Tearing Off the Police Mask.
A Story of the Hypocrisy of the Police Department--Its Neglect of
Duty--Its Protection of Crime--The Fate of the Honest Policeman--Collusion
of Police and Thieves.
The minds which conspire to create a system such as the Vice Trust is
shown to control, must of necessity find agents to carry on the various
phases of the work.
It has been demonstrated that no species of vice or sin exists in Chicago
except at the will of the vice lords and in return for the payment of
large sums of money.
In a large majority, the police department, holding in its hands the power
to enforce or ignore the laws of the city, state or country, is the thumb
screw used by the Vice Trust to exact its toll of sin-existence.
This body of men, each one of whom swore on his word of honor before God
and man to enforce the man-made laws, as a whole, is decaying with the
poison of graft and vice in its veins.
From a servant of the people, the policeman has become the servant of the
people's enemies.
Trapped and enmeshed by the political powers above them hundreds of
policemen prostitute their power for the purpose of aiding and abetting
sin and vice and in defrauding the people of their proper tax-paid
protection.
There are 4,000 members of the department of police in Chicago today.
There are a chief of police, twenty captains, numerous lieutenants and
sergeants and at least 3,800 patrolmen. Through this body of men, many of
whom promised their God and their own conscience to do their duty, are men
sold body and soul to the vice lords who, it has been shown, control
Chicago and derive fortunes from the exploitation of vice.
These are the men to whom every law abiding citizen trusts his or her life
year in and year out. These are the men appointed to protect property
against criminal depredation, to make the streets clean of crime, and to
watch over our children.
And yet, investigation has shown that the executive heads of this big law
enforcing system, in many instances, are crooked, corrupt and purchased.
Many of the men holding high positions in the police department are there
because the Vice Trust has found them of service and because they are
ready ever to do the bidding of their masters.
The politics of the department is largely a matter of the politics of the
Vice Trust, as has been shown by recent investigations.
Gambling runs full blast, houses of prostitution openly carry on their
immoral practices, street walkers wink at the policemen on their beats,
pickpockets laugh at the plain clothes men, robbers loot homes and places
of business, crimes of every conceivable description are committed, a
gambling war is allowed to terrorize Chicago, because the police
department is sold body and soul, revolver and star, to the masters of the
underworld.
The hundred and one duties of the policeman are neglected daily because he
is busy helping some vicious criminal friend of the Vice Trust.
The history of the Chicago police department today is a history of a duty
neglected and a sacred responsibility shirked.
Even if certain members of the police force desired to do their duty, the
meshes have so tightened about them, they are so compromised with the big
lieutenants of vice and sin, that to save themselves and their families,
they must go on violating their sacred oath of office and living a life of
cowardice and hypocrisy.
If the police department was not a subsidized body, the Vice Trust would
have a hard time carrying out its plans. It could not whip into line the
varied and complicated characters of sin with which it deals to lucrative
advantage.
THE FATE OF ONE POLICE OFFICIAL.
Its subsidy was proven clearly in the recent conviction of a West side
inspector of police for the acceptance of protection money. He was one of
hundreds. He was not of a really bad stripe. Circumstances gave him
scarcely any other alternative.
[Illustration: Copyrighted 1910 by The Midnight Mission.
Used by permission of owners of copyright.
Where one escapes the toils of vice and sin, thousands perish as slaves to
the inexorable Vice Trust.]
There are honest policemen in Chicago. Far be it from us to cast mud of
dishonor and obloquy at all members of the department. We simply state
that a large majority of the members are corrupt and that is a positive
and known fact, although these men have managed through the protection
afforded them by their political masters to escape the penitentiary.
The police duties, consequent on the assumption to such a position are
numerous. In Chicago these are forgotten daily.
Wherever vice and sin flourish as they do here, the same condition of
police corruption is to be found. It was found in San Francisco,
Louisville, Seattle and other big cities.
THE LOST CHILD THAT IS NEVER FOUND.
To kidnap an innocent child, to rob a fond mother of the greatest treasure
God can give her, to tear away from a mother's sweet and pure embrace her
own flesh and blood--that is a crime as heinous as murder.
