The evening world. Newspaper, June 22, 1906, Page 3

: | " EX-POLICE THE WORL?): FRIDAY Before Starting for the Penitentiary Convicted Patrolman Discloses Hidden Iniquitiés of Black- mail in’ the Tenderloin, t (Continued from First Page.) ® sprinkling of immoral women, {mmoral houses, gambling houses and crooks, A man who kept his eyes open, or rather a man who kept them closed, could pick up a good deal of money, even {f he was no higher than @ common patrolman, but I want to say that for the year I was there I did not graft a cent in any way. 1 ani not setting m;self up to be any more honest than the run of men 4 my walk of life, Mut 1 was born of decent, God-fearing people and raised Tight. 1 guess maybe | Inherited a few consctentious soruples. Besides, I Was @ Single man with nobody dependent on me, and my pay as a police- an was a-plenty. Bul most of all 1 was ambitious, I wanted to climb in the force and be something some day. As I figured {t out {in my own mind, the best way to climb was to keep straight and do my duty and stay on the job. 1 was getting along pretty well ber of arr Unce | stopped a dai es from a fire. For and another time I rescued five per- ople in the fire I won the gold star. rous ru & the y TENDERLOIN SPELLED HIS RUIN. 1 guess 1 got along too well for my own good. Anyhow, two years ago 4 was transferred to the Nineteenth Precinct, in the Tenderloin, and made @ plain-clothes man downfall dated from that time, although I did / not really lose my hold for a good while after that. What 1 had seen at Charles street wasn’t a circumstance to what I} found going on in the Tenderloin IT found that among certain pinin-clothe an offensive and defensive nllinnee for the collecting of graft, the pro- tection of those who pald binckmall and the punishment of those who refnsed to pay it. It was a regular organized machine—a sort of a close) cornorntion, ifa n Was honest when he started in and refused at first to come into the combine, the old heads deliberately set about to corrupt him. Usually they did jt with a woman, but there were other ways. It made it safer, of course, for all hands to be in on the deal together. luthes man was supposed to be mostly keeping the Streets and saloons clear of immoral women. I don’t know of my own personal knowledge what tribute gambling houses and tough dance halls and lemon-game workers and petty crooks paid, akhough, of course, ty of stories, and I had an idea-or ty That was the big eon in the precinct was My work as a plain pn might say. he graft from the women went to the men lower down. I have been told that all gam ind lemon-game workers and the cheaper grade of confidence men and the like paid $5 a day for protection, I have heard, too, that cer nd pick a limited number—gave up $25 a week | each for y, of my own knowledge, I only know | t of ‘ly mish t the woman p: tariff wae $5 npiece from ench woman, A) have ten or twelve women giving him 85 a! usual nomber—although he might have | the average. What © ordinary < mn me on one of the older men in the combine 1 then put the thing up to him, something like this: en a gre would get friendly ¢ Guppose we call the new man Smith. Brown or Jones would take him aside after shey had gotten s¢ “Ohi nian” Brown would say to Smith, “There’s some easy money for you on this job: You can get your bit every week from a bunch of these gtreet-walkers witho ) niger or trouble, All you have to do {s to come in with the rest of us and lay dead and keep your mouth shut. The other boys the game say you're a good fellow, and we are willing to divi ness with you and give you your share,” TRAP FOR THOSE WHO HELD OUT. as made known to eight or ten girls, who were y over to him after that If he had scruples oney the other men would start in to corrupt This| on intimate terms with the new man. It} who are working the PAL would play stool-pigeon for the system, rs to ge A gO girl would be given ord didn't make any difference whether Smith was married or not, The object was to ge: him Involved with «© bad woman. If the game succeeded the rest | Was oasy, | position his moral fibre was so weakened that in a y to go as far as any of them. At any rate, if he noney himself, he was in no position to expose the As a jeneral Uttle while he » didn’t take the blood erooke B . conld always count high on the unwritten, Jaw of the re It in thin that peaching on the crookednex» he his fellow-officers are en- aged In, Weil, now we'll suppose that Smith had started out with eight girls as his share. They were his—no other man in the game would bother them And it was all right for him to increase his Is who inoved into the Tenderloin. . Hege's uly ready contributing to Smith would meet or try to collect from them following by recruiting new g. the way that was One of the him somewhere “Boss, here's a ne ; she’s a friend of mine and everything will be ©, K. if you'll look after her,’ Looking after the new girl meant that Smith would give her protection end in return she would pay him the regular tariff of five a week. Sometimes the women would slip the money into the policeman's hand in person, but usually they sent ft to him by a man or left it for him with some saloon- Keeper whom both of them could trust. Protection meant that the cop would not arrest her himaclf and it possible he would prevent her arrest by any other man, If she did get locked up he was expected (o aquare the case in the court. That is, he would arrange with the arresting officer to have the case) “thrown down.” When the woman was called up the principal witness would nearly nlways be the policeman himself. He would suddenly develop a bad mem- ory or admit that he had locked the girl up on suspicion and had no real evidence against her, and the Magistrate would turn her loose. ‘The girl I made some reputation for the num- | ts 1 scored and I got two commendations for brave conduct. | | OU Fol70w your? EVENING, JUNF 29, 1990 him her $5 on pay day—usually Saturday night—he would look her up. The conversation would be sometiiing like this: Where's my money?” “I’m dead broke; haven't a cent. I haven't heen able to find a sucker.” “Well, you go find one right away. I'll follow you. Then he would actually tra!l ber until] she found a man who would give her $5 or a drunken man whose pockets she could pick. Then he would make her fork over. I have heard of instances when this man was not fifteen feet from the woman when she stole or begged the cash fram the “sucker.” There was still another source of revenue for the crooked man. Some night a man would come into the Tenderloin Station with a story that he had been robbed at a dance hall, or on the street perhaps, He wouldn't be so drunk but that he could give a pretty falr description of the woman who had touched him. The chances were the man detailed on the case would know the girl from the description the victim had given. If he was crooked, and she belonged on his list, he would go to her and force her to “split up” with him, sharing half and half in the stolen roll, If sho ‘belonged to some other policeman, he would pass the tip to him, and then the chances were there would be three sharing in the divvy Instead of two. The man detailed on the case would report back that he had been un-| able to find the thief. Naturally the same thing happened a good many times when the thief was a man, but I am speaking particularly of the in-| stances In which women figured, because, being detailed to watch women, {t was those cases that I usually knew about, DECLARES HE TOOK NO CASH. And now I'm going to tell you something that you may nédt belleve. I was In the Tenderloin as a plain-clothes man attached to the precinct for ® year and a half and later as a member of the Vice Squad. In that time I did not take one red cent of that dirty money. Tam not saying I was a snint—I got myself involved before 1 was through— but I could not take the blood money from those women. I did other things that were wrong—I kept my eyes and my mouth shut, I saw plenty of things which it was my sworn duty as an officer ta expose, and I was a passive witness to the grafting that went on among those women of the streets and their men. But, as God ia my judge, I did not extent of m penny. I couldn't touch that sort of money. I told them ao when they first came to me. I meant it and I stuck to it, I saw the others do jt, but I kept my hands clean of that, This fact must have leaked out In the Department, because once when I had been at the Tenderloin Station a short time a roundsman whom I did re in the graft itself to the rests amounted to over $500. ’ She offerea Jewel hy = ing if I had been grafting monoy off of those women. As I have told you, I never did touch a cent of the “dirty money” or any other of the blackmail] that was levied {n the Tenderloin. er, ToLetHwer sO. MAN HARRY MORTON TELLS SECRETS OF POLICE GRAFT AS IT N | HARRY MORTON AND SCENES OF TENDERLOIN BLACKMAIL. I could never have made that kind of a show- T owed my 1 to the women with whom I came in dafly and almost honrly contact. They were pretty and well dressed, and some of them were refined. When | part of New ¥ | OW EXISTS ae Pat Patrolman Convicted of Perjury De- clares Before Starting for the Penitentiary that Vice Squad Ruined Him. ed to feel sorry for them. mixed hen I got to taking a with them I believe, I Was the ruin of me © of us was soon intim with those same women mate ed to a precinct there were soma bounds at » check. We had certain hours when we had to sulations we had to observe. But in the Vice nce a day we reported to our superior officer. own bosses, golng where we pleased and actically responsible to nobody for twenty- ‘our, Is {t any wonder that we ran wild? nd one temptations of the wickedest of the t ed to the tho e wer Oxy Vice Squad would go to some wine-room or hotel and ind half of the night with women, drirfking. Then late » out and pick up four or five girls on the street in s courts next day and save his Ice. he men with whom I was w prepared to go on his vaca- him that while he was gone I proposed to treat the girl with timate as I would any other and that {f [ caught her stopping on the street [ would arrest her off-hand So when he went away he took her with him. He went to some town e—to Albany I think {t was. Well, I had occasion to write him ile he was there, and of course I addressed it to him in his own When he camo back I asked him if he had got the letter. Hw ed and sald that he had been afraid to clatm it, and then he went on to t at the hotel he had istered under my name and registered the nas ‘Mrs. Harry Morton,” That was his {dea of a joke. It helps to show you what sort of moral views the members of the Vice Squad got to have after they had been on the job a little while, | soveHT TO ESCAPE FROM THE LIFE. All told I was only in what we called the woman-chasing squad for about a month—from the middle of June of Inst year to the middle of July, It was during that month that Berthe Claiche killed Gendron and I first made the statement regarding the killing that has led to my arrest and conviction nearly a year later. By the middle of July © was sick and tired of the Vice Squad and of the way I was doing. I wanted to get away from the Tenderloin and all that the Tenderloin meant. I wes trying to break off with the life into which I had been fall- tng for nearly a year. 1 made application to be transferred to the Mounted Squad tn Central Park—a post that policemen who are looking for graft dislike, I got ft and I steyed in the Mounted Squad until I was sent to do patrol duty at the Far Rockaway Station in January. I was there when they |{ndicted me. | Now, all along I have been speaking in the past tenso becauge I told you of things as they existed when I wus in the Tenderloin a year ago and two years ago. A good many of the men who were mixed up in the things I have told you of are still on duty in the Tenderloin. So far as I know | there has been no change In conditions there since I left {t. In tact I know | some of those conditions are still exactly as they were when I worked in | the precinct, I do not see how any man constructed morally and physically life most men ean go to work In the Tenderloin as a policeman and not be corrupted sooner or later. This seems a Clean Food Era We are inclined to believe that some magazine writers in their anxiety to attract attention to themselves have Overstated the case against the meat packers. We do not sell meat but believe in fair play, and also in a complete knowledge, by the people, of exactly what they are eating. We have always printed on each and every pkg. of Grape-Nuts not know came up to me and introduced himself. He told me he wanted to! shake hands with me because he had heard I was the cop who would not! take dirty money. That was what they used to call it—‘the dirty money,” Here's another incident that shows my position in the dirty money business, 1 got on to a house at No. 110 West Thirty-sixth street, where a disorderly establishment was belng conducted with fifteen or sixteen girls as inmates, 1 sald at the station-house that I was going to close the place up as soon as I could get the evidence I needed. ‘The news leaked out— it very often did in such cases, A night or two after that I caught one of the girls from that house stopping men in a side street. I arrested her. She pulled me aside and said to me: “it's all right—i'm Rosie. 1 Knew her name or the name she went by was not Rosie, and I told her so, was expected to provide her own bond if she did get arrested, Of course, the professional bondsman looked after that. But so long as a girl made her weekly payments regularly and didn’t do too much stealing she wasn't} in much danger of seeing the ingide of one of the cells in the Tenderloin Station unless she happened to fe caught in a raid on one of the dance halls, and even then she usually got the tip In time to get away before the police came. HAD TO PAY OR LEAVE DISTRICT. rotection also meant that women who did not pay the tariff would de driven out of the Tenderloin, which of course sulted the women already | established there. A newcomer who could not or would not pay wns spotted mighty soon, The word would be passed along, and some one or another of| the men in the combine would arreat her every time she showed her! none on the atreet, Maybe the person who rented rooms to her would be warned to put her out. That explains why the same women would be up time after time in Jefferson Market Court while others walked Broadway and Sixth‘avenue| for months, plying their business openly, without being molested. It came mighty near being a lead-pipe, air-tight system. Sometimes a girl would fall behind in her payments. Usually the cop | to whom she belonged would give her a little time. ‘Then {f she still fatled to come up he would close down and niuke life a misery to her. I knew one “You don't understand,” she sald. “Let me go, That's the word we agreed on, you know—Rosle. I still couldn’t make out what she meant and she explained that when they heard of my intentions every girl in the house had chipped in| for a good-sized purse, and that the money had been turned over to a saloon-keeper to be delivered to me in case I would drop my plan to close+ up the house. | I went straight to Capt, Cottrell, who was then in command of the precinct. PURSE DID NOT SAVE THE PILACE. I told him what the girl had said. I told him also that I had never taken any of that sort of money and did not intend to rest under tha suspicion of having done so, Capt. Cottrell went with me to the saloon- Jcceper and ho denied any knowledge of the transaction. The records will show that I did close that house, 1 used to talk to a lot of women who did not seem to be wholly bad, and urged them to quit the streets and lead decent lives. I was instruc mental in getting some of them to do this, and in several instances I bo- Neve they are leading honast lives this day, One woman | arrested offered me her jewelry to let her go. It was tho first time she had been arrested and she was badly scared. I refused to take her jewelry and took her be-| fore Magistrate Barlow. At my own request he gave her some good advice | and let her go. She left the Tenderloin and never came back, so far as I now, When I first went to the Nineteenth Precinct I was ambitious to make man—and he {s still on the force, as are nearly all of the men I have been telling you about—who never showed any mercy. If a girl failed to send a record. For several months [ led the rolls for the number of arrests made. One month Capt, Cottrell told me that fines resulting from my yr Food exactly what it is made of and the scores of visitors who pass through our works every day find the Pure Food Factories as clean and sweet as a maiden’s fresh white apron, The food is thoroughly cooked in these factories from the choic- est white wheat and barley, the sweet offering of the fields. No food on earth gives the same sustaining power from meal to meal as Grape-Nuts. {BECAUSE The starchy parts of the wheat and barley are changed by moisture and heat to a form of sugar required by the human system and almost immediately absorbed without stress to the digestive machinery. And again, the certain elements in these grains are incorporated to insure rebuilding of the soft gray matter in the brain and nerve centres to fit one for the wearing work of the day. scientific feeding. |A dish of Grape-Nuts and Cream at each meal supplies the GO and you can feel it in a way that leaves no question. It is not stimulation but simply “There’s a Reason.”