In the course of the inquiry, a man rushed into the session of your Committee, fresh from an assault made upon him by a notorious politician and two policemen, and with fear depicted upon his countenance, threw himself upon the mercy of the Committee and asked its protection, insisting that he knew of no court and of no place where he could in safety go and obtain protection from his persecutors.—Vol. i., pp. 25, 26.
In the course of the inquiry, a man rushed into the session of your Committee, fresh from an assault made upon him by a notorious politician and two policemen, and with fear depicted upon his countenance, threw himself upon the mercy of the Committee and asked its protection, insisting that he knew of no court and of no place where he could in safety go and obtain protection from his persecutors.—Vol. i., pp. 25, 26.
The most distinguished exploit of the police, however, during the whole of the inquiry was the spiriting away of the French Madam, Matilda Hermann, one of the most notable keepers of disorderly houses in the City of New York. When it was known that the Committee was after her, and that Madam, who had been plundered to the bone by the police, was by no means indisposed to “squeal”—to quote the expressive vernacular of the Department—there was a consultation among the police authorities as to what measures should be taken to close her mouth. A considerable number of people in the same way of business had been induced to migrate to Chicago, where they remained waiting until such time as the Committee adjourned, but Madam Hermann was too dangerous a witness. She required special treatment. A purse was made up for her by the police, which, when the subscription closed, amounted to 1,700 dollars. She was then under subpœna, and was expected before the Committee the next day.
At midnight, a police officer in plain clothes came to her house, bundled her into a carriage in such hot haste that she had not time to complete her toilet, and whisked her off no one knew where. For some weeks the police appeared to have triumphed, but after a time the Committee were able to get upon her track. She had been taken first to New Jersey, and then from New Jersey had been railroaded through to Canada. From thence, after moving about from place to place, she had been taken to a Western city, where at last she was run to ground.
When the agents of the Committee found her she expressed no disinclination to return to New York and testify. She had fulfilled her part of the bargain in keeping out of the way as long as she could. Now that she was discovered she was willing to return. In great triumph she was escorted back to the city. In order to prevent any attempt at rescue, an additional staff of men were sent to Philadelphia to meet her. The precaution was timely, for as soon as they arrived at Jersey City a last desperate attempt was made by the police to prevent her evidence being taken.
She was in the custody of the Deputy Serjeant-at-Arms of the Senate, who had a party of resolute men in his train. But notwithstanding this, no sooner had the party arrived in Jersey City than they were set upon by the Jersey police, who treated them with the greatest roughness. They threatened to break their faces, hustled them about, and endeavoured in themêléeto get Madam Hermannaway. The Deputy Serjeant, however, stuck to his witness, and finally he, Madam Hermann, and all his men were arrested, run into the station-house, and locked up.
The sensation which this occasioned can be imagined. Fortunately, the Committee was in session, otherwise there is no knowing whether the daring attempt to seize and remove the witness might not have succeeded. The immediate publicity, however, that was given to the case convinced the police that the game was up. The Chief of the Police and the Police Magistrate refused to lend their aid in thwarting the ends of justice, and the conspirators, led by a lawyer, who was also a senator of the State of New Jersey, drew off their gang, and reluctantly allowed Madam Hermann to be brought to New York. The story reads more like an episode from the Middle Ages than an excerpt from the proceedings of a senatorial investigation in New York State in the last decade of the nineteenth century.
The French Madam, as she was called in the precinct, was evidently regarded by the police as a gold mine. She had three or four houses, with some twenty-four or twenty-five girls, and was doing a flourishing business. She paid the police altogether in the seven years that she was running the sum of over 30,000 dollars, or more than £6,000;i.e., this woman alone yielded the police a revenue of nearly £1,000 a year. Part of this money, it should be said, went to the lawyers, who shared it with the police. Every time she was raided the policeman insisted upon her taking a lawyer, and told her that if she would take the lawyer of his choice, he would not swear against her. He would swear that he was not sure of her identity. This she did, and she was discharged. Every time she took a lawyer she had to pay from £35 to £80, and the lawyer always told her that he only got part of the money, as the rest of it went to fix her detectives. Her evidence on this point was very emphatic. Whether she paid 200 dollars or 100 dollars, the lawyer only got 50 dollars; the rest went up to the police.
Q. Were you told by the lawyers that that must go up?A. From the smallest lawyer to the biggest lawyer: every lawyer was the same.Q. And every lawyer whose name you have mentioned told you that they had to give up to the police part of their fees they got from you?A. Every one of them.—Vol. iv., p. 4,179.
Q. Were you told by the lawyers that that must go up?
A. From the smallest lawyer to the biggest lawyer: every lawyer was the same.
Q. And every lawyer whose name you have mentioned told you that they had to give up to the police part of their fees they got from you?
A. Every one of them.—Vol. iv., p. 4,179.
Mrs. Hermann first went into the business from being employed as a dressmaker for the inmates of disorderly houses. She gradually added house to house, until she had four houses and twenty-five girls. She had to pay the police sometimes as much as £200 initiation fee before opening a house, and then from £60 to £100 per annum as protection money.
In addition to these payments, every policeman in the street received a dollar or two whenever he chose to ask for it. Themethod of exacting this payment was very simple. The policeman said nothing, but simply stood in front of the door. Of course, no one entered the house as long as he was there; therefore, as counsel put it, “in order to induce him to take a little exercise round the block, he was presented with a two-dollar bill.” This little episode used to occur about twice or thrice a week. Notwithstanding these payments, she made too much money to be left alone. She was raided twice in 1890, and on the first occasion the police extracted the sum of £200 before she was allowed to reopen her premises. The next year she was prosecuted, and had to forfeit £200 bail in order to avoid a threatened imprisonment. Immediately after her return she was again arrested, and had to pay £200 to the detective, who shared it with a high official at the Central Police Headquarters.
