associated with the Directorate of Ten, who has stood by and watched the never-ending procession of the men and women slaves who have done the monster’s bidding and fallen inevitably into the charnal houses of the dead.

The average Chicago man or woman knows of the thousand and one forms of vice that flourish in Chicago, but he or she does not know that the entire vice system works in harmony like the most delicate piece of mechanism. The voters do not know that vice is more perfectly organized in Chicago today than any corporation in existence. The writer has set out to show in the glaring, white light of truth the real causes of the present social evil.

The social evil today does not find its ultimate reason in unrestrained passions, human viciousness and weakness; it finds its reason in the commercialization of debased creatures and the enslavement of them in profitable labors to their masters, until death.

The Vice Trust to increase constantly its profits has a thousand lures for the unwary. The masters of these infamous pitfalls are the lieutenants of this monstrous trust. The writer knows of all these chasms and has studied the horrifying details of the men and women traps. He has attempted to set them forth and nail the sign of warning above them.

The wages of sin is Death! If once a woman or a man is enslaved in any one of the traps set by the Vice Trust then death lies at the end of a short path. Yearly, thousands of young and pure girls and ambitious and clean young men, come to Chicago as to the city of dreams, pleasure and glory. Yearly, thousands are trapped and soon pay the awful penalty. The city boy and the city girl are not immune. Many of them meet similar fates. If the writer can stem the rush of these young souls to the fires of living hells he will feel well rewarded for his task. He has endeavored, by placing the responsibility for the social evil on corrupt politics that has created a grafting, robbing, and murdering Vice Trust, to put the subject in a new and interesting light. To the men and women who sleep not, because their children, young and undefiled, are growing up within the reach of an insatiable monster, does the writer particularly appeal. He has attempted to show that the Vice Trust, the secret cause of municipal degradation, is the monster that must be annihilated.

The Chicago police department is an inefficient and corrupted body today, that is protecting vice and not destroying it, because a majority of its members are enslaved by the Vice Trust. Every vice, every sin, every crime has its price of toleration. This is the reign of the triumvirate of vice, graft and political corruption.

To all men of character and worth, to every father and every mother with the welfare of their children at heart, the writer appeals in the battle against this hideous evil.

One soul saved, one man helped, one woman turned from the pathway of hell will give this volume a human value. The author in conclusion asks a thorough consideration of the facts related and hopes that all to whom this book may come, may feel its message of truth and join the ranks of the army of righteous men and women who have pledged their lives to make Chicago a city after man’s highest conception, a place where our children may grow to maturity imbued with the spirit and character that make true American men and women.

LOST OPPORTUNITIES OF HISTORY.

By Courtesy of The Chicago Daily News.

WHAT DANTE MISSED.

CHAPTER I.

The Vice Trust, its Kingdom and its Power.

The Story of Chicago’s Subjugation to Political and Police Corruption—The Corrupt Ballot Box—The Mechanism of the Trust—The Prices of Sin and Vice—The Horror of Ruined and Purchased Lives—The Remedy.

Seventy-five years ago a body of pioneer souls who dared death for the dream of individual liberty, wealth and happiness, founded a city, and after the manner of the times, adopted an Indian name and called it Chicago.

The city grew, prospered, flourished; likewise did the inhabitants. Nature seemed to bless all who settled within her boundaries. Resources undreamed of were discovered.

The lake breezes fanned the tiny flame of future greatness and the sun warmed the ambitious blood of the early inhabitants. She became the golden gate to the unexplored West. She became the cosmopolitan and central point of a world power. Chicago was talked of, considered, bargained with from East to West, and North to South.

With vastness came power; with power, abuse; with abuse, vice; with vice, crime; with crime, graft.

It is of Chicago, TODAY, we write.

Truth sears, eats, destroys that which is but veneer and golden covering.

Chicago has blinded herself to the hideous truth. She has hidden her head, closed her eyes and cried out:

“I will not see!”

Vice, like some slimy, hideous, mephitic, green-eyed monster from the deepest abyss of Hell has crept, sinuous and noiseless, on an unsuspecting people.

It has battened upon red, pure life-blood. It has fattened on white flesh. It has destroyed virginal purity, public morals and political honesty.

The monster has been insatiable. Satan, king of the damned dead since the Beginning, urged on the monster Vice.

His political minions kneeled and offered sacrifice to the incarnate Evil of the World. To save themselves they fed him of the rich and sacred stores of the city. They took their portion.

They are still taking their share.

They still feed the monster. They are its slaves; they, appointed by the people to safeguard them and to make their laws.

The monster Vice is fed by the police and politicians, who, under cover of night and darkness, plunder, steal, cheat and murder to satisfy its greed.

We speak not in metaphor; this is the literal truth. We shall prove it.

If Satan came out of the depths of his Inferno, away from the shrieks of the lost millions, he would wander from city to city until he reached Chicago.

Then, in this twentieth century of culture, refinement and progress, he would stand outside the gates, smile in triumph and speak this,—the living, shameful, naked truth:

This is the CITY ACCURSED! This is the CITY OF THE LIVING DAMNED! This is the CITY OF MY DESIRE! This is the CITY AFTER MY OWN HEART! VICE, CRIME, CORRUPTION RULE:—MY TRIUMVIRATE!

This is THE MOST WICKED CITY IN THE WORLD!

Satan would tell the truth.

Chicago today is the most wicked city in the world.

Babylon had its vices; so, too, Alexandria. Greece and Rome struggled and died in a national moral degeneracy they had created.

Chicago has surpassed them in wickedness.

Nay, Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed by the wrath of Heaven, were pure when compared to Chicago.

Paris and its lure of vice is tame by the side of Chicago.

There is no parallel in history. There is no adequate comparison.

Chicago leads the world in evil today. She stalks at the head of the Army of Sin:—a beautiful, sensuous mistress and paramour to a personalized god of named and unnamed Crime. The army is composed of bodies and souls that Hell has claimed but not called. Their destinies are still unfinished on earth.

And why is Chicago the