CHICAGO, SATAN'S SANCTUM.
"I am to speak of stories you will not believe;
of beings you cannot love; of foibles for which
you have no compassion; of feelings in which you
have no share."--W. MC. PRAED
By L. O. CURON.
C. D. PHILLIPS & CO.,
CHICAGO.
COPYRIGHTED 1899 BY
L. O. CURON
PREFACE.
The present Mayor of the City of Chicago was recently re-elected. A large
number of independent voters, deeming one issue a dominant one, which, in
fact, was no issue at all, assisted in again bestowing on him the most
important office in the municipal government.
The legislature had repealed a law under which evil, through the
threatened action of corruptionists in the Council, might have been
visited upon the city. That they were powerless to inflict it had been
demonstrated prior to the repeal of that law and prior to the election.
His competitors entertained, upon the question of the extension of street
car privileges, the same views as his own. Both were men of as great
ability as he, and each had, and still has, a reputation for personal
integrity not surpassed by his. Both were men more mature in years, and
possessed wider business experiences than he. Hence, either of them could
have been safely entrusted with the powers of the executive. Neither of
them, however, could invent, for campaign purposes, so catching, so
powerful, and yet so sophistical, a political phrase as "The streets may
be dirty, but they still belong to the people." To the inventor of that
cry the Mayor owes no small political debt.
It might be inferred from the large vote he received that, as a public
servant, he had been tested and not found wanting. With respect to his
persistent opposition to the extension of street car privileges, without
adequate compensation to the city, and for a period not in excess of
twenty years, it should be said he bravely and manfully did his duty,
following, however, not leading public opinion on that question. All
danger from that source had disappeared when the polls opened in April
last. His competitors stood, on that morning, as honorably pledged to
throttle it, if it again appeared, should either of them be elected, as he
did.
It cannot, however, be said that during his first administration he did
his whole duty. It is a peculiarity of the American people that they
always praise, with exaggeration, an official who partly does his duty, if
the part performed is regarded by them as especially serviceable to the
public. He had the benefit of so much exaggerated praise from a press
that, for nearly two years then last past, had been condemning him, that
some people were charmed into a sort of hysterical admiration for him. He
had the happy faculty of concealing the shortcomings of his first
administration, under cover of a supposedly overshadowing danger. Thereby
he caused his previous record to appear as if free from blemish, and that
he had performed every duty--and performed it well. The very adroit use of
this faculty is the only reason why he received a plurality of votes so
much larger than that of any other candidate nominated on the same ticket
with him for a minor office.
His best friends did not contend that he did his full duty. They now only
hope he will do so. A public official is not entitled to praise, or
thanks, for doing his whole duty. He is elected for the purpose of its
performance. But full performance is so rare that the people seem to be
content if a public servant will do his duty only fairly well.
The vices which prevail in the city, and which grew to their enormous,
threatening, and hideous proportions during the Mayor's first
administration, were known to the people to exist, but were forgotten by
them at the polls, were known to the police, and are still known to them,
and upon no conceivable basis of belief can it be supposed their existence
may not have been known to him, and that he does not know of their
continued existence.
It is for him to utter the command "Stop," and they will cease, in so far
as they can be kept within bounds by his authority. Their absolute
suppression, under existing legislation is, perhaps, impossible, but their
regulation thereunder is not wholly impracticable. Ordinances demanding,
for instance, the imposition of a fine of $200 per day for keeping a house
of ill fame, have, he may say, never been enforced, and have fallen into a
condition of "innocuous desuetude."
The field of observation on matters such as these is too wide to be
entered upon here.
During the Mayor's first term, one of his best friends, in the columns of
his widely circulated newspaper, severely criticised his administration,
but supported him for re-election, and explained in its columns, in
response to an inquiry made by a correspondent just prior to the election,
his reasons for doing so as follows, viz.:
"If Mayor Harrison shall receive the support of the independent voters
because of the good points of his administration, that will show that his
strength consists in doing right, not in doing wrong. It stands to reason
that he would rather have the approval of honest and respectable men than
of the vicious elements of the community. The R---- believes that Mayor
Harrison's present administration from first to last has improved and not
deteriorated. The mayor himself ought to know what are the weak points in
it, and if he has acquired wisdom by experience he should choose his heads
of departments for his second term with a view to curing the evils and
failures of his first term. The relations of the police department with
gambling resorts, all-night saloons and other forms of vice have been
indecent, and probably corrupt. The R---- has frequently urged the
dismissal of Superintendent K---- and the appointment of some better man.