Her business was so profitable that she admitted in Court that she had been making between £2,000 and £3,000 a year, of which sum the police and the police lawyers seem to have had a good half. On one occasion, when she had paid £100 to her lawyer to get off with a fine of £20, she was liberated on the Friday and re-opened her house on the Saturday.
Notwithstanding the way in which they fleeced their unfortunate victim, she was still subjected, like all her class, to occasional outbursts of brutality on the part of members of the force.
When Dr. Parkhurst was making his tour of investigation through “the avenues of our municipal Inferno,” the wardman was sent round the district to the keepers of all the disorderly houses to describe Dr. Parkhurst, and to tell them to look out for him in case he appeared at their house. Another experience was when she took a house in West Twenty-third Street to start it as an ordinary boarding-house. She had furnished it, and was trying to let it. Promptly the wardman of the precinct came to her and asked her “whether she did not know the law of the precinct.” “You know very well,” he said, “that you cannot move in here until you see the Captain.” And then this estimable officer did all he could to convince her that it was idle trying to run a decent boarding-house, and she had much better open the house in the regular way. The initiation fee would be £400, £200 down and the rest to stand over until business was good. There was to be a further payment of protection money, amounting to £240 a year. She had not much ready money, whereupon the wardman suggested that she might pawn her diamonds, for, said he, “the Captain is very bad off for money.”
Another very amusing thing which came out in her evidence was the argument used by a detective named Zimmerman to induce her to give him £10. He got a couple of pounds one day, and came back the next, asking for another £2. She objected, but he said, “I willbe a good friend to you. I have lots of pull, and my brother has shaved the Superintendent for twenty years, and I get a great deal; I have a pull on that account.” It is an interesting illustration of the way in which everything was turned to account for the levying of blackmail. But we could hardly get lower than this. The origin of pulls is mysterious; but to have a pull because your brother shaves the Superintendent is a very mysterious foundation for political influence. It is, however, but one among the many things in the evidence that remind us of Turkey. The barber of the Grand Vizier is no doubt a much more influential person than many a Pasha; and detective Zimmerman was probably right in believing that his pull was good. Everywhere, and at every turn, we are confronted by the omnipresent “pull.” It confirms in the strongest way what Mr. Godkin said long ago as to the city governments in America being a system of government by pulls:—
In the ward in which he lives, the foreign immigrant never comes across any sign of moral right or moral wrong, human or divine justice. He then perceives very soon that, as far as he is concerned, ours is not a government of laws, but a government of “pulls.” When he goes into the only court of justice of which he has any knowledge, he is told he must have a “pull” on the magistrate or he will fare badly. When he opens a liquor-store, he is told he must have a “pull” on the police in order not to be “raided” or arrested for violation of a mysterious something which he hears called “law.” He learns from those of his countrymen who have been here longer than he that, in order to come into possession of this “pull,” he must secure the friendship of the district leader.—North American Review, 1890.
In the ward in which he lives, the foreign immigrant never comes across any sign of moral right or moral wrong, human or divine justice. He then perceives very soon that, as far as he is concerned, ours is not a government of laws, but a government of “pulls.” When he goes into the only court of justice of which he has any knowledge, he is told he must have a “pull” on the magistrate or he will fare badly. When he opens a liquor-store, he is told he must have a “pull” on the police in order not to be “raided” or arrested for violation of a mysterious something which he hears called “law.” He learns from those of his countrymen who have been here longer than he that, in order to come into possession of this “pull,” he must secure the friendship of the district leader.—North American Review, 1890.
Mrs. Hermann was only one among a number of other Madams who appeared before the Committee, but none succeeded in exciting so much sympathy on the part of the senators. The scandalous way in which the poor woman had been fleeced, and bullied, and ultimately reduced to penury by the very officials to whom she was paying protection money, roused the indignation of the Committee. If the police had protected her in return for their fee, it would have been a different matter, but, as Senator O’Connor remarked, indignantly, in addition to paying the monthly tax, and the initiation fees, raids were got up as an excuse to enable a policeman or a class of criminal lawyers to extort money out of her. Senator Pound remarked that it was the practice to protect such women until they became wealthy, and then squeeze it out of them and leave them destitute. They say that there is “honour among thieves,” but there seems to be none with the policemen who handled Mrs. Hermann.
Another Madam, whose case attracted considerable attention, was one Augusta Thurow, whose misfortunes brought her into intimate relations with Senator Roesch, and led to the appearance of that redoubtable politician in the witness-box. The relations between her and the Captain of the Precinct seem to have been on straight business lines. About a dollar a month for each girl in the house was the regular tariff. When beginning business she wentround to see the Captain and told him that she was willing to do the right thing, but she had not much money, and could not pay a very heavy initiation fee. He met her fairly, and said that he would send the wardman round, and she was to do what he told her. When the wardman came he said, “You wait until after the election, and, after the election is over, you start right in and do business.” After the election day he returned and said, “Now we will come to terms. Give me twenty-five dollars a month and there will be no trouble either for you or for me.” Business went on smoothly until one day she received a summons to go and see the Captain. When she got there she found a number of other ladies and gentlemen of her own profession at the station-house. On being admitted into the Captain’s presence she thought he wanted money. He replied, “I am not supposed to take money, but you can give me the money;” whereupon she handed him twenty-five dollars. He then told her that he had sent for her, not in order to collect the protection fee, which was the duty of the wardman, but to give her a friendly warning that he had received orders from the Central Office to close all the disorderly houses in the precinct. He hoped, therefore, that she would do her business very carefully, otherwise they might raid her from the Central Office. This was an incident which was constantly occurring. The Central Office, stirred up by newspaper reports, or by the representations of decent citizens, issues orders for enforcing the law. The police captains, instead of executing the orders of the Central Office in the spirit as well as in the letter, send word round to all those concerned warning them to be on the alert. By this means the Captain of the Precinct effectually nullifies the orders issued from the Central Office, and, even if the Central Office make a raid on their own account, they find nothing to seize.
