Q. How is it then that when the Department changed you felt called upon to send a cheque to Mr. Croker?
A. Well, because I didn’t think I could go on and do the amount of business I had for the City without recognising the people that were in power.
In 1892, when the Presidential Election was on, Moran doubled his subscription. Why was that? He replied:—
I compared notes with somebody in the same business that I was in myself, and found out somebody was paying a little more than I did, and I was afraid somebody in my line of business would put in a little more and I would get left.—Vol. v., pp. 4,912-6.
When once an evil system has got itself established, innumerable other influences combine to render its extirpation extremely difficult. The Committee was much scandalised by discovering that for premises whose licence had been cancelled for immorality, a new licence was granted almost immediately. But when the President of the Excise Board was asked to explain, he said:—
There came into consideration property interests; we found that if licences were refused for places where business was carried on, that the banks were affected who had loaned money on mortgages, persons who had loaned on mortgages, the banks who had notes of parties in business; the rents went to the support of persons who depended upon them solely; the tax commissioners of the city protested to the Board of Excise against the refusal to license premises, because it reduces the value of property, and for that reason reduces the taxable values, and affected the city in that way; real estate agents and other persons interested, and owners of property came to us and protested at the start that we ought not to refuse to allow a reputable business to be carried on on any premises, because they had been improperly conducted before.—Vol. iv., p. 4,379.
And it came to pass that no sooner was a saloon closed for vice or crime than it was opened again with a fresh licence.
The most mournful and tragic part of all these stories of oppression is that which relates to the treatment of the forlorn and desolate women who have no money with which to bribe the police. For them there is no mercy. The theory of the police, as we have seen, seems to have been that prostitutes existed for the purpose of raising revenue for the force. The women of the streets were the irregular tax-gatherers of the Department. Their vice was not merely connived at, but actively encouraged, so long as the police received their stipulated proportion of the wages of shame.
The women were the bondslaves of the Administration. By law they had no right to ply for hire; but, in consideration of the payment of a regular ransom, they were left free to earn their precarious living.
“This is a phase,” said Mr. Goff, “and a revolting phase, of a custom that exists in New York. I suppose it is the lowest form of oppression and corruption that possibly could be conceived by the human mind; and that is, a tax upon these unfortunate women in the streets at night; for they will not be allowed to walk the streets at night unless they pay so much to the officer, and this has been the custom in many districts of this city for years.”—Vol. iv., p. 3,617.