They have divided the city between them and their vassals. They are the rulers of the mysterious underworld, living like princes and rulers in the white palaces of the overworld, surfeited with the heavy luxuries of life. POLITICS, POLICE AND VICE. Political power is the greatest of all power. It can subjugate with iron hand all other powers. The Directorate of Ten found willing agents in the police department of Chicago. It has them today, and if needs be, can find more. Human souls are easily purchased. Today the system is intricate. So intricate that the combine has received the appellation,--the Vice System. To exist, vice, in any one of its thousand forms, must pay tribute. The tribute is shared with the police for protection. Many police inspectors, captains, lieutenants, sergeants and patrolmen receive portions. Segregation, flaunted to the world as the best remedy yet found for the social evil, is but a lie on the part of the Vice Trust. Only a portion of the unit Vice is kept within the limits of four "redlight" districts. The rest stalks the streets, free, robbing its victims in the glare of the noon-day sun. The lost women-souls of the levees are but a pitiful and small part of the army of Vice. They simply dwell in the rendezvous of the thousands who live by infamy. FOR EACH CRIME A PRICE! From all vice-sources tribute is exacted monthly by the police themselves or by the low, inhuman collectors of the Vice Trust. Every vice has its price of toleration for existence! Every possible violation of the law, the powers that be will wink at at so much per wink! All this infamy,--this protection of crime and reeking corruption, exists today in Chicago. THE ATTACK UPON THE TRUST. The Civil Service Commission of Chicago attacked the bulwarks of the Trust of Crime. The police department was the point of assault. Several officials were discharged for incompetency and inefficiency. Had they destroyed that Satanic allegiance the backbone of the Combine might have been broken. Chicago stood paralyzed at the revelations. The truth was murderous in its hideous nakedness. No one had ever dreamed of the scope of its business--the vice business. The unholy alliance struggled to outlive the attack. Back on to the weak, narrow shoulders of unsystematized infamy the politicians and the police threw the blame. The network of vice, the spiderweb of crime, the intricate working of the System, the collusion of vice-parasites and political and police magnates have become known. The story has more interest than a novel born of the imagination of genius; more lure than the best detective story ever penned; more fascination than any page in ancient or modern literature; because it is palpitating, aching present day truth. Because it is a living fact. Because it is an "elbow to elbow" condition. Because it is the story of a great city, lost to goodness, and won to wickedness. It is the story of Chicago!