It was shortly after this visit that Mrs. Thurow made her first acquaintance with a redoubtable policeman of the name of Hoch. Of all the collectors or wardmen who figure in the evidence, Hoch enjoys the most conspicuous notoriety. He was no sooner entrusted with the collections in that district than he insisted upon raising the fees for protection. “A ranch like that,” he said, “is worth seventy-five dollars a month, and here you are only paying twenty-five dollars, and give me only five dollars, although you promised me ten dollars.”
“Hoch,” she replied, “I cannot afford it.”
Q. What did he say when you said you could not afford it?A. He says, “You have got the house, and why don’t you make money? It is your own fault; and that house is situated in the right spot, and you can do all the business you want and we won’t interfere with you, but you must do better than this.”Q. Did he make any threats then to pull you, if you did not pay a higher rate?A. He said, certainly, if I could not do better than that, he would raid the house.—Vol. i., p. 1,055.
Q. What did he say when you said you could not afford it?
A. He says, “You have got the house, and why don’t you make money? It is your own fault; and that house is situated in the right spot, and you can do all the business you want and we won’t interfere with you, but you must do better than this.”
Q. Did he make any threats then to pull you, if you did not pay a higher rate?
A. He said, certainly, if I could not do better than that, he would raid the house.—Vol. i., p. 1,055.
This alarmed the Madam, and off she went to her husband, who was sent in quest of Judge Roesch, the leader of the Seventh Assembly District, an ex-senator. “I will go and see somebody, and fix the thing up,” said Roesch. “But it will cost about one hundred dollars.” The money was paid, and she did business right away.
Some time after this she was pulled by another detective. She expostulated against the injustice of being run in, although she was paying protection money, whereupon the detective remarked sententiously, “Somehow or other you did not hitch with the Boss.” She went round to the station-house, to find out what was wrong. The Captain told her that she had to find another house in the precinct, and he would protect her, but he would not stand the house in which she was any longer. The cause of this she discovered when she was told that she could not open the new house until she paid an initiation fee of £200 for the Captain, and £50 for Hoch.
It is not quite clear how it was that she got at cross purposes with the police, but one remark made by Hoch would seem to indicate the existence of an incipient jealousy between the police and Tammany Hall.
Augusta Thurow told the Committee that she said to Hoch:—
“I cannot afford to pay more than I am paying; you people treat me so terribly, and I had to go to Roesch, and I had to pay him for his trouble.” He said, “What did you pay him?” I said “Never mind what I paid him.” He says, “That is how it is with you; you people get us angry; you give money to the politicians that belong to the police.”—Vol. i., p. 1,080.
“I cannot afford to pay more than I am paying; you people treat me so terribly, and I had to go to Roesch, and I had to pay him for his trouble.” He said, “What did you pay him?” I said “Never mind what I paid him.” He says, “That is how it is with you; you people get us angry; you give money to the politicians that belong to the police.”—Vol. i., p. 1,080.
The Chairman asked her to repeat exactly what he said; and she answered, “He said, ‘You give the money to the politicians that ought to go to the police. Are the politicians doing for you, or are we doing for you?’”
The evidence of the two Madams, and of a great number of other keepers of disorderly houses, proved beyond all gainsaying that the police were in partnership with the prostitutes, and that the firstfruits of the harvest of shame were paid to the Captain of the Precinct. The Report of the Lexow Committee thus sums up the result of their investigations:—
The testimony upon this subject, taken as a whole, establishes conclusively the fact that this variety of vice was regularly and systematically licensed by the police of the city. The system had reached such a perfection in detail that the inmates of the several houses were numbered and classified, and a rateable charge placed upon each proprietor in proportion to the number of inmates, or in cases of houses of assignation the number of rooms occupied and the prices charged, reduced to a monthly rate, which was collected within a few days of the first of each month during the year. This was true apparently with reference to all disorderly houses except in the case of a few specially favoured ones. The prices ran from twenty-five to fifty dollars monthly, depending upon the considerations aforesaid, besides fixed sums for the opening of new houses or the resumption of “business” in old or temporarily abandoned houses, and for “initiation fees” designed as anadditional gratuity to captains upon their transfer into new precincts. The established fee for opening and initiation appears to have been five hundred dollars.Thus it appears that transfers of captains, ostensibly made for the purpose of reform and of enforcing the discontinuance of the practice, the prevalence of which seems to have been generally understood, resulted only in the extortion from these criminal places of additional blackmail.As an evidence of the perfect system to which this traffic has been reduced, your Committee refers to that part of the testimony which shows that in more than one instance the police officials refused to allow keepers of disorderly houses to discontinue their business, threatening them with persecution if they attempted so to do, and substantially expounding the proposition that they were for the purpose of making money to share with the police. As an evidence of the extraordinary conditions to which this system had given rise, it is proper to call your attention to the fact that in a number of cases women, who, as keepers of disorderly houses, had paid thousands of dollars for police protection, had become reduced to the verge of starvation, while those who had exacted blackmail from them were living in luxury in houses that had been furnished out of the earnings of these women, or they were wearing ornaments of jewelry purchased by them; and even the furniture of their houses had been paid for by those whom they had protected in the commission of crime.The evidence establishes, furthermore, that not only the proprietors of disorderly houses paid for their illegal privileges, but the outcasts of society paid patrolmen on post for permission to solicit on the public highways, dividing their gains with them, and, often, as appears by proof, when brought before the police magistrates and committed to the penitentiary for disorderly conduct in default of bail, they compounded their sentence, and secured bail by paying ten dollars or fifteen dollars to the clerk of the court, or his agents, and were then released again to ply their calling and to become victimised as before.The evidence furthermore shows that in some of the houses of the character described, visitors were systematically robbed, and when they made complaint at the station-house the man detailed to examine into the charge failed to arrest the perpetrator, and frightened the victim off by threats, and then returned and received his compensation, an equal division of the plunder between the thief and the officer.The testimony taken as a whole conclusively establishes that the social evil was, and probably still is, fostered and protected by the police of the city, even to the extent of inducing its votaries to continue their illegal practices, maintaining substantially a partnership with them in the traffic, absorbing the largest part of the resulting profit.—Vol. i., pp. 33-36.
