"Now I know there's a whole lot of good people that think segregation is a bad thing. Well, it _is_ a bad thing. _Vice_ is a bad thing. But there it is, all the same. A lot of these good people don't understand conditions. They don't understand what lots of other men and women are really like. You got to take people as they are and do what you can. "One thing that shocks a lot of these high-minded folks that live in comfortable homes and never have any trouble except when they have to get a new cook, is the idea of commercialized vice that goes with segregation. Of course it shocks them. But show me some way to stop it. Napoleon believed in segregation and regulation, and a lot of other wise people have, too. "Here's the way I think they ought to handle it: they ought to have a district regulated by the Police Department and the Health Department. Then there ought to be restrictions. No bright lights for one thing. No music. No booze. Cut out those things and you kill the place for sightseers. Then there ought to be a law that no woman can be an inmate without going and registering with the police, having her record looked up, and saying she wants to enter the house. That would prevent any possibility of white slavery. Personally, I think there's a lot of bunk about this white-slave talk. But this plan would fix it so a girl couldn't be kept in a house against her will. Any keeper of a house who let in a girl that wasn't registered would be put out of business for good and all. Men ought not to be allowed to have any interest, directly or indirectly, in the management of these places. "Now, of course, there's objections to any way at all of handling this question. The minute you say 'cut out the booze' that opens a way to police graft. But is that any worse than the chance for graft when the women are just chased around from place to place by the police? Segregation gives them some rights, anyhow. "Some people say 'segregation doesn't segregate,' Well, that's true, too. But segregation keeps the worst of it from being scattered all over town, doesn't it? When you scatter these women you have them living in buildings alongside of respectable families, or, worse yet, you run them onto the streets. That's persecution, and they're bad enough off without that. "Say, do you think Chicago is really any more moral this minute because the old red-light district is shut down? A few of the resort keepers left town, and maybe a hundred inmates, but most of them stuck. They're around in the residence districts now, running what they call 'buffet flats.'" * * * * * Listening to the little Alderman I was convinced of two things. First, I felt sure that, without thought of self-interest, he was telling me what he really believed. Second, as he is undeniably a man of broad experience among unfortunates of various kinds, his views are interesting.