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.
The Police Force of the City of Chicago consisted on December 31st, 1897,
of 3,594 men, of which number 2,298 were first-class patrolmen, the
remainder being officers, sergeants, clerks, drivers and patrol-wagon men.
The number of square miles of territory embraced within the city limits
was, and is, 186.4.
The force is composed largely of men of one nationality or of their
descendants. A large majority affiliates with the same church. Prior to
the passage of the civil service law in 1895, each bi-ennial
administration made the force its own valuable mine in which veins of rich
rewards for its friends and political workers were found. To this force
the aldermanic supporters of the administration attached their henchmen
and ward heelers, and these, in turn, as public officers, looked after the
political welfare of their backers and of the administration these backers
supported. Thus, the political complexion of the force was liable to
change every two years. Notwithstanding the presence of a civil service
law on the statute books under which the force is now supposed to have
been re-organized and re-appointed, its political complexion remains the
same. The organization is dominated by the political party which alone
uses the distinctive title of "Tammany." The civil service law has been
attacked, in behalf of this public force, by officials who were sworn to
sustain it, until through their repeated assaults upon it, its
administration is looked upon as farcical, and its administrators as its
most cunning and relentless foes.
The duties of the police force are clearly defined in the city charter.
Generally, that instrument provides, "The police shall devote their time
and attention to the discharge of the duties of their stations according
to the laws and ordinances of the city and the rules and regulations of
the department of police, and it shall be their duty, to the best of their
ability, to preserve order, peace and quiet, and enforce the laws and
ordinances throughout the city."
According to the school census of 1898, the population of Chicago was then
1,851,588. This population is one of the most polyglot of any city in the
world. Each modern language is spoken by some one class of its people.
The population born of American born parents exceeds that of any other
nativity, being in round numbers 486,000, while the Germans, born of
German born parents, and Germans born in Germany, number in round figures
468,000. Of the Irish 131,000 are American born of Irish parents; born in
Ireland, 104,000, making a total of 235,000. These are the largest
classes, by nativity, of its people, and with the proverbial ability of
the latter nationality to govern and "get there" it supplies the police
force with the largest quota of men, year after year.
During the years 1897 and 1898 this force, and every man seeking to become
a member of it, was taught by city officials, and by none more
energetically than by the chief law officer of the city administration,
that the civil service law was an especial enemy of theirs, inasmuch as it
abridged their privileges and immunities as citizens of the United States,
and was, therefore, a menace to their rights, wholly unwarranted by the
Constitution of the United States.
It was accordingly attacked upon that ground by the officers sworn to
enforce it, and, since the establishment of its validity by the highest
courts in the land, its provisions are constantly sought, by them, to be
avoided and defeated.
The efforts of the commissioners to enforce it were commented on in an
official message by the city's Executive, as if such efforts were in fact
being made, and were part and parcel of an administrative policy; while,
in practice, no possible legal device or illegal invention was allowed to
fail of application by municipal officials to destroy its commands, even
by its commissioners, who announced themselves as its greatest devotees.
No more demoralizing example could have been set before the police force
than the acts of the higher authorities. Such acts have produced the
inevitable result, that, as such higher authorities saw fit to openly
throttle a law they were sworn to enforce, the rank and file of the police
force itself inferred that they, too, could seek to evade, and refuse to
execute, all laws and ordinances which in their judgment affected the
suppression of crime.
Consequently, that force has become demoralized and corrupt, openly
levying a tariff for revenue and official protection upon all classes of
wrong-doers, below those who commit felonious crimes of the highest grade,
and when the rates are not promptly paid by the protected classes, they
are coerced by arrest into the payment of fines and fees for division
between the justices and the officers. It is a well known fact that a
schedule of prices prevails for police protection, which prices must be
paid for that protection. Gambling houses pay from $50.00 per month
upwards; panel and badger games, $35.00 to $50.00; music halls with saloon
and private room attachments, $100.00; houses of ill fame, from $50.00
upwards, according to the number of inmates at so much per capita; cigar
store and barber shop gambling games, $10.00; "blind pigs," the unlicensed
vendors of liquors, $10.00 to $30.00, and with permission to gamble,
$30.00 to $50.00; crap games, $10.00 to $25.00; opium and Chinese joints,
$10.00 to $25.00; drug store "blind pigs," $10.00 to $30.00, and prize
fights and cocking mains, a percentage of the gate receipts--usually
one-fifth.