The testimony upon this subject, taken as a whole, establishes conclusively the fact that this variety of vice was regularly and systematically licensed by the police of the city. The system had reached such a perfection in detail that the inmates of the several houses were numbered and classified, and a rateable charge placed upon each proprietor in proportion to the number of inmates, or in cases of houses of assignation the number of rooms occupied and the prices charged, reduced to a monthly rate, which was collected within a few days of the first of each month during the year. This was true apparently with reference to all disorderly houses except in the case of a few specially favoured ones. The prices ran from twenty-five to fifty dollars monthly, depending upon the considerations aforesaid, besides fixed sums for the opening of new houses or the resumption of “business” in old or temporarily abandoned houses, and for “initiation fees” designed as anadditional gratuity to captains upon their transfer into new precincts. The established fee for opening and initiation appears to have been five hundred dollars.
Thus it appears that transfers of captains, ostensibly made for the purpose of reform and of enforcing the discontinuance of the practice, the prevalence of which seems to have been generally understood, resulted only in the extortion from these criminal places of additional blackmail.
As an evidence of the perfect system to which this traffic has been reduced, your Committee refers to that part of the testimony which shows that in more than one instance the police officials refused to allow keepers of disorderly houses to discontinue their business, threatening them with persecution if they attempted so to do, and substantially expounding the proposition that they were for the purpose of making money to share with the police. As an evidence of the extraordinary conditions to which this system had given rise, it is proper to call your attention to the fact that in a number of cases women, who, as keepers of disorderly houses, had paid thousands of dollars for police protection, had become reduced to the verge of starvation, while those who had exacted blackmail from them were living in luxury in houses that had been furnished out of the earnings of these women, or they were wearing ornaments of jewelry purchased by them; and even the furniture of their houses had been paid for by those whom they had protected in the commission of crime.
The evidence establishes, furthermore, that not only the proprietors of disorderly houses paid for their illegal privileges, but the outcasts of society paid patrolmen on post for permission to solicit on the public highways, dividing their gains with them, and, often, as appears by proof, when brought before the police magistrates and committed to the penitentiary for disorderly conduct in default of bail, they compounded their sentence, and secured bail by paying ten dollars or fifteen dollars to the clerk of the court, or his agents, and were then released again to ply their calling and to become victimised as before.
The evidence furthermore shows that in some of the houses of the character described, visitors were systematically robbed, and when they made complaint at the station-house the man detailed to examine into the charge failed to arrest the perpetrator, and frightened the victim off by threats, and then returned and received his compensation, an equal division of the plunder between the thief and the officer.
The testimony taken as a whole conclusively establishes that the social evil was, and probably still is, fostered and protected by the police of the city, even to the extent of inducing its votaries to continue their illegal practices, maintaining substantially a partnership with them in the traffic, absorbing the largest part of the resulting profit.—Vol. i., pp. 33-36.
The most startling statement in the whole Report is that which is contained in the paragraph just quoted. From this it appears that the police were not merely toll-keepers on the way to hell, but if by any chance the Strange Woman wished to forsake her chamber of death, they thrust her back into it. What was it to them that she might wish to save her soul alive out of the pit? Her duty was to stay there and earn dollars for the police. Were they not the Farmers-General of the Wages of Sin?
Mrs. Blood, a keeper of houses of ill-fame, was compelled by a Police Captain to purchase the house of Madame Perot at some 10,000 dollars above its value, to carry it on as a house of prostitution (vol. v., p. 5,414). Another Captain smashed in the faceof a man named Galingo because he had taken a house in which the Captain wished to instal a brothel-keeper from whom he expected to get £200 opening fee and £10 a month afterwards (vol. iv., p. 4,487). In other cases, witnesses who had intended to leave the business were compelled to go on running by threat of being raided and ruined if they dared to think of ceasing to earn fees for the police. The police had come to believe that they had a vested interest in every brothel; and when a keeper proposed to quit the business, he felt like an Irish tenant who is being evicted without compensation for disturbance.
MADAM HERMANN.
GANSEVOORT MARKET, NEW YORK.
“ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN.”
“After all,” some readers will say, “what does it matter? These people are all outlaws; they deserve what they get, whatever it is.” But the net of the New York police was exceeding wide, and the mesh was exceeding fine, and no class of the community escaped. As the sun riseth upon the evil and the just, so the blackmailer of the Police Department marked as his prey the honest and virtuous as well as the vicious and criminal. The Lexow Committee report:—
The evidence of blackmail and extortion does not rest alone on the evidence of criminals or persons accused of the commission of crime. It has been abundantly proven that bootblacks, push-cart, and fruit vendors, as well as keepers of soda-water stands, corner grocerymen, sailmakers with flag poles extending a few feet beyond the place which they occupy, boxmakers, provision dealers, wholesale drygoods merchants, and builders, who are compelled at times to use the sidewalk and street, steamboat and steamship companies, who require police service on their docks, those who give public exhibitions, and in fact all persons, and all classes of persons whose business is subject to the observation of the police, or who may be reported as violating ordinances, or who may require the aid of the police, all have to contribute in substantial sums to the vast amounts which flow into the station-houses, and which, after leaving something of the nature of a deposit, then flow on higher. The commerce of the port even is taxed when the functions of the police department touch it, so that the shippers are compelled to submit to exactions in the city of New York that they do not meet with in any other port.—Vol. i., p. 42.
