after the election, and, after the election is over, you start right in and do business.” After the election day he returned and said, “Now we will come to terms. Give me twenty-five dollars a month and there will be no trouble either for you or for me.” Business went on smoothly until one day she received a summons to go and see the Captain. When she got there she found a number of other ladies and gentlemen of her own profession at the station-house. On being admitted into the Captain’s presence she thought he wanted money. He replied, “I am not supposed to take money, but you can give me the money;” whereupon she handed him twenty-five dollars. He then told her that he had sent for her, not in order to collect the protection fee, which was the duty of the wardman, but to give her a friendly warning that he had received orders from the Central Office to close all the disorderly houses in the precinct. He hoped, therefore, that she would do her business very carefully, otherwise they might raid her from the Central Office. This was an incident which was constantly occurring. The Central Office, stirred up by newspaper reports, or by the representations of decent citizens, issues orders for enforcing the law. The police captains, instead of executing the orders of the Central Office in the spirit as well as in the letter, send word round to all those concerned warning them to be on the alert. By this means the Captain of the Precinct effectually nullifies the orders issued from the Central Office, and, even if the Central Office make a raid on their own account, they find nothing to seize.
It was shortly after this visit that Mrs. Thurow made her first acquaintance with a redoubtable policeman of the name of Hoch. Of all the collectors or wardmen who figure in the evidence, Hoch enjoys the most conspicuous notoriety. He was no sooner entrusted with the collections in that district than he insisted upon raising the fees for protection. “A ranch like that,” he said, “is worth seventy-five dollars a month, and here you are only paying twenty-five dollars, and give me only five dollars, although you promised me ten dollars.”
“Hoch,” she replied, “I cannot afford it.”
Q. What did he say when you said you could not afford it?
A. He says, “You have got the house, and why don’t you make money? It is your own fault; and that house is situated in the right spot, and you can do all the business you want and we won’t interfere with you, but you must do better than this.”
Q. Did he make any threats then to pull you, if you did not pay a higher rate?
A. He said, certainly, if I could not do better than that, he would raid the house.—Vol. i., p. 1,055.
This alarmed the Madam, and off she went to her husband, who was sent in quest of Judge Roesch, the leader of the Seventh Assembly District, an ex-senator. “I will go and see somebody, and fix the thing up,” said Roesch. “But it will cost about one hundred dollars.” The money was paid, and she did business right away.
Some time after this she was pulled by another detective. She expostulated against the injustice of being run in, although she was paying protection money, whereupon the detective remarked sententiously, “Somehow or other you did not hitch with the Boss.” She went round to the station-house, to find out what was wrong. The Captain told her that she had to find another house in the precinct, and he would protect her, but he would not stand the house in which she was any longer. The cause of this she discovered when she was told that she could not open the new house until she paid an initiation fee of £200 for the Captain, and £50 for Hoch.