The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-12-12

MEN ARE TO ELAINE.

prostitution cannot be suppressed. and
will not be licensed; that all attempts at
its suppression only serve to transfer the
evil to tenement and apartment houses,
where it does more harm t81an before.
Probably Byrnes is right. A leading
priest of the Roman Catholic church in
prohibition state once said that he pre-
ferred public bars ara saloons to
tenement house Jugs and domestic
whisky stills, which always multi
piled amongst his flock vixen saloons were
transiently closed. The New York Sun
tells the dismal truth when it says that
every house of ill-fame could be shut up
by the police and the inmases.brought into
cour: the next morning. Nevertheless
this is not done in New York; nor in any
city in christendom. Prostitution is less.
proportionately to the population, in New
York than in any foreigp city, and it is
not manifested so openly as abroad. In
London its openness in thu sense Of street.
walkers who accost you escites the aston
ishment of Americans. 1T was tolerated
forty or fifty years ago in New York to
even a greater extent than now, and was
| far more offensive in its display.
The mayor of Pittsburg has undertaken
to solve the social problens of prostitution
| by closing up summary all ''the dis
| orderly houses" of the tosn. He makes
| this experiment against hSs own judgment
at the demand "of ministers and other
| citizens that he enforce che law against
| such resorts in its extreme severity, the
charge having been made shat by tolerat-
ing the evil the Pittsburg police were prac-
tically licensing it,"
The same charge is made against the
| police of New York, and tie Sun makes .
| square, frank answer to the question why
the police OF New York cisy do not make
| a similar raid to that executed IN