The evidence of blackmail and extortion does not rest alone on the evidence of criminals or persons accused of the commission of crime. It has been abundantly proven that bootblacks, push-cart, and fruit vendors, as well as keepers of soda-water stands, corner grocerymen, sailmakers with flag poles extending a few feet beyond the place which they occupy, boxmakers, provision dealers, wholesale drygoods merchants, and builders, who are compelled at times to use the sidewalk and street, steamboat and steamship companies, who require police service on their docks, those who give public exhibitions, and in fact all persons, and all classes of persons whose business is subject to the observation of the police, or who may be reported as violating ordinances, or who may require the aid of the police, all have to contribute in substantial sums to the vast amounts which flow into the station-houses, and which, after leaving something of the nature of a deposit, then flow on higher. The commerce of the port even is taxed when the functions of the police department touch it, so that the shippers are compelled to submit to exactions in the city of New York that they do not meet with in any other port.—Vol. i., p. 42.
The chief sufferers, of course, were the poor and those who had no helper. They were as much at the mercy of their oppressors as the French people before the Revolution were at the mercy of their nobles. Again and again the senators expressed their amazement that a population so harassed and oppressed did not rise in revolt. Their wrongs certainly were immeasurably greater than those which led to the Tea-party in Boston Harbour and the Declaration of Independence. The chief abuse, the great grievance, might be summed up in one sentence. There was no justice for the poor. A witness of the name of Collins, speaking of the notorious Alderman, Silver Dollar Smith, and the gang by which he reigned supreme on the east side, said:—
Smith has a regular organisation; you couldn’t convict them people neither; you couldn’t convict them people in Court neither. It is an organisation to represent witnesses to condemn people if they have no money. If they have money to give, they are innocent; they perjure themselves if they pay money.—Vol. v., p. 4,894.
Smith has a regular organisation; you couldn’t convict them people neither; you couldn’t convict them people in Court neither. It is an organisation to represent witnesses to condemn people if they have no money. If they have money to give, they are innocent; they perjure themselves if they pay money.—Vol. v., p. 4,894.
But it is not necessary to go beyond the finding of the Lexow Committee in their official Report:—
The co-ordination of all the departments of city government, under the sway of the dominant Democratic faction in that city, has produced a harmony of action operating so as to render it impossible for oppressed citizens, particularly those in the humbler walks of life, the poor and needy, to obtain redress or relief from the oppression or the tyranny of the police. Their path to justice was completely blocked. It is not credible that the abuses shown to exist have been the creation of but a short time. It is clear from the evidence that abuses have existed for many years back; that they have been constantly increasing through the years, but that they did not reach their full and perfect development until Tammany Hall obtained absolute control of the city government, and under that control the practices which have been shown conclusively before your Committee, were brought into a well regulated and comprehensive system, conducted apparently upon business principles.—Vol. i., p. 37.
The co-ordination of all the departments of city government, under the sway of the dominant Democratic faction in that city, has produced a harmony of action operating so as to render it impossible for oppressed citizens, particularly those in the humbler walks of life, the poor and needy, to obtain redress or relief from the oppression or the tyranny of the police. Their path to justice was completely blocked. It is not credible that the abuses shown to exist have been the creation of but a short time. It is clear from the evidence that abuses have existed for many years back; that they have been constantly increasing through the years, but that they did not reach their full and perfect development until Tammany Hall obtained absolute control of the city government, and under that control the practices which have been shown conclusively before your Committee, were brought into a well regulated and comprehensive system, conducted apparently upon business principles.—Vol. i., p. 37.
The way in which the criminals in uniform and on the judge’s bench acted when by any chance they could punish any one for doing what they themselves were doing all the time has already been remarked in the case of Captain Creedon, who was the only captain suspended by the Police Board during the whole investigation. A more cruel case was that of Karl Werner. This man had tried to bribe a policeman with five dollars, and was promptly arrested. Every difficulty was placed in the way of letting him have bail. At last the Court promised to accept bail, and a professional bondsman offered to give bonds for 100 dollars. His wife raised 95 dollars, and because she could not raise the additional five on the spot, the bondsman confiscated the 95 dollars, and the poor wretch was sent to gaol. The professional bondsman is one of the worst of the harpies who prey upon the unfortunate. Mr. Goff, who reported this incident to the Commission, deplored the impotence to save the victim of the bondsman and the police. “It is,” he said, “simply another of the many instances of the terrible reign of terrorism” (vol. iv., p. 4,225).
Yet at the very time when Werner was being treated so harshly, the police were collecting blackmail by thousands of dollars every week. At first the Committee was incredulous. The Chairman asked once:—
Do you conscientiously believe that, notwithstanding these revelations, notwithstanding the situation that we are brought face to face with now, and what has occurred, there are police officers to-day in this city who accept blackmail?
Do you conscientiously believe that, notwithstanding these revelations, notwithstanding the situation that we are brought face to face with now, and what has occurred, there are police officers to-day in this city who accept blackmail?
But he was speedily convinced that the revelations and the terrors of exposure had only reduced the amount of the blackmail levied by reducing the number of those who could be compelled to pay. The evidence of Captain Meakin’s collector, Edward Shalvey, was conclusive on this point. He swore in the witness-box that he had gone on collecting, without making the slightest change, right down to September:—
Q. You collected from these several places, liquor dealers, policy shops, and houses of ill-fame as you did under the previous captain?A. Yes, sir.Q. Did you ever meet with any refusal to pay from people engaged in this class of business, or did they all pay as matter of course?A. They all paid as matter of course.Q. So that, officer, even beneath the terrible frown of the Lexow Committee, the collections went on just the same?A. Yes, sir.Q. The old, old story continued, is that not so?A. Yes, sir.Q. And while, as a matter of fact, while there were exposures made and being testified to before this Committee since last April or May, right along the collections continued unbroken, did they not?A. Yes, sir; not to such an extent.Q. And the captains took the money in the same way?A. Yes, sir.Chairman Lexow: It seems incredible!—Vol. i., pp. 5,407-8.