Whenever a gambling house refuses to pay it is immediately pulled. These
rates of police blackmail and of protective tariff have been sworn to
before public investigations, and inquiry trials, as imposed and
collected. The press has repeatedly commented upon these frightfully cruel
persecutions, reeking with the infamy of the participation by public
servants in a division of the fetid proceeds of the procuress, of the
landlady, of her unfortunate slave, the harlot; of the skin gambler, the
clock swindlers and tape gamesters, and of the operators of massage
parlors, both male and female.
In one case, tried before the Criminal Court of Cook County, a lieutenant
of the police force was convicted of the crime of exacting money from the
owner of a "blind pig" paid to him by the owner for protection in his
unlawful occupation. Going back a few years, during the World's Fair
period, as high as $2,000, it is said in public print, was paid for
similar protection in a single instance.
The officer in charge of a given precinct makes the collections, retains
his percentage, passes the remainder on to his next superior, who
withholds his rake-off, and so on until the net profit reaches the highest
police official. A leading city newspaper, in a caustic editorial,
declared that "in Chicago protection means the privilege to commit crime
upon the payment of a sum of money to the police. It has ceased to mean
that the citizen will be guarded against the acts of criminals." So
thoroughly recreant to duty have some of the ranking officers of this
force become, that one of the oldest captains when asked why he did not
close, in his district, certain notorious saloons where depraved women
robbed strangers in wine rooms, replied that "some people would steal in
the churches, and you might as well close churches as close the saloons
for that reason."
Patrolmen in uniform are found in dives playing cards; and in others
sleeping during the hours of their supposed presence on their beats. They
know the women of the town, the street walkers in the territory they
patrol, the keepers of every vile joint, where the most depraved practices
are indulged in, the houses of ill fame, high-priced and low-priced, the
"Nigger," Japanese, Chinese and mixed bagnios, the policy shops, fences
and schools for thieves.
All these vice mills and their operators contribute to the policemen's
demand, and thus obtain permission to carry on, in daylight, and at
night-time, their nefarious, lecherous and disgusting crimes and orgies.
One officer gambled in a saloon with a citizen, lost his money,
overpowered the citizen, recovered his lost money and then robbed his
victim.
In broad daylight an officer held up a citizen and robbed him of his money
and valuables. When the Chief of Police had this case called to his
attention before a legislative investigating committee, he answered, "I
tried that man yesterday. He got on the police department ten years ago,
and he always had a reputation of being a good officer, and the other
morning he had been drinking some, and, like everything else, became a
little indiscreet and started out to hold up a man and got hold of a few
dollars in that way, and under the impression, very likely, that he would
never be discovered, and, like everybody else, with his good record in the
past, he was discharged and reinstated, because many people vouched for
him, and all said he was an excellent officer, but he stepped by the
wayside and fell, and we had him arrested and discharged."
Whether the many people who so generously interceded with the Chief of
Police for the retention of a thief as a member of his force were that
thief's fellow pals and hold-up men, was not disclosed; but it may be said
without hazard, that they were not reputable men--if they had any
existence at all other than in the imagination, and as part of the
bewildering policy of an incapable Chief.
Methods of levying blackmail upon other than the disreputable classes, but
reaching through them, upwards and beyond them, are not only countenanced,
but advised by superior officials and approved by the city's highest
executive.
On the 5th of November, 1897, a practical stranger in the city was given
the following letter, signed by the Chief of Police, viz.:
"TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
The police department is about to issue a history for the benefit of
their relief fund. Kindly make all checks payable to W. V. M., East
Chicago Avenue Station, and any favors shown the bearer will be
appreciated by,
Yours truly,"
This stranger had been denounced through the press as a fraud and a
schemer, who had been arrested in other cities for obtaining money under
false pretenses, which facts were known to the Chief of Police when his
letter of recommendation was written. The stranger was to receive a
commission of twenty-five per cent on all subscriptions obtained by him,
and the treasurer of the fund, who was selected with the approval of the
Chief, the Mayor, and his principal political satellite, ten per cent.
Some $8,000 were collected under this scheme, one large railroad
corporation subscribing $1,000 and a noted Board of Trade operator $500.
Whence the remainder came rests in conjecture, with a well defined belief
that noted gamblers, and keepers of houses of ill fame, were contributors
to it.
A legislative committee's inquiries prevented the consummation of the
scheme, but, owing to the speedy departure from the city of the treasurer,
the source of the remaining subscriptions could not be inquired into.
