ssibility of deportation
on the charge of prostitution is sometimes utilized by jealous husbands
or rejected lovers. Only last year a Russian girl came to Chicago to
meet her lover and was deceived by a fake marriage. Although the man
basely deserted her within a few weeks he became very jealous a year
later when he discovered that she was about to be married to a
prosperous fellow-countryman, and made charges against her to the
federal authorities concerning her life in Russia. It was with the
greatest difficulty that the girl was saved from deportation to Russia
under circumstances which would have compelled her to take out a red
ticket in Odessa, and to live forevermore the life with which her lover
had wantonly charged her.

May we not hope that in time the nation's policy in regard to immigrants
will become less negative and that a measure of protection will be
extended to them during the three years when they are so liable to
prompt deportation if they become criminals or paupers?

While it may be difficult for the federal authorities to accomplish this
protection and will doubtless require an extension of the powers of the
Department of Immigration, certainly no one will doubt that it is the
business of the city itself to extend much more protection to young
girls who so thoughtlessly walk upon its streets. Yet, in spite of the
grave consequences which lack of proper supervision implies, the
municipal treatment of commercialized vice not only differs in each city
but varies greatly in the same city under changing administrations.

The situation is enormously complicated by the pharisaic attitude of the
public which wishes to have the comfort of declaring the social evil to
be illegal, while at the same time it expects the police department to
regulate it and to make it as little obvious as possible. In reality the
police, as they themselves know, are not expected to serve the public in
this matter but to consult the desires of the politicians; for, next to
the fast and loose police control of gambling, nothing affords better
political material than the regulation of commercialized vice. First in
line is the ward politician who keeps a disorderly saloon which serves
both as a meeting-place for the vicious young men engaged in the traffic
and as a market for their wares. Back of this the politician higher up
receives his share of the toll which this business pays that it may
remain undisturbed. The very existence