Q. You collected from these several places, liquor dealers, policy shops, and houses of ill-fame as you did under the previous captain?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you ever meet with any refusal to pay from people engaged in this class of business, or did they all pay as matter of course?
A. They all paid as matter of course.
Q. So that, officer, even beneath the terrible frown of the Lexow Committee, the collections went on just the same?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. The old, old story continued, is that not so?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And while, as a matter of fact, while there were exposures made and being testified to before this Committee since last April or May, right along the collections continued unbroken, did they not?
A. Yes, sir; not to such an extent.
Q. And the captains took the money in the same way?
A. Yes, sir.
Chairman Lexow: It seems incredible!—Vol. i., pp. 5,407-8.
“It is a tough old world, sir,” as the old stager remarked to an enthusiastic young Reformer, “and takes a deal of moving.” It is a very tough old world, and in the whole hemisphere there are few places tougher than New York.
The contributions paid by contractors to Mr. Croker can easily be understood. One Michael Moran, who was engaged in the towboat business, towing garbage under the Street Cleaning Department, made various subscriptions of from £10 to £30 to Tammany Hall. He was asked why he did so. He replied that Mr. Croker was the treasurer of the organisation he was doing some work for. “Tammany Hall, you mean?” asked the Chairman. “Well, I guess so,” replied Moran. “Don’t you know there is a distinction between the City and the organisation known as Tammany Hall?” asked the Chairman. There was no reply. But Moran evidently did not. Tammany Hall was the organisation that stood for the City. For him it was the City, and Moran said to subscribe to Tammany was the natural feeling amongst everybody that worked for the City; “one done it, and I didn’t want to be left behind by anybody else; I thought I would hold my own end up”:—
Q. Did any one suggest to you the advisability of giving up this money?A. I have had conversations with other men that were in the employ of the City, and we compared notes occasionally to know what was done, and how we could keep ourselves solid.
Q. Did any one suggest to you the advisability of giving up this money?
A. I have had conversations with other men that were in the employ of the City, and we compared notes occasionally to know what was done, and how we could keep ourselves solid.
No political contributions were made by Moran before Tammany came into power. So the Chairman asked:—
Q. How is it then that when the Department changed you felt called upon to send a cheque to Mr. Croker?A. Well, because I didn’t think I could go on and do the amount of business I had for the City without recognising the people that were in power.
Q. How is it then that when the Department changed you felt called upon to send a cheque to Mr. Croker?
A. Well, because I didn’t think I could go on and do the amount of business I had for the City without recognising the people that were in power.
In 1892, when the Presidential Election was on, Moran doubled his subscription. Why was that? He replied:—
I compared notes with somebody in the same business that I was in myself, and found out somebody was paying a little more than I did, and I was afraid somebody in my line of business would put in a little more and I would get left.—Vol. v., pp. 4,912-6.
I compared notes with somebody in the same business that I was in myself, and found out somebody was paying a little more than I did, and I was afraid somebody in my line of business would put in a little more and I would get left.—Vol. v., pp. 4,912-6.
When once an evil system has got itself established, innumerable other influences combine to render its extirpation extremely difficult. The Committee was much scandalised by discovering that for premises whose licence had been cancelled for immorality, a new licence was granted almost immediately. But when the President of the Excise Board was asked to explain, he said:—
There came into consideration property interests; we found that if licences were refused for places where business was carried on, that the banks were affected who had loaned money on mortgages, persons who had loaned on mortgages, the banks who had notes of parties in business; the rents went to the support of persons who depended upon them solely; the tax commissioners of the city protested to the Board of Excise against the refusal to license premises, because it reduces the value of property, and for that reason reduces the taxable values, and affected the city in that way; real estate agents and other persons interested, and owners of property came to us and protested at the start that we ought not to refuse to allow a reputable business to be carried on on any premises, because they had been improperly conducted before.—Vol. iv., p. 4,379.
There came into consideration property interests; we found that if licences were refused for places where business was carried on, that the banks were affected who had loaned money on mortgages, persons who had loaned on mortgages, the banks who had notes of parties in business; the rents went to the support of persons who depended upon them solely; the tax commissioners of the city protested to the Board of Excise against the refusal to license premises, because it reduces the value of property, and for that reason reduces the taxable values, and affected the city in that way; real estate agents and other persons interested, and owners of property came to us and protested at the start that we ought not to refuse to allow a reputable business to be carried on on any premises, because they had been improperly conducted before.—Vol. iv., p. 4,379.
And it came to pass that no sooner was a saloon closed for vice or crime than it was opened again with a fresh licence.
The most mournful and tragic part of all these stories of oppression is that which relates to the treatment of the forlorn and desolate women who have no money with which to bribe the police. For them there is no mercy. The theory of the police, as we have seen, seems to have been that prostitutes existed for the purpose of raising revenue for the force. The women of the streets were the irregular tax-gatherers of the Department. Their vice was not merely connived at, but actively encouraged, so long as the police received their stipulated proportion of the wages of shame.
The women were the bondslaves of the Administration. By law they had no right to ply for hire; but, in consideration of the payment of a regular ransom, they were left free to earn their precarious living.
“This is a phase,” said Mr. Goff, “and a revolting phase, of a custom that exists in New York. I suppose it is the lowest form of oppression and corruption that possibly could be conceived by the human mind; and that is, a tax upon these unfortunate women in the streets at night; for they will not be allowed to walk the streets at night unless they pay so much to the officer, and this has been the custom in many districts of this city for years.”—Vol. iv., p. 3,617.