As a cover to the purposes of this scheme, it was proposed to place these
collections to the credit of the Policemen's Benevolent Association Fund
of Chicago, which, by reason of the failure of a bank, whose officials are
now under indictment for the misappropriation of public funds other than
those of this association, had become badly impaired. This proposal
followed the appointment of the legislative committee of investigation, by
way of preparation to conceal the real purpose of the swindle. That
association repudiated the plan.
The Chief of Police was asked by the committee of investigation whether he
thought it was the proper thing for him, as Chief of Police of Chicago,
"to give to a man to go out among business men, corporations and
manufacturing establishments of the city a letter telling them that
everything this man did and said you would be responsible for, if you knew
he had been indicted and arrested in different cities of the United States
for defrauding the people out of money on this same identical scheme?" He
answered, "I don't believe it." Immediately he was asked, "Have you heard
A. was arrested a number of times?" and in reply said, "I read in the
newspapers that he was arrested and had trouble in Detroit." Again he was
asked whether A. had given him any information as to the number of times
he had been arrested for getting money on false pretenses, and his answer
was, "I can give you some information on that subject."
These extracts from the sworn testimony of this official, speak in no
commendatory manner of his sense of official responsibility. They point to
a mind deadened to all sense of the duties of his position; they elevate
him before his force as a conspicuous example for them to follow, in his
disregard of the principles of official decency. In themselves they urge
upon that force, by their silent influence, an emulation of such a
blackmailing course, even though in its accomplishment the assistance of a
swindler is required, and deliberately accepted.
A brother of the Chief, a member of the detective force, was frequently
found in poolrooms, assisting in their management, and yet the Chief seems
to have been unable to acquire the knowledge that poolrooms were running
wide open throughout the city. He probably knew it as an individual. In
response to a question as to his information on this subject he answered,
that no particular complaints were made--"the newspaper boys often came
around and said there was pool selling going on at different places," and
he presumed "if a desperate effort had been made to look that kind of
thing up, we might have possibly been successful." More open admissions of
official incompetency it would, perhaps, be difficult to make, and no more
flagrant instances could be cited of official degeneracy than are these
extracts from the sworn testimony of a defiant and dangerous public
servant.
In the attack on the Police Pension Fund, which was established under an
act of the legislature for the benefit of an officer who shall have
reached the age of fifty years, and who shall have served at reaching that
age for twenty years on the force, then be retired with a yearly pension
equal to one-half of the salary attached to the rank which he may have
held for one year next preceding the expiration of his term of twenty
years, or who shall have become physically disabled in the performance of
his duty, there was manifested a degree of moral irresponsibility, if not
of criminality, and a blind adherence to partisanship in defiance of the
laws, seldom found in the history of any municipal corporation, and
unmatched even by the developments of the Lexow committee of New York
City, in matters of a kindred character, inquired into by that committee.
For the sake of creating vacancies in the ranks of the police force, to be
filled by appointments to be made by the Chief in defiance of the civil
service law, and while that law was running the gauntlet of every
conceivable attack, both open and covert, which could be made upon it by
every department of the city's administration, and by none more virulently
than by the Law Department, a plan was devised and put into execution
whereby officers of all ranks, after years of police service and
experience and in strong physical condition willing and anxious to remain
in their positions, were retired from the force against their protest,
merely to make way for the substitution of new appointees--the political
friends of the Chief and his superior. Men with good records and
physically able to perform their duties were thus forced upon the rolls as
pensioners, to deplete a fund, sacred as a trust, not only for the benefit
of the living and necessitous pensioners, but also for the widows of the
men who had lost their lives in the service and the wives and children of
those who had died after ten years of police duty. One effect, as to the
standing of this fund, was to reduce the balance on hand January 1, 1897,
from $16,837 to $4,543 December 31st, 1897. Thus over $10,000 was raided,
seized and forced upon unwilling pensioners, "still able bodied and
anxious to retain their positions at their full salaries." A more
contemptible exercise of political power and administrative robbery could
not well be imagined.
The omissions of the police force in the enforcement of the laws, their
acts of commission in evading, attacking and disregarding others,
especially those relating to all night saloons, the source of most of the
arrests for disorderly conduct, where wantonness is displayed,
assignations are arranged, drunkenness aided and brawls engendered, are
blamable, not so much upon the patrolmen, as upon their superior officers.
The patrolmen do as they are told. They report infractions of the law, or
not, according to their instructions. Their eyes are opened or closed, as
the "wink is tipped" to them from above. The men are brave in moments of
danger, fearless in rescuing the inmates of burning buildings, risking
their lives in stopping runaway horses, tender in caring for lost
children, or destitute persons, both men and women, and faithful in the
performance of their duties as members of the ambulance corps.
