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Illustration shows a woman wearing a red dress, holding money, standing between the "Health Department Bureau of Licences and Inspection" and an opening in a wall labeled "Graft". In a cut-away showing the scene behind the "Graft", the man (probably a plainclothes officer) who collects the money through the opening in the wall is passing money to a uniformed officer, who in turn passes the money to a large hand (probably that of a politician) entering the frame from above; it is a wild scene with a woman lying on a table, the body of a man stabbed to death beneath the table, a man rolling dice, others drinking, and a shooting taking place in the background. While the woman in red hesitates, the implication is that she has no choice, but to pay the graft.
Creator
Gordon Grant
Date
January 15, 1913
Repository
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Caption: She is here. Man is responsible for her. His laws against her and her traffic but afford opportunity for police extortion. You know this. You may wince at the idea of “regulation”, but is not regulation preferable to the vilest forms of graft? Of two evils, must the greater be chosen?

“The scarlet woman – whom shall she pay?,” Illus. in AP101.P7 1913 (Case X) [P&P], Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

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