The tariff varied.[1]On some profitable beats, the licence fee wasfifty cents per night. But as a general rule the rate for “cruising” was a dollar a week. So long as she paid she was all right—always with the understanding that the policeman was to be free to arrest her if she was complained of by any whom she molested. Irregulars—occasional clandestine unfortunates—were, of course, regarded as interlopers and hunted down remorselessly. The zeal of the policeman, which was not stirred in the least by the breach of the law, rose to white heat when a woman who had not paid her fees attempted to pick up customers.
In theory, in New York—and, alas, in many other great cities—the right of a woman to freedom from arbitrary arrest without process of trial, and to redress for wrongful arrest, is absolute. In practice it does not exist. Every poor woman who is out after dark is liable to be arrested by a policeman, and to a woman friendless and forlorn there is written over the portals of every police-station, “All hope abandon ye who enter here.” Before the Police Justice, the policeman’s word goes. No corroborative evidence seems to have been demanded in New York. As one worthy testified before the Committee, he made arrests on general principles, and swore that his victim was loitering for purposes of prostitution. It was not necessary that she should commit any overt act, that she should molest any one, or that any citizen should complain of her molestation. It was enough that she should be loitering in the street. The oath of the policeman as to her intent settled her fate. A hurried gabble of words in a crowded court, and she was packed off to gaol.
This is the besetting sin of all attempts to keep the streets clear of immoral women by giving men, more or less immoral themselves, absolute liberty to arrest any woman whom they please to say is loitering for purposes of prostitution. It was with a flush of pride that I came all unawares upon a reference made before the Lexow Committee to the case of Miss Cass, which made the name of Endacott a byword and a reproach in London some dozen years ago. Counsel had not got the story quite right. His version curiously mixed up the Trafalgar Square agitation with the arrest of the dressmaker in Regent Circus, but he had the main idea quite right. Scotland Yard and Mr. Matthews hit the poor girl a foul blow before the incident was ended, but it was a welcome thing to find that their belated vengeance had failed to silence the reverberations of indignation evoked by her scandalous arrest.
Americans and foreigners are often shocked at the state of London streets. Mr. Croker, I remember, expressed himself as being much horrified at the state of Piccadilly at midnight. But better a thousand times have the scandal of our streets than place the liberty of all women at the mercy of the police. The arrests of women fell 50 per cent. in London after the uproar that was made aboutMiss Cass, and they are not likely to rise so long as the authorities insist upon the most just and salutary rule then introduced, that no woman shall be arrested for molesting by solicitation, unless the citizen who is molested is willing to give evidence next day in the police-court to that effect. The right of a human being to walk about the streets, to loiter about the streets, does not depend, and ought not to depend, upon the chastity of that individual. But if that principle were to be adopted as a principle of police action, it ought in justice to be applied impartially to both sexes.
Some very scandalous instances of the arbitrary arrest of innocent women, and their consignment to prison on the uncorroborated oath of a policeman, were brought before the Committee. The case of Ettie Kelter is one instance of the kind of thing that follows inevitably from making the policeman practically at once sole accuser and sole judge of the right of a woman to be at large in the streets.
Ettie Kelter was a young married woman of unimpeachable character. She had lived in Albany until August, 1894, when she came to live in New York. One Saturday evening in the following month she went out shopping, and being a stranger in the city she lost her way. She asked a gentleman to direct her to her destination. He did so. She took the wrong turning, so he called after telling her where she should go. She had hardly taken a few steps in the right direction before a young man—a policeman in plain clothes—seized her arm and dragged her off to the police-station. There he gave her in charge, declaring he had known her for years. It was in vain she protested she had never been in the city till the previous month. She was removed under arrest to another police-station, where she was locked up in a cell with a prostitute. She was terrified. She had been dragged through the street at a great rate, and no sooner was she in the cell than a blood-vessel burst. The blood gushed from her nose and mouth, scaring her companion, who thought she was bleeding to death. The blood streamed over the floor of the cell. But all the efforts of her companion failed to attract the attention of the policeman or the matron. She hammered at the door with a tin cup, but no one came. Not until the morning did the officer come to release them from the bloody cell.
STREET SCENE IN NEW YORK: OYSTER ROW.
Pale, weak, distracted, almost fainting, Ettie Kelter was bundled into court in the midst of a crowd of the offscourings of the streets, and brought up before Judge Hogan. She could not hear the charge, nor could she make out what the Judge said, excepting that he said something about soliciting. She did not know what it meant, but she passionately denied that she was anything but a respectable married woman who had only just come to New York. She might as well have held her peace. “Two months’ imprisonment. After that, three hundred dollars bail good behaviour.” This was Sunday morning.She was taken back to the cell, and her companion, who had been sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, showed her a lawyer’s card. “Send for that man,” she said, “give him twenty dollars and he will get you out.” Her companion did so and got out. Mrs. Kelter thought it would be better to send for her husband, who was employed as fireman on the emigrant ferryboat. The policeman who arrested her volunteered to go and tell him. But when he saw Kelter the message the policeman delivered was—
“Now you have a good chance of divorce; I arrested your wife last night, and she has got two months on the Island.”
She tried to write to her husband. But she had only two cents, and they would not give her a sheet of paper for less than five, nor would they send it out for less than fifty cents.
So the poor woman was taken to the Island, and kept there in prison for twenty-four days. At the end of that time her husband placed fifteen dollars in an envelope and handed it to Justice Hogan. His wife was released.
And that kind of infamy was going on all the time. The way in which the unfortunates were driven from pillar to post and treated as mere cattle, to be fleeced and plundered, provoked a very remarkable protest from a Police Captain who had sufficient humanity left in him to see the horror of the system which he had to administer. He was asked whose fault it was that the social evil flourished to such an extent. He said it was the fault of the law:—
Q. The law itself?A. Yes, sir, if you give the women the same protection by law that you do a mule and a dog you will do away with two-thirds of the houses of prostitution and women of the street.—Vol. i., p. 5,198.
Q. The law itself?
A. Yes, sir, if you give the women the same protection by law that you do a mule and a dog you will do away with two-thirds of the houses of prostitution and women of the street.—Vol. i., p. 5,198.
In reply to the Chairman he explained how it was that houses of ill-fame were so much more difficult to deal with than gaming houses. He said:—
Because, Senator, you take the women to court, they are fined a few dollars and turned out on the street again to go and get more money, be re-arrested and pay again; the trouble is that prostitutes are fined.Q. Wasn’t that done with gamblers as well?A. Well, you could get their paraphernalia and get them away, but you couldn’t with the women; a prostitute should never be fined and her money taken away from her; those women are not bad women until they are made so; they are dragged off the street and dragged before the court and their money taken away from them, and then drove out on the street again; they are not bad until they are drove to it; now, there were fully 30,000 arrests made from January 1st, 1876, to January 1st, 1878, in that little precinct alone, and I will venture to say there were not 1,500 women arrested, but arrested over and over again.—Vol. v., p. 5,213.
Because, Senator, you take the women to court, they are fined a few dollars and turned out on the street again to go and get more money, be re-arrested and pay again; the trouble is that prostitutes are fined.
Q. Wasn’t that done with gamblers as well?
A. Well, you could get their paraphernalia and get them away, but you couldn’t with the women; a prostitute should never be fined and her money taken away from her; those women are not bad women until they are made so; they are dragged off the street and dragged before the court and their money taken away from them, and then drove out on the street again; they are not bad until they are drove to it; now, there were fully 30,000 arrests made from January 1st, 1876, to January 1st, 1878, in that little precinct alone, and I will venture to say there were not 1,500 women arrested, but arrested over and over again.—Vol. v., p. 5,213.
He was still further examined by Senator O’Connor:—
Q. I want to ask you a question or two: what do you mean to say, that if people would give the women the same protection given to mules and horses prostitutes would be fewer?A. What I mean by it is this: when they are arrested, instead of sending them to a magistrate to be fined and money taken from them, send them to a reformatory and inquire into their history, and you will find there are a great many of these people that you see lost in the papers. As I say, the women are not bad naturally; it is only where they are driven to it. If there was a reformatory and the money taken from them and taken care of, and put the institution under good women, good, proper persons to control that reformatory, and not abuse them, not send them to jail or abuse them, but send them to a reformatory. You will find some people from Massachusetts, some from Ohio, some from somewhere else, some from Michigan; send them to their homes, and if they are foreigners, who have not been here five years, send them back to Europe, and you will find as a general thing that the reason why the prostitutes and why the disorderly houses cannot be overcome is that there is no care taken of them; they haven’t a friend in the world. There is no friend to a prostitute; everybody bangs her, everybody beats her; she is dragged into the station-house, taken to court, fined, and thrown on the street to get more money and bring it back.—Vol. i., p. 5,214.
Q. I want to ask you a question or two: what do you mean to say, that if people would give the women the same protection given to mules and horses prostitutes would be fewer?
A. What I mean by it is this: when they are arrested, instead of sending them to a magistrate to be fined and money taken from them, send them to a reformatory and inquire into their history, and you will find there are a great many of these people that you see lost in the papers. As I say, the women are not bad naturally; it is only where they are driven to it. If there was a reformatory and the money taken from them and taken care of, and put the institution under good women, good, proper persons to control that reformatory, and not abuse them, not send them to jail or abuse them, but send them to a reformatory. You will find some people from Massachusetts, some from Ohio, some from somewhere else, some from Michigan; send them to their homes, and if they are foreigners, who have not been here five years, send them back to Europe, and you will find as a general thing that the reason why the prostitutes and why the disorderly houses cannot be overcome is that there is no care taken of them; they haven’t a friend in the world. There is no friend to a prostitute; everybody bangs her, everybody beats her; she is dragged into the station-house, taken to court, fined, and thrown on the street to get more money and bring it back.—Vol. i., p. 5,214.
These words deserve to be written up in letters of gold in every place wherever men discuss the question of abating this plague. It is the verdict of experience upon the habitual resource of the unthinking. “Go to, let us harry our sisters!” is the first and last word of most of those who dream it is possible to promote the cause of morality by outraging the principles of justice.
Of the system in New York there is only one good thing to be said. Bad as it was, it is infinitely better than the hideous abomination of the European system of tolerated houses with theirpolice des mœursand the compulsory weekly surgical examination of their unhappy inmates. Better a thousand times even the rude, irregular tyrannies of Hoch and Koch, and all the diabolical gang of blackmailers, than elaborate all these infamies into a legalised system stamped with the seal of the approval of the State and enforced by the dread penalties of the law.
Prostitution, everywhere hateful, is at least less intolerable when it is free. When to the horrors of prostitution there is added the legalised slavery of the regulation system, you have indeed the sum of all villainies, and the abomination that maketh desolate is at last set up in the very holy of holies.
BELIAL ON THE JUDGMENT SEAT.
The effect of law, not law written in the Statute Book, but law practically enforced among the people, is to evolve a conscience. Not without deep true meaning was it said of old time “the law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” For it is the law, by its pains and penalties, which educates the individual as to the obligations of morality and the duty of well-doing. But in New York the universal practice of permitting all manner of abominations to run, provided the regular fee was paid to the police, acted as a direct depravation of public morals in familiarising the worst people in the city with a moral standard which was in itself a negation of morality. A woman of the name of Flora Waters, who kept a café with waitresses in a disreputable quarter, formulated with the utmost precision her belief that she was doing right because her money was taken by the police:—