As for the worst offenders, the procurers, the committee urges that there should be relentless prosecution of them and the professional keepers of disreputable resorts. For the betterment of the police force in relation to the evil there are suggested a number of remedies for the existing conditions, such as the severe punishment of grafters, the constant rotation of patrolmen in the various districts, and the investigation of complaints by picked men from distant districts. Most interesting of all is the suggestion that women police officers be appointed to deal with the question of morals, and particularly to protect strangers on arrival. Why this important duty has thus far been left to volunteer effort in almost all of our cities passes understanding. First offenders ought, the committee thinks, to be invariably placed under the charge of women probation officers. We note also this suggestion:
To Federal authorities: A Federal bureau of immigration should be established in great distributive centers, such as Chicago, to provide for the safe conduct of immigrants from ports of entry to their destination. Efficient legislation should be enacted and present laws enforced in such a manner, as to the traffic in women within the boundaries of each state, and as thoroughly, as the Federal authorities have dealt with the international traffic.
Not unnaturally, it finds that the public health authorities could do much to better conditions if they would put an end to the wholesale dispensing of cocaine and morphine by certain druggists.
Finally, these investigators are convinced that much of the race friction in large cities is due to the vice problem, and it dwells vigorously upon the crying injustice of the Chicago authorities in invariably driving the prostitutes into the quarters occupied by colored people—in one instance into the section occupied by the homes, Sunday schools, and churches of the best class of colored people. One feature in the report appeals to Chicago’s pride. After all the terrible stories of her “levee” districts, the committee is certain that Chicago is “more moral proportionately to its population than most of the cities in her class.” Are we so sure that New York is—as Mayor Gaynor would have us believe? Has not the time come for adapting to this city some of the many admirable, practical, and constructive suggestions this report contains?