It believes that Mayor Harrison is much to blame in permitting the evil
conditions to continue."
The support he received for re-election came from a very large and
respectable element of the community, but nobody can doubt that he owes
that re-election to the solidarity of the votes of "the vicious elements
of the community!"
The respectable element did not vote with such allies in order that he
should continue to conserve the interests of vice and criminality. The
supporters of the all-night saloons, gambling halls, poker joints, and of
all other nests of iniquity rallied to his assistance to a man. Without
the massed vote of the saloon and its hangers on, he would not have been
again chosen Mayor.
The leading financial paper of this city, non-partisan in its political
views, said on the eve of the election: "An emergency exists. The
government of the City of Chicago is held in contempt not only in Chicago
but wherever Chicago is known. We are losing good citizens, property,
capital, prestige. The very streets, with their filth and dust, repel the
visitor; the servants of the city, whether in administrative or
legislative positions, are objects of suspicion; the scheme of a well
ordered civil service is breaking down; vice receives encouragement as the
price of votes. What wonder that many believe the heart is rotten? But
there is virtue and power enough to change all this. The moral sentiment
and enlightened self interest of the city once aroused and properly guided
would overwhelm all opposition."
Few, if any, evidences have been given out from the City Hall since the
Mayor's re-inauguration tending to show that he proposes voluntarily to
destroy this "contempt." His new comptroller is a worthy successor to the
departed Waller, while the selection for his corporation counsel is all
that could be desired by the most captious citizen. But the vices and
crimes which principally brought, through their unchecked prevalence, that
contempt, find the man, under whom for two years the police force, which
in his friend's language has been "indecent and probably corrupt," again
in its command. Doubtless the army of the vicious rejoices. Certain it is
the community wonders. He will be observed as time passes. May the results
of observation redound to his everlasting credit and success, and to the
benefit of the great city of which he is the executive head!
In the following pages references to the causes of that contempt will be
made. The prurient will find nothing in them to their taste. These
references ought to be of some assistance to the Mayor in finding out
through a properly organized and well officered police force that these
evil causes do exist. Having discovered them, their haunts, and their
aids, if he does not already know of them, will he tolerate them any
longer in this community? Will his continuous Superintendent of Police be
further allowed to throw his kindly protection over them?
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
CHICAGO--Its Development--Power of Criminal Classes in Its
Government--Pretenses of Reform--Official Satisfaction--Public
Condemnation--Truths as to Power of Criminal Classes.
CHAPTER II.
THE POLICE FORCE--Its Strength--Composition--Power Dominating--Duties of
Defined--Population of Chicago--Nativity of--Police Enemies of Civil
Service--Demoralizing Effect--Tariff on Crime--Rates on Gambling Houses,
Etc.--Penalty for Refusal to Pay--Instances of Police Rates--Method of
Collection--Habits of Policemen--Some Are "Hold Up" Men--Blackmail
Levied--Law Department--Arrests in 1897--Police Fix Boundaries for
Crime--Chief's Testimony--Analysis of Arrests in 1897 in Second Police
Precinct--In City at Large--Division of Fees and Fines With
Magistrates--Police Courts, Corrupt--Cost of Police Force.
CHAPTER III.
ALL NIGHT SALOONS--Character of--Thieves, Thugs and Prostitutes
in--Visitors--Country Buyers, Transients, Delegates, Youth and Old
Age--Women in--Character of--Basement Saloons--Scenes in--Private
Rooms--Scenes in All Night Saloons--Dancing--Music--Morning
Hours--Robberies, Etc., Planned--Girls Entrapped--Young Men
Ruined--Quarrels--Raids--Drinking--Surroundings of--Houses of Ill
Fame--Assignation Houses--Slumming Parties--Fads--Salvation and Volunteer
Army--Houses of Ill Fame--Inmates of--How Managed--Practices
in--Superstitions--Luck Powders--Sources of Supply--Patrons of--Wholesale
House Entertainer--Police Protection--Diseases--Attempts at Reform--People
Indifferent.
