worth of business is unjustifiable. He has not stuck to the rules of the
game and the pack of enraged gamesters, under full cry of "morality,"
can very easily run him to ground, the public meantime being gratified
that police corruption has been exposed and the offender punished. Yet
hundreds of girls, who could have been discovered in no other way, were
rescued by this man in his capacity of police inspector. On the other
hand, he did little to bring to justice those responsible for securing
the girls, and while he rescued the victim, he did not interfere with
the source of supply. Had he been brought to trial for this
indifference, it would have been impossible to find a grand jury to
sustain the indictment. He was really brought to trial because he had
broken the implied contract with the politicians; he had devised illicit
and damaging methods to express that instinct for protecting youth and
innocence, which every man on the police force doubtless possesses. Were
this instinct freed from all political and extra legal control, it would
in and of itself be a tremendous force against commercialized vice which
is so dependent upon the exploitation of young girls. Yet the fortunes
of the police are so tied up to those who profit by this trade and to
their friends, the politicians, that the most well-meaning man upon the
force is constantly handicapped. Several illustrations of this occur to
me. Two years ago, when very untoward conditions were discovered in
connection with a certain five-cent theatre, a young policeman arrested
the proprietor, who was later brought before the grand jury, indicted
and released upon bail for nine thousand dollars. The crime was a
heinous one, involving the ruin of fourteen little girls; but so much
political influence had been exerted on behalf of the proprietor, who
was a relative of the republican committeeman of his ward, that although
the license of the theatre was immediately revoked, it was reissued to
his wife within a very few days and the man continued to be a menace to
the community. When the young policeman who had made the arrest saw him