Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-03
GREAT RAID IN PHILADELPHIA
Police Seize 1000 Persons in Vicious
Places.


BY one of the biggest police raids in the
history of any city the new administration
of Philadelphia emphasized its hold on the
city government, swept clear Of question
able resorts Saturday night a territory OF
twenty square miles including the Tender
ioin and some residential districts, and let
loose a flood of scandal.
Everything from massage places to opium
joints and spedk-easies were closed. sta
ton houses could not begin to hold the
prisoners, and from midnight Saturday
night until o'clock Sunday morning five
magistrates labored to dispose OF the cases
Hardly a man ON the force sept all night
and every patrol wagon in the city was in
constant use.
One hundred and fifty houses, used as
speak-easies. disorderly resorts, places OF
designation and political clubs, We're enter
ed, and about ECO prisoners men and
women, were taken. The approximate
amount of the fines imposed upon the men
found IN the places is $4,000. Roulette
wheels, poker tables, Slot machines and
gambling devices of all kinds were seized.
Four hundred police were employed IN the
raid, which was made upon evidence Sc
cured by the Law and order Society. 1t
had been in their possession for months,
but until now the police department would
not act.
Every police captain was called in and
got orders that the places must be raided
and that no tip should go out. Failure TO
obey meant dismissal. At the same time
police were drawn in from every district
into the section over which the net was TO
be spread and scores of reserves in plain
clothes were assigned to posts.
BY midnight twenty-five station houses
Were filled. Ten others were jammed 10 the
doors of the great cell room in the city
hail could hold no more Every minute
saw fresh patrol loads before the doors.
To the Tenderloin the thing was not new,
and the women of the section laughed and
swore. But mixed with these, with
drunken negroes and the vicious hangers
on of the district, were men in evening
dress-clubmen, politicians, lawyers and
men whose faces are familiar in public
gatherings.
Crouching in corners of the police sta
tons trying to hide behind the Tenderoin
women, were other women not used to such
scenes. These had been arrested in houses
in Green street, Spring Garden street, up
town and down town, places that the police
had never touched.
They had not been taken easily. The men
who were their companions had fought
hard TO escape and take the women who
were with them. In many cases the police
had to hold the hands of women bent on
suicide. Some of these women fought with
the policemen more effectually than did the
and few escaped. In house at 9l9
Green street woman threw two policemen
from her and jumped from third-story
window. She was caught by the feet and
two police held her. She asked the man
who had been with her to kill her. She
stripped off her jewels and held them out
to the policemen. The man offered a large
bribe, but the pair were hustled into pa
troll wagon.
At the police station the woman was
placed in a cell, where she tainted. The
man was fined SO and costs and allowed
to go. The woman was later held in 500
bail for court as an inmate of the house.
She was not an inmate.
Many women from these houses tried to
kill themselves and two almost succeeded.
One stabbed herself and the other threw
herself down flight of stairs. Both were
taken to hospitals under assumed names.
There We're many gross outrages. a wo-
man was taken from her home, an abso-
lrtely respectable house She was little
more than a girl and held a baby at her
breast She was put in with a crowd OF
drunken, swearing women and was weep
ing bitterly. 1t had been a mistake in ad-
dress. but the woman was carried back 10
her home unconscious. There were old wo-
men not far from the grave who had been
ga thered in by mistake.
All the night and all the morning the
hearings went on. Each of the men, II he
were not a principal, fined SO and
costs Every one of the women was held
in bail for trial.
A number of the women and girls TO
whom arrest spelled ruin secured bail
through their escorts and went home to
weeks of terror to wait until they are
called to court. There were many VINO,
either forgotten or less fortunate, were
bundled into the vans with the Tenderloln
women and sent TO Moyamensing prison.