Every evil that cries out in the big city, every crime that is committed in the day or in the night, every vice that is practiced to the ruin of human souls and bodies, does so because the Vice Trust commands it, because the Vice Trust waits for its monstrous returns from them. Chicago's four levee districts with the hundreds of resorts and the thousands of unfortunate inmates, furnish a tremendous capital to their owners, but the owners have a lease of vice existence from the political powers behind and above them, simply because these men and women pour into their coffers a constant stream of graft money. The saloon evil, the cafe evil, the hotel, the dance hall, obscene theater evil, the "house of call," "flat" and White Slave evil, pay a tribute of existence to the agents of the big alliance who have the political power to crush them out of existence if they so desired. That is why we stand on the statement that if the CORRUPT POLITICIANS and their slaves and corrupt police officials were stripped of their power and sent to the penitentiary, Chicago could swiftly purge herself and become the City Beautiful in the most ideal meaning of the term. THE TRIUMVIRATE. The evil lies today in the alliance between Vice, Police and the Politician! The sore festers so that the matter running from it may be turned into dollars and cents by men we elect at the polls each election! It is our purpose in this chapter to show in cold, conservative figures, just the price that vice pays to its political masters to live; just the gold that is beaten from women's bodies so that the political bosses can be given their share and the slave masters of prostitutes can still make a profit. We shall show that from every possible channel graft is derived. We shall show that to the big powers goes the big share; to their friends go smaller amounts, so that the pie is so divided that a tempting morsel is cut for all the favored few. PRICE OF PROTECTING VICE. "Give me so much gold from the earnings of defiled women and we will give you so much protection, so much liberty and so many privileges," offers the directorate of the Vice Trust. That protection money is counted out: so much per woman, so much per sin, so much per vice. The Vice Trust of the grafting directorate accepts the money and vice lives and flourishes. The purchased souls of policemen, ready to do the bidding of the graft masters, are the agents through which this protective power is dispensed, in the primary matter of existence. Graft for protection is the vital graft and the primary one. Policemen collect this themselves and turn it over to their superior officers. Their superior officers in turn take out their percentage for the damnable work and pass the bulk on to "men higher up."