so genuine and so successful, was afterward indicted by the grand jury
and sent to the penitentiary on the charge of accepting 'graft' from
saloon-keepers and proprietors of the disreputable houses in his
district
This Chicago police inspector, whose desire to protect young girls was
so genuine and so successful, was afterward indicted by the grand jury
and sent to the penitentiary on the charge of accepting 'graft' from
saloon-keepers and proprietors of the disreputable houses in his
district. His experience was a dramatic and tragic portrayal of the
position into which every city forces its police. When a girl who has
been secured for the life is dissuaded from it, her rescue represents a
definite monetary loss to the agency which has secured her and incurs
the enmity of those who expected to profit by her. When this enmity has
sufficiently accumulated, the active official is either 'called down' by
higher political authority, or brought to trial for those illegal
practices which he shares with his fellow-officials. It is, therefore,
easy to make such an inspector as ours suffer for his virtues, which are
individual, by bringing charges against his grafting, which is general
and almost official. So long as the customary prices for protection are
adhered to, no one feels aggrieved; but the sentiment which prompts an
inspector 'to side with the girls' and to destroy thousands of dollars"
worth of business is unjustifiable. He has not stuck to the rules of the
game and the pack of enraged gamesters, under full cry of 'morality,'
can very easily run him to ground, the public meantime being gratified
that police corruption has been exposed and the offender punished. Yet
hundreds of girls, who could have been discovered in no other way, were
rescued by this man in his capacity of police inspector. On the other
hand, he did little to bring to justice those responsible for securing
the girls, and while he rescued the victim, he did not interfere with
the source of supply. Had he been brought to trial for this
indifference, it would have been impossible to find a grand jury to
sustain the indictment. He was really brought to trial because he had
broken the implied contract with the politicians; he had devised illicit
and damaging methods to express that instinct for protecting youth and
innocence, which every man on the police force doubtless possesses. Were
this instinct freed from all political and extra legal control, it would
in and of itself be a tremendous force against commercialized vice which
is so dependent upon the exploitation of young girls. Yet the fortunes
of the police are so tied up to those who profit by this trade and to
their friends, the politicians, that the most well-meaning man upon the
force is constantly handicapped. Several illustrations of this occur to
me. Two years ago, when very untoward conditions were discovered in
connection with a certain five-cent theatre, a young policeman arrested
the proprietor, who was later brought before the grand jury, indicted
and released upon bail for nine thousand dollars. The crime was a
heinous one, involving the ruin of fourteen little girls; but so much
political influence had been exerted on behalf of the proprietor, who
was a relative of the republican committeeman of his ward, that although
the license of the theatre was immediately revoked, it was reissued to
his wife within a very few days and the man continued to be a menace to
the community. When the young policeman who had made the arrest saw him
in the neighborhood of the theatre talking to little girls and reported
him, the officer was taken severely to task by the highest republican
authority in the city. He was reprimanded for his activity and ordered
transferred to the stockyards, eleven miles away. The policeman well
understood that this was but the first step in the process called
'breaking;' that after he had moved his family to the stockyards, in a
few weeks he would be transferred elsewhere, and that this change of
beat would be continued until he should at last be obliged to resign
from the force. His offence, as he was plainly told, had been his
ignorance of the fact that the theatre was under political protection.
In short, the young officer had navely undertaken to serve the public
without waiting for his instructions from the political bosses.
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