CHAPTER IV.
RE-ELECTION OF MAYOR--False Issue Upon Which Re-elected--Vices in
Chicago--"Blind Pigs"--Protected by Police--Where Situated--How
Conducted--Classes--Drug Stores, Bakeries, Barns--Revenue to
Police--Located Near Universities--Lieutenant of Police Convicted for
Protecting--Cock Fighting--Bucket Shops--Women Dealers--Pool Rooms--Police
Play--Pulling of, Farcical--Views of Chief of Police--Players
in--Landlords--Book Making--Alliance Between, and Police and
Landlords--New York and Chicago--Chicago's Police Force Worst--Hold Up
Men--Methods--Victims--Police Sleep--Mayor's Felicitations, April 11,
1899--Account of Hold Ups, Same Day--Classes of Hold Up Men--Strong Armed
Women--Street Car Conductors Robbed--Ice Chests and Ovens for
Prisons--Hair Clippers--Protection to Criminals--"Safe Blowers'
Union"--Fakes--Panel Houses--Badger Games--Nude Photographs--Obscene
Literature--Confidence Men--Diploma Mills--Gambling--Women's Down Town
Clubs--Sexual Perverts--Opium Joints.
CHAPTER V.
COMMON COUNCIL--Boodlers--Bribers--Council of 1899--Powers of--Misuse
of--Price of Votes--Passage of Boodle Ordinances--Public Works Department
and Bureaus--Illegal Contracts--Street Repairing, Etc.--Civil Service
Commission--History of--Present Board Tools of Mayor--Examination
by--Examples of--Attacks Upon Law--Special Assessments--Asphalt Ring--Fire
Department--County Government--Insane Asylum--Sale of "Cadavers"--
Contracts--Sheriff's Office--Jury Bribers--Judges--Revenue Law--Tax
Dodgers--Town Boards--Coroner's Office--Press Trust--Civic Societies--
Berry Committee Report--Baxter Committee--Opening Testimony--Conclusion.
CHAPTER I.
CHICAGO--ITS DEVELOPMENT--POWER OF CRIMINAL CLASSES IN ITS
GOVERNMENT--PRETENSES OF REFORM--OFFICIAL SATISFACTION--PUBLIC
CONDEMNATION--TRUTHS AS TO POWER OF CRIMINAL CLASSES.
Chicago, with its world-wide fame as the most marvelous product of
American enterprise among municipal creations in the nineteenth century,
with its wonderful growth, from an Indian trading post in 1837 to a modern
city of the second size in point of population in the year 1898, with the
record of its stupendous strides in reaching its present commercial and
financial position among the commanding trade centers in the world, with
its strong civic pride, its numerous and admirable religious, educational
and charitable institutions both public and private, its cultured
development in literature, music, the arts and sciences, with its
memorable disaster in the great fire of 1871, its speedy recoupment from
that disaster, and its brilliant achievement in the organization and
management of the magnificent "White City," the wide range of the
classified exhibits of which covered the entire and progressive
contributions of mankind to all that goes to make up the civilization of
the age from the earliest period of the commencement of that civilization,
this Chicago, grand, philanthropic and patriotic, suffers, as for years it
has suffered, from the most extensive and persistent advances in political
power, along the lines of their respective crimes, of the criminal
classes, until, from the wealthy bribe-giver to the lowest sneak thief and
sexual pervert, these classes carry elections, corrupt the corruptible in
the Common Council, sway justice in the forum of the lower courts, and
govern the police force until it has become a municipal aid to the
perpetration of crime.
From one administration to the other, the growing power of these lowest
classes of society manifests a stronger hold upon civic administration.
Pretenses of reform are all that, so far, have followed each bi-ennial
election of a Mayor. Here and there, and now and then, gambling houses
are closed, threats against police officers, who follow the well grounded
practice of levying protection rates upon brothels, street walkers,
gambling games of all descriptions, saloons, concert halls, and that
varied combination of evils forming the working machinery of vice, are
given publicity, and while the growth of these monstrous evils cannot but
be known to public officials, both from observation, official reports,
events as chronicled in the daily press, grand jury reports, civic and
State investigations, and verdicts in the courts, a nerveless cowardice
seems to seize each succeeding incumbent of the Executive's office, under
whatever political party's banner he may be called to the chair, and
prevents him from grappling with, and throttling, the ever increasing
power of the combined votaries of all forms of vice and crime.
