Crime -- Illinois -- Chicago; Police corruption -- Illinois -- Chicago; Political corruption -- Illinois -- Chicago
The unholy alliance between the police, the keeper of these law breaking
and despicable haunts, and the conscienceless landlord, could be summarily
dissolved. The police could be made the enemy of both. Their warm
friendship for, and silent participation in the profits of, the
partnership, can be destroyed by an executive order which needs but to be
issued, with no possibility of an early revocation, to be implicitly
obeyed by the sellers and "bookies." If not obeyed, then drastic measures
within the power of the police to employ should be applied. As these lines
are written, some evidence is visible of action by the police. A raid has
been made! The inspector, under whose order it was conducted, said, "The
sooner these men begin to learn that I mean what I say, the better it will
be for them. I want my officers to understand, also, that they will have
to be more vigilant." Threatening words, such as these, are common
utterances by police officials, but heretofore as their echo died away
their fierceness disappeared. No administration could lay claim to higher
praise in any city in the land than that its police force is the guardian
of the people's rights, the stern foe of crime, and the relentless
suppressor of vice and indecency through the enforcement of the laws
created for that suppression.
If this is done in Chicago, a few of the devil's aids in the diffusion of
wickedness will disappear from sight so completely that Asmodeus would
vainly tear off the roofs of the houses in a search after proofs of his
demoniacal power.
While the police force is so closely leagued with pool rooms, and
subjected to the power of the money their keepers are willing to pay for
permission to carry on their demoralizing business, it is a matter of
impossibility to destroy them. Vice works incessantly; the means for its
destruction are employed spasmodically. New York City furnishes an
astonishing instance of the political power exercised by a combination of
the law breakers.
The Lexow committee demonstrated the almost total depravity of an officer,
charged with a command over its "Tenderloin."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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