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!

The hideous ulcer is no longer concealed. It festers no longer in the dark. Its poison seeths in the searing light of inquiry.

THE VICE-GRAFT CIRCLE:—WITHOUT BEGINNING, WITHOUT END.

Political power to become absolutism without danger of extinction needs strong, imperishable foundations.

To hold vice-control meant to rule a vice territory with iron hand.

It was accomplished.

THE BALLOT:—THE SECRET OF VICE POWER.

This is the way it was done and still is being done. Take those political precincts within whose boundaries the “redlight” districts exact their toll from the thousands of unfortunate souls, who live in the iniquitous Hell-holes or haunt them in search of pleasure.

Political powers were busy systematizing. Elections threatened to defeat them and kill their plans.

The ballot box was the salvation.

The prostitution of the ballot came into existence and lives and flourishes today, the primal blot on Chicago’s once honorable escutcheon!

To gain an election, to hold political and vice-power the ballot box was and is stuffed by a subtle and almost unpunishable method.

A district, by way of example, is populated by a floating and transient element, brought into Chicago by the agents of the corrupt or drawn here by promises of lucrative gain.

These men are used to stuff the ballot boxes and secure a victory of crime, sin and iniquity.

On the South Side there are scores of hotels, whose standard and character are written in unmistaken language on their very exteriors. These also exist on the West and North sides of the city.

The assignation houses and the cheap lodging houses are the media for slaying the honest ballot.

Men, brought to the city to corrupt elections, register in these places under the names of prostitutes and absent inmates and under this guise, cast polluted votes.

THE BALLOT-CONTROL OF VICE.

One man on election day can easily cast ten votes under ten names of ten dissolute women, who live in the hotels under cognomens, giving initials for their first names.

One hundred men can cast 1,000 illicit votes. That is sufficient to carry an aldermanic election.

One thousand men can cast 10,000 ballots!

That, in a pinch, could sweep honesty from the highest office in the city, and crown a Vice Trust vassal,—mayor!

This is how the Vice Trust wields the balance of power in Chicago, a power that can crush any business, any man, can remove to the “woods” any policeman or police official who refuses to obey its decrees, and so on without limit.

Destroy this and Chicago might once more rear her head in pride. It is the clutch that sets in motion all the machinery of evil.

Wreck that clutch and the delicate, subtle mechanism of concerted crime would disintegrate.

Chicago is blind to the terrible evil of the plethoric ballot box, but the eyes of thousands are being slowly opened.

The “prostitute-repeating” system is but one of the means employed to gain and sustain political control. Hundreds of other methods are in vogue today and working their evil effects.

“Stamp out Vice and Evil. Eliminate the red-lighted, tinsel Houses of Shame; give our city to God.”

This is the cry of the churches, led by their praiseworthy pastors.

Oh, ye with eyes that see not, and ears that are deaf to the voices of hell, strike now and strike hard.

But strike not at the thousands of fallen women, nor at the brothel keepers, nor at the dive owners, nor at the panderers, not yet, at least.

STRIKE, FIRST, AT THE POLITICAL SYSTEM THAT CONTROLS ALL AND REIGNS OVER ALL.

Destroy the foundation and the superstructure will topple over of itself.

Break the power that begins and ends at the ballot box. Break the power that sucks at the veins of the myriad army of the lost, and lives on the white ways of decency.

That is the evil! Kill it!

In showing the Unbroken Circle of Iniquity we have shown where the control of crime is begotten.

And now the parts, interlocked so finely that the connecting points are lost, are to be revealed.

Once political power is assured, all else is inevitable by the nature of things.

THE POLICE COLLECTORS.

The political power finds its agents. They are of necessity, the police. Willing spirits are found.

The guardians of the law and public safety are hired out by the political kings to collect their tolls from their sycophants and vassals.

Chicago policemen, high and low,—we venture to say eighty per cent of them,—are today by virtue of the collection and tribute system the confederates of every species of criminal, of every exploiter of every known kind of vice.

They aid, abet and allow these law violators to thrive.

Vice and crime must pay its tribute to the police. The police must turn over the bulk of the proceeds to their political masters. No criminal can continue in his nefarious business without paying the price. It is called Police Protection.

That is the blind. In reality it is Political Protection. The police are but the body guard, the secret service of the corrupt—

Directorate of Ten.

Under Police Protection, for so many dollars per day, according to the nature of the crime-business being carried on, every form of vice flaunts itself in the face of Chicago’s 2,000,000 inhabitants and its thousands of country visitors.

It is no secret. Chicago knows. But she has failed to observe the reason, and to open her eyes is the mission of this book.

THE PRICE OF CRIME:—$15,000,000 A YEAR!

From the army of vice the yearly tribute to the Directorate of Ten—the controlling power—is almost unbelievable.

The figures stagger one.

With reserve, not exaggeration, we make this statement:—

Chicago’s vice legion yields for existence and for protection the sum of—

$15,000,000 annually.

Think of it! Crime pays that fortune to exist and rob the public of more money.

We are not dealing with the thieving contractors who rob the citizens through fixed contracts. We treat only of the crime that the police are sworn to slay.

$15,000,000 put into the coffers of men supposed to be representing the people that the donors may go on destroying the souls and bodies of women, the souls and bodies of men!

That astounding offering to appease the human Juggernauts and to sow in the youths and maidens of our nation the seeds of incurable diseases!

That sum in the blood-stained hands of demagogues to blast a city’s decency and prosperity and to eat into the very vitals of our Republic!

In small