Kidnappings are reported to the police each day.
What is the result? About forty-five per cent of the kidnapped children
are never found.
What of the remaining? God alone can tell of the tragedies which they have
probably endured. Many of them have been slain by the demons who stole
them, many, particularly those of maturer years, have been sold into
abominable White Slavery, and others have been made slaves in other ways
to make a living for their masters.
It is the custom of the police to put the name of a missing child, who is
usually a kidnapped child, lured away from its home, on the pages of the
"missing book."
The story is sent over police wires to the various stations and precincts
as a kind of conformity to the letter necessity. These cases are not given
individual attention by the police. They are forgotten and all that is
left of the case is the faded, written report.
Occasionally a tragedy that has brought sorrow and misery to some home,
driven a mother mad with grief and robbed a father of his reason, comes to
light through the powerful influences of the newspapers.
The cases which are given display heads in the papers with pathetic
pictures accompanying them, are but few in hundreds of the stories of
missing and kidnapped children in which the tragedies are just as deep,
just as abiding and just as horrible.
These cases are usually found by some energetic and enthusiastic reporter
who "happens" upon them by chance. The circumstances appeal to him and he
"gets busy."
Day after day he prods the police into annoying activity. He finally
arouses public sympathy and interest and the police are of necessity
obliged to make a pretense at hard labor. They work on the case and
frequently obtain successful results that gladden the heart of some
frantic mother.
Did they accomplish the work?
To be fair and honest--No. The thanks are due the unknown members of the
press and not the police department.
THE EXPOSURE OF BIG CRIMES.
As the newspapers are greatly responsible for the finding of children, so
they are the mind and pushing power behind the police department in the
exposure of big crimes, particularly murders, and the punishment of
criminals.
Criminals are brought to justice every day, men are sent to the
penitentiary, not through the police department working as a thinking body
but through the efforts of newspapers, expressed in the tireless energies
of newspaper reporters.
The police department as a body has been clearly shown up as a body of
inefficient, unthinking and unscrupulous men.
One of the shining examples of inefficiency is to be found in a famous
murder case which stirred Chicago to its depths several years ago.
A Bohemian living on the Southwest side murdered a mother, a father and
four children.
The police when the case was first brought to their attention as one
worthy of investigation, it then being considered a strange havoc wrought
by sudden deaths, laughed at the sincere efforts of a newspaper man.
They told him he was a dreamer and "hard up" for a story. The newspaper
man after gathering all the circumstances and facts, all suspicious, went
to the Coroner, over the heads of the police, and placed the case before
him. The Coroner saw that all clews pointed to a horrible series of
murders. He began an investigation, assured himself that he was right, and
then "called" the police in and ordered the arrest of the murderer. The
man was later found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. He escaped the
gallows through a strange popular sentiment and was sent to the
penitentiary for a life term.
That is a standard example of police inefficiency.
Another case that gives evidence of the lack of initiative in the police
department came to light recently.
It occurred on the South side.
Two small children disappeared from their home on the South side. The
mother was frantic with grief and sorrow and the father dogged the police
day after day trying to arouse them from their lethargy to search for his
two children. He received no encouragement.
In desperation he went to a newspaper office and stated the case. He told
how the police had failed to make any strenuous efforts to find his
children. A reporter was sent out who "stirred" the police to activity.
Every possible clew was followed but to no effect. A physician declared
that unless news of the discovery of the children, alive or dead, was soon
forthcoming the mother would succumb to her grief.
A newspaper reporter suggested that the waters in the slip at Thirty-ninth
street and the lake where the children were accustomed to play, be
dynamited. It occurred to him and not to the police, that the two
children might have fallen into the water. The lake was dynamited at that
place by the police and the bodies found.
The police when compelled by the pressure of public opinion are obliged to
resort to the bolstering of a case.
Judging from later developments innocent men have been arrested on serious
charges, thrown into filthy and unsanitary cells, dragged to the Criminal
court and subjected to the most shameful and humiliating treatment, in
order that the police force may purge itself temporarily from the stigma
of being inefficient.