The Mayor recently congratulated the Common Council in these words, viz:
"The report of the General Superintendent of Police contains assurance for
all classes of citizens that the efficiency, vigilance and zeal that have
characterized this department will permit them to pursue their avocations
without fear of being robbed and assaulted by long and short men. One need
not be exceedingly observant to note that with the approach of winter
comes an annual outbreak of crime. We all noticed evidences of such a
visitation at the advent of the winter just ended, but it should not be
allowed to pass without comment that criminality rarely showed itself
during last fall when it was crushed out with a suddenness and success
that ought to be regarded with pride and satisfaction by every Chicagoan.
There has been no evidence of crime through the recent year as in former
years; the criminals came in the fall, but they were severely taught that
Chicago was an unhealthy clime for them, with the result that they were
wise enough not to linger here long."
This statement, so self-satisfying to the official who made it, so totally
false in fact, so dangerous to the welfare of the people, and so
flippantly interwoven into a public document by one who either knew the
contrary to be the truth, or who knowingly used his official position for
the suppression of truth, if not of crime, is contradicted by the
disclosures made by every organization devoted to the purification of the
public morals, the betterment of civil administration, and the eradication
of the bestial vices so freely and openly flaunted in the faces of a busy
and apparently indifferent people.
Contrast the announcement of the Law Enforcement League with this official
declaration. Said this League, composed of the pastors of churches and
law-abiding people, "Chicago's influence ought to be on the side of purity
and good order, but the fact is that vice and crime are prevalent,
lawlessness is defiant, recreancy to sworn duty is all but universal. The
disorderly saloon is the nesting place of the terrible debaucheries which
disgrace our city. Ordinances and laws which have for their object the
suppression of venality and crime are trampled ruthlessly beneath the feet
of a disloyal and un-American horde. * * * The public mind is profoundly
agitated over the reign of lawlessness and moral disorder. * * * The
co-operation of all decent and respectable people is absolutely imperative
if municipal government is to be transferred from the baser to the better
element. * * * We have a right to demand that lawlessness shall cease;
that gang rule shall be broken; that partisan politics shall be made
subsidiary to municipal righteousness; that the all but omnipotent power
of the disorderly shall be broken; that the carnival of crime which curses
Chicago shall end; that the law breakers, crime makers and bribe-takers
shall be adequately punished and that the fair name of this imperial city
shall be redeemed from the reproach of blackmail, wanton immorality and
widespread disorder."
A noted divine said recently, "I believe that this city is to be the
greatest city of this continent and of the world. I believe that Chicago
is the devil's headquarters, and I think it is not far from the City Hall.
If our own eyes could be fully opened we would see there infinite
indecencies, bum politicians, ward workers, heel tappers, men who are the
devil's own and delivered body and soul to do his bidding."
Another said, "Saloons and all other haunts of vice are wide open, as they
have never been before in the city's history."
A distinguished lawyer, speaking before the Christian Convention recently
held in this city, said, "Scourge off and out of your temples the
political hyenas that prey on the municipal body politic, that fatten on
the scarlet woman's wages of sin, that share the gambler's plunder and the
blind pig's profits."
Another eminent divine declared at this meeting, "He knew that men have
been kept from coming to, and investing in, Chicago because our morality
is so low."
Still another divine declared at the same meeting, "But when in one night
five homes in the block in which I live--and I moved there because it was
the safest place in the city--are robbed, and, within the same week, three
men are held up within two blocks, the conditions are serious." Serious,
indeed, they are, despite assurances of protection by the police force
emanating from the highest official authority!
A few plain truths as to the utter prostitution of the civil authorities
to the power of the criminal classes in Chicago, and as to the filthiness
of those classes, are attempted to be given in the following pages. They
may assist in arousing the people to a keen sense of their duty as
citizens to demand from a new administration a rigid enforcement of the
law by public officers, and that these officers shall become the servants
of the people rather than remain the slaves, as well as the persecutors
for private gain, of the riffraff of the community.