business of the city itself to extend much more protection to young
girls who so thoughtlessly walk upon its streets. Yet, in spite of the
grave consequences which lack of proper supervision implies, the
municipal treatment of commercialized vice not only differs in each city
but varies greatly in the same city under changing administrations.

The situation is enormously complicated by the pharisaic attitude of the
public which wishes to have the comfort of declaring the social evil to
be illegal, while at the same time it expects the police department to
regulate it and to make it as little obvious as possible. In reality the
police, as they themselves know, are not expected to serve the public in
this matter but to consult the desires of the politicians; for, next to
the fast and loose police control of gambling, nothing affords better
political material than the regulation of commercialized vice. First in
line is the ward politician who keeps a disorderly saloon which serves
both as a meeting-place for the vicious young men engaged in the traffic
and as a market for their wares. Back of this the politician higher up
receives his share of the toll which this business pays that it may
remain undisturbed. The very existence of a segregated district under
police regulation means, of course, that the existing law must be
nullified or at least rendered totally inoperative. When police
regulation takes the place of law enforcement a species of municipal
blackmail inevitably becomes intrenched. The police are forced to
regulate an illicit trade, but because the men engaged in an unlawful
business expect to pay money for its protection, the corruption of the
police department is firmly established and, as the Chicago vice
commission report points out, is merely called "protection to the
business." The practice of grafting thereafter becomes almost official.
On the other hand, any man who attempts to show mercy to the victims of
that business, or to regulate it from the victim's point of view, is