It is only a matter of inference, but it seems probable that hundreds of
confessions of crimes are wrung from innocent victims by the brutal "third
degree" methods. That these confessions are in many instances false, is
proven by the fact that when presented in a court of law they are thrown
out as valueless. However, they have served their purpose. The public
indignation over the crime in question is given an opiate and the police
can once more turn their energies to the protection of the business and
properties of the vice lords. That is the police department today.
THE POLICE AND PETTY LOCAL GRAFT.
The police are not satisfied with the percentage which is granted them for
the protection which they grant to the vice holes. The little fellow is
still itching for the little graft. To obtain it he uses all the
brutality that is usually a strong asset of an unintelligent nature.
When police in a district discover that certain gamblers are running small
games and not paying protection money, they walk right through rows of
open-faced gamblers, select the man in question and throw him into jail.
The arrest is supposed to serve as a warning. The man usually heeds the
warning and goes forth to gather protection money for the local police.
Hundreds of street walkers, new to Chicago, who have not been registered
regularly by the vice lords and are not paying the regulation protection,
are victimized by the policeman on his beat. They are compelled to give
him a mere pittance to cover up their sins and ease his hunger for filthy
money.
Even in the police department itself there is a constant bickering and
quarreling over the division of graft. They are like a lot of hungry
vultures circling about their loathsome carcass of dead meat. One police
official wars against the entrance of another police official within his
territory.
Recently a negro opened a crap game in Cottage Grove avenue. He paid high
protection money to the police of the district which was supposed to be
turned over in part to the vice lords to appease their hunger. Things ran
along smoothly for some time. Then a new and brutal face that showed a
star came to his place and demanded money. The negro declared he had
already paid his money.
"Not the big boss," said the detective meaningly. "My boss used to have
this district but he was transferred. You must still come across to him."
The negro refused to do so. The "big boss" police official went to the
gambling fraternity and the result was that the negro was put out of
business. The night his place was closed, another, run by a friend of the
"big boss," opened across the street. The police never molested it. A
local lieutenant told the negro that the "big boss" police official was
known in the department as a "double-crosser."
"TIPPED OFF" RAIDS.
In violation of their oaths, the police daily hand the public that is
paying their salaries over to the gamblers.
Often they are compelled by public demand or through some newspaper to
raid places which are running flagrantly. Frequently, as has been shown,
the keepers of the places are "tipped off" before the raid is "pulled."
The keepers leave a "blind" to impersonate them and "ringers" to appear as
customers. These men are arrested with a great flourish and blowing of
trumpets by the police. They are fined. The fines are readily paid by the
real gamblers who are thankful to the police for the advance information
given them.
STRANGE IGNORANCE OF POLICE.
The police pretend not to know of the existence of gambling places, as
evidenced by the recent statement of a high police official when formally
asked by his superior if he knew of any gambling in his district. He
declared he did not know the location of one place and was sure there was
no gambling in his district.
A day later the Mayor of Chicago, angered at the fact that the gamblers
were flaunting their trade in the face of the public, and while a gambling
and police investigation was under way, ordered that a policeman be
stationed in every gambling house in the district of that police official.
Strange to say, although he had sworn he knew of no gambling, when he
realized that the Mayor meant business, he mysteriously found nineteen
gambling places that same night and stationed men in them. That is one of
the laughable inconsistencies of the police department.
One of the policemen, assigned to the work of standing guard over a
gambling house when questioned about the matter, said:
"Of course we all knew these places were here and running full blast. But
that wasn't the question. I have been a policeman for fifteen years and I
haven't been asleep all that time. I have learned that the policeman must
not obey the law written in the statutes. He must follow the tacit customs
of the department. A policeman must never make a move until he is told to
do so. If he does, he finds he is treading on some big man's toes and then
the transfer slip comes to him soon."
POLICE, BURGLARS AND PICKPOCKETS.
It seems incredible but investigation and constant observation has proved
that many big police officials and a number of smaller ones, have fallen
so low that they "hold up" the burglar and the pickpocket and make them
pay for their silence and protection.
There is a thieves' rendezvous on the West side that is known to the
police, but the members of this gang are rarely disturbed.
Every night detectives and policemen in uniform stroll past this saloon
and salute the well known criminals lounging about.
Every day robberies, burglaries and holdups and the depredations of
pickpockets are reported to the police. Rarely is stolen property
recovered in comparison to the amounts taken.
But as an indication of the strength of the alliance between the police
and the thieves, when some one demands justice in a strong voice that has
powerful backing of a financial or political character, the police are
always able to recover the property and restore it to its lawful owner.
A certain labor organization gathered through investigators, information
sworn to, in affidavits, of the acceptance by policemen on the West side
of protection money from well known crooks who have criminal records in
every large city in the country.
THE FATE OF THE HONEST POLICEMAN.
It has been stated that this chapter is not an attack on the hundreds of
honest policemen who day and night at the risk of their own lives, battle
for public welfare, clean morals and the eradication of the vicious
elements of the community.
There are many honest policemen. But, we must say that these men, kept in
the dark by the corrupt because they cannot be corrupted are usually
"blackballed," in some mysterious way by the powers that be, and the
majority of them never achieve any rank in the department. Of course there
have been a few exceptions to this condition.
The "transfer" system, which is nothing more than police railroading, is
the most active medium of getting an honest and incorruptible policeman
out of the way. If a man shows an inclination to balk at the commands of
his superior who is but the agent of the great Vice Trust, he is speedily
transferred to a harmless post where he is forgotten and remembered only
when paid his monthly salary.
An incident of how the honest policemen suffer is the following:
Six unsophisticated policemen, anxious to show their mettle and
overzealous in the performance of their duty, discovered a hilarious and
richly paying crap game running at Lake and Carpenter streets. They
decided it was their duty to raid it. They did so. They thought they would
be commended by their superior officers for their conduct.
Instead of commendation they were told they were inefficient and material
that would never make good policemen.
Two days later they were transferred to South Chicago. That meant that
they were obliged to travel thirty-two miles each day from their homes on
the West side to their posts on the far South side.
Is it necessary to say why?
Simply because in doing their duty in raiding the crap game, they spoiled
the profits of the Vice Trust. The game was run by a man who paid an
enormous amount of monthly protection money to these men's masters. They
had "tread on somebody's feet."
Investigation of records of transfers in the department showed that thirty
per cent of the transfers were caused for such reasons. The record sheets
of men showed, in many instances, that a few days before their transfers
they had antagonized the great Vice Trust by attempting to do their duty
to the public which entrusted them to enforce the laws.
As an instance of how the "transfer game" may be worked with telling
effect even on a police official who refuses to give his powers to the
protection of gambling, the following suits the purpose.
A prominent political leader, anxious to gather spoils, went to a certain
police lieutenant on the North side, and said to him:
"Well, we're going to start something up this way."
"Not unless it's on the order books and the captain stands for it,"
answered the police officer carefully.
Result:--
The next day that lieutenant was transferred by the powers of the Vice
Trust. One hour and a half after his successor took his place, the new
commander was seen watching a street faro game in progress. He stood
across from it and watched the gambling combine's agent skin the "pikers"
and he never moved to stop it.
Certain policemen in Chicago who are compelled to arrest certain well
known criminal characters, cheat justice even after the arrests are made.
They send the criminals to certain corrupt criminal lawyers. Then when the
case comes to trial, the policemen lose their memories and do not remember
the incriminating circumstances under which their prisoners were taken.
These policemen receive a percentage, amounting to about fifty per cent,
on the cases which they give to this class of shysters.
Could Chicago have a deeper blot of shame, dishonor and disgrace on her
escutcheon than the present police department?
Can the condition be remedied?
Is there hope that some day criminals may be locked behind barred doors
that gold cannot pick?
There is always hope while honest men and women live and struggle to build
up a city to rear their children unsullied. The police department is only
one part of a great slave system. The evil is back at the ballot box. It
is the old and only solution here as elsewhere, in the conditions that
make Chicago the "wickedest city in the world."
That solution is the annihilation AT THE BALLOT BOX of the powers of vice,
graft and sin,--the Vice Trust with its Directorate of Ten.
The civic conscience will arouse itself from its lethargy and some day
purge out the evils that have thrived so prosperously for so many years.