During the year 1897 one hundred and eighty were injured while on duty,
and of this number forty-seven were on service in the first precinct,
embracing the business district, the thoroughfares of which are the most
crowded and in which the heaviest fires happen, while only seven were
injured in the second precinct along the "levee"--the tough precinct.
Given proper management, strict discipline and law abiding example, it
could be made, and ought to be made, one of the "finest" forces in the
world. Thugs and thieves, within the past two years, through the
manipulation of the civil service law, have been admitted to its ranks, to
its everlasting disgrace and that of the usurped appointing power.
The number of arrests in 1897 for those offences from the perpetrators of
which the police are charged with receiving protection money, was less
than in any of the previous years since 1895, notwithstanding the increase
in population, according to the school census, from 1,616,635 in 1896, to
1,851,588 in 1898, an increase in round numbers of 234,000.
The following is the number of arrests for the years 1894, 1895, 1896 and
1897 for offences as named, viz.:
1894. 1895. 1896. 1897.
Cock fighting ..... 156 69 .....
Decoy to gambling houses ..... ..... ..... .....
Disorderly 49,072 44,450 50,641 45,844
Inmates of assignation houses 53 53 92 14
Inmates of disorderly houses 21 105 205 181
Inmates of gambling houses 879 1,802 2,535 725
Inmates of houses of ill fame 2,516 2,894 5,547 1,531
Inmates of opium dens 943 1,112 528 253
Keeping assignation houses 17 5 15 19
Keeping disorderly houses 39 28 30 139
Keeping gaming houses 238 300 310 155
Keeping houses of ill fame 174 210 241 648
Robbery 1,072 1,099 1,083 1,200
Violation saloon ordinance 717 1,283 1,359 559
In 1897, as compared with 1896, there was a decrease of 78 in the number
of arrests of inmates of assignation houses, 24 of the inmates of
disorderly houses, 1,810 of the inmates of gambling houses, 4,016 of the
inmates of houses of ill fame, 275 of the inmates of opium dens, 155 of
the keepers of gaming houses, and 800 for violation of saloon ordinances.
That these offenses had not decreased in point of perpetration is a fact,
patent to observation and well known to the people. On the other hand, the
arrests for keeping disorderly houses increased 109, and for keeping
houses of ill fame 407. In the year 1896, when some effort was made to
keep the police out of politics, the total arrests were 13,167 more than
in 1897, when the police force had passed into the hands of a political
machine, which sought to erase the application of the civil law to its
government. In 1896 the inmates suffered arrest, but in 1897 the policy of
arresting fewer inmates and more keepers, except of gaming houses, seems
to have been inaugurated. "The keepers" are more able to pay than the
inmates. For every dollar collected from inmates, the keepers are able to
pay ten, or fifty dollars if necessary. From these figures it is clear
that the practice of assessments for police protection was maintained
principally against keepers in 1897, and that few inmates, comparatively,
refused to pay in that year, while a large number of keepers of immoral
and gambling houses were tardy in their payments, consequently, the former
were not arrested, while the latter were.
What the figures for the year 1898 will reveal is as yet unknown.
Not only is crime thus tolerated by the police, but its chief officials
assume, also, to define the boundaries of the districts in which it may be
freely and safely perpetrated.
The Chief of Police, testifying before a legislative investigating
committee, said: "Now, any fellow who wants to bet on the races or
anything of that sort cannot be allowed to do so this side of Jackson
street, because we don't want this section of the town polluted with this
class of things. We want the boys who have an inclination to bet on horse
races to go south."
Q. What have you got against the people south of Jackson street?
A. I like them.
Q. Is that the reason you wanted that stuff to go down there?
A. Things are very lively in the lower part of the town, everything has a
thrifty appearance, and everything----
Q. You mean south of Jackson street?
A. North of Jackson--and things up south of Jackson are virtually
dead--there is nothing going on at all, and the stores are all empty.
There is nothing doing, and the property, is depreciating in value, and
the object was to liven things up a little bit.
That part of the city south of Jackson boulevard to Sixteenth street, and
from State street on the east to the river on the west, embraces the tough
part of the second precinct of the second police district. In the year
1897 of the total number of arrests of women and girls in the city, 17,624
in number, 8,957, or over 50 per cent, were, as the police term it, "run
in" from this police district. How often the same women were arrested and
re-arrested it is impossible to say, or whether they were "pinched"
oftener than once in the same night. Of this latter number 7,364 were
discharged by the magistrates, but the larger number contributed one
dollar each to the justice for signing a bail bond for their appearance
for trial. In addition, 300 women, known as "women lodgers," were also
"run in" in this district in 1897. Of these unfortunates 1,746 were fined;
140 held to the criminal court; 193 released on peace bonds; 209 sent to
the house of correction; 10 held as witnesses; 10 were insane; 7
destitute, and 23 were sick and sent to the hospital. Of this total number
of arrests of women and women lodgers, 9,257 in number, in this police
district in 1897, only 2,288, or about 39 per cent were convicted of
offenses by police magistrates, while 61 per cent of them were discharged.
Of the total number of persons arrested throughout the city in 1897,
83,680 in number, 55,020 were discharged by the police courts, 18,017 were
fined, 4,138 held on criminal charges, and 2,947 bound over to keep the
peace. The remainder were sent to various homes, refuges, asylums and
humane societies. Over 50 per cent of those arrested were discharged. The
percentage of those who furnished bail for their appearance, it is
difficult to ascertain. That the practice exists is too well known to be
proven, that a division of these bail bond fees is made between the
magistrate and the police; the police furnishing the victims, the straw
bailor his signature to, and the justice his approval of, the bond. The
latter collects his fee and divides with the officers, while the straw
bailor exacts his compensation in proportion to the ability of the victim
to pay, then hands over a share to the arresting officers.
That such persecution should exist in a civilized community is a disgrace
to its civilization, that public officers should, for one moment, be
permitted to engage in such hideous traffic in the liberties of their
fellows, is a scandal upon the administration of justice, and that
executive officers of the law, sworn to its enforcement, should be
ignorant of the infamy of such arrests, or knowingly permit them to be
made, is malfeasance in office, and subversion of civil rights.
The portion of the fines (not by statute appropriated for other purposes)
assessed upon, and collected from, this class of unfortunates by the
justices, is required by the ordinances to be paid to the city at the
close of each and every month, and is to be apportioned by the city
authorities as the statutes and ordinances require. The salaries of the
police magistrates are fixed by agreement with the city. These magistrates
are chosen bi-ennially after the election of a Mayor, by that officer,
from the appointed justices of the peace, and are generally of the same
political faith as is the appointing authority. The system is a blot upon
the impartial administration of justice. It has become a byword among the
people as a malodorous cesspool.
From the evidence heard before a legislative committee, that committee
reported "that the present system of justice, or police courts, as run, is
a disgrace to the present civilization. It shows that justice courts will
open in the night time, policemen will go out and drag in men and women,
100 and 200, and even more at a time; that they are refused a trial at
night, required to give a bond for which the justice charges them one
dollar; that professional bondsmen are in attendance who will collect
another dollar, and oftentimes much more, from the poor unfortunate to go
on his or her bond until morning, thus making several hundred dollars
ofttimes in a night to the police justices and other officers connected
with the court, and this is done, as your committee believe, from the
evidence, for the purpose of making money for the police justice, the
professional bondsman, and the police officer in charge of the arrest."
These magistrates are required to report at the "close of each day's
business," but their night arrests are construed by them as not following
within the definition of "a day's business." The fees arising from them
are not, therefore, reported.
Civic bodies have denounced in the bitterest terms the evils of this
system, and in a recent mayoralty message to the Common Council, in itself
the hotbed of boodleism, it is said, "The justice shop system with all its
necessarily attendant scandals is about to be wiped out."
That desirable result awaits legislative action. The general assembly, if
it has any respect for human rights, for commendable municipal government,
for the performance of its sworn duty, will lay aside the struggle in
legislative halls for political ascendancy, and hasten the day when this
festering sore shall have applied to it an instrument of eradication which
it alone can wield. It is proper to add that since the foregoing lines
were written the night fees are better accounted for, under an agreement
between the magistrates and the city by which the magistrates' salaries
are raised, as an inducement to them to be honest.
The appropriations for the year 1897, for the maintenance of the police
force, amounted to $3,356,910. Other sources of income amounted to
$17,635.03.
The salary warrants drawn against this fund amounted to $3,290,296.26; for
other expenses, $167,369.63, making a total of warrants drawn of
$3,457,665.89, leaving a deficit of $83,392.84.
The total income of the city for the year 1897 from saloon licenses was
about $3,000,000. The saloons are, therefore, the policemen's great
financial friends in more ways than one, and largely defray the expenses
of the department.