Arizona republican., 1903-03-30

future. And so it went on through all
the grades of the service. Devery paid
nothing. He was a friend of those
higher up. 1t was apparent that the
legitimate returns of the office could
not bear the additional expense, but
vice was prosperous, and there is no
! record of any policeman having welsh
ed" on the money he borrowed to pay
for his promotion. No man was allow
cal 10 keep all he collected. He was en-
titled to his rake off, but the balance
went higher up
| When it became clear that no redress
could be obtained from the municipal
authorities few strong men came to-
gethcr and made vigorous protest TIE
authorities met the protest with the de-
! NAL Of the existence of many evils. A
plan was decided upon by which n cit
| liens committee of fifteen was to be
formed with the avowed object of dem
onstrating not only the existence of
the evils, but the fact that they existed
and flourished with police connivance
and fer police profit.
| Scouting in this plan an attack upon
his organiza ton, Mr.. Croker leader of
Tanlmany Hall, at once appointed n
committee of five to assist" the COM
mittee of fifteen.
Justice Jerome was the inspiration of
the citizens committee. His five years
or the special sessions bench added 10
the experience gained as a deputy as
sistant in the district attorneys Office
had taught him a lot of things, and it
was under his direction that the first
and perhaps the hardest jolt it ever re-
ccived was given to that mass of moral
) testers known as the System.
All sections of the city were honey
| conbed with houses of vice, but it was
in the teeming tenements of the East
Side that their contagious presence was
working the greatest evil, and it was
toward these places that Justice Jerome
first directed the search-lights of the
committee of fifteen
No one who has not lived in New
York City can have any conception of
the section recognized by the term, the
East Side. Many who have passed their
lives in the city know nothing of it. No
one knows all about it; it is too solidly
packed with polyglot population.
Less than stones throw from stately
Broadway and within five minutes
travel from the most fashionable shop
ping districts it stands, the most dense
ly populated district in the world. With
-. in an area of less than half square
r mile live more than one hundred thou
;. sand men. women, and children, some
5 nbIe to, speak English, but the vast ma
I jority foreign born.
Thousands of fourishing towns in the
United States have fewer inhabitants
2 than one single block in that district;
t included within the boundaries of one
city square. According to the statistics
of the health department, the popula
ton averages one family to every run
y ming foot of street front. and fifty
I children to every twenty-foct'lot.
: Housed in great tenements, they live
, five, six or more, families 4 floor:
quiet, Woodworking, law-abiding poo
pie, sending their children to the public
:. schools and asking only FOR the oppor-
:, tunity to earn a living and enjoy the
: liberty denied them in the lands from
p which they emigrated.
e In such neighborhood, overlooking
t with growing youth OF both sexes, the
wholesale esta bIishment Of disorderly
: houses was like inoculating it with the
: plague. Justice Jerome recognized the
e about remedying it.
e The houses in question lived only by
s consent OF the police. 1t was impossi-
; BILE that it should be otherwise Against
l one house in particular complaint had
been made ct the police station. The
captain in command there had ward
. man named Bissert. Wardmen under
u the system were the accredited 'Neel-
lectCrS" for the captains. Compelled
by the complaints to do something. the
police arrested the woman keeper Of the
house. AS usual. they failed to secure
:, the necessary evidenee for conviction.
" The woman was angry and said things
:, that were repeated. Justice Jerome
saw the woman. She told him she had
j, paid five hundred dollars for permission
to open the house, and fifty dollars 4
:, month for liberty to maintain it.
Bissert and his captain were indicted.
= The disclosures at the trial of Bissert
shocked the entire community. One
. girl, not eighteen years old, testified
that she was an unwilling inmate of
the house. and identified a bundle IF
. brass checks as the tokens, each indi-
=. ca ting twenty-five cents, she had re-
), ceived in return for the forced caresses.
The other details of the testimony can
>, not be printed here. They were so ter
i rible, so heart-rending, that the women
In court hid their faces, and hardened
o newspaper men who had reported all
. sorts of stories for years, the writer
y among them, We're unable to see their
is pencils for the tears which blinded
Al their eyes.
&c Other young girls told like stories of
:, ruined lives-one was brought from a
- hospital to tell hers. All testified to
n, the regularity of Bisscrts visits to the
-. house.
II Bissert was convicted and sentenced
, to six years in states prison, and the
Va political future of James w. Osborne
"a the assistant district attorney wh1
~, prosecuted him, was looked upon as
&c ended His record in the office under
"a three district attorneys was blameiess
a He was nephew by marriage of Mayor
Van Wyck and was in a direct line for