Revelations of organized vice in New York city, showing a systematic collusion between policemen and various women unparalleled since the days of the Lexow inquiry, were predicated on March 5 by Assistant District Attorney, James E. Smith.
The inquiry, which already has resulted in the indictment of Detective John J. Gunson, promises to involve officials higher up in the department, according to Smith.
"I have evidence," he said, "that one commanding officer of the police department was not willing to trust his subordinates in the collection of money from women and personally met the women or their representatives in public parks and collected the money himself."
Smith declared that the inquiry is bringing to light a flagrant and widespread "vice ring," the members of which are becoming richen. Their efforts to cover up evil conditions, he said, have resulted in an exodus of women and habitues of the "tenderloin." He told of frantic efforts to spirit witnesses out of the city.
Much evidence, he said, had been received from the Parkhurst Society, Rockefeller Foundation and Committee of Fourteen, which have conducted separate investigations. 7 A request for addresses of 500 alleged vice resorts, which Smith has announced are flourishing under police protection, was made to-day by Mayor Hylan. In a letter written to District Attorney Swann _immediately after his return from Palm Beach, the Mayor requested the information in' order that he might take the matter up with Police Comniissioner Enright. Swann consulted with Smith, who introduced the Mayor to a police official whose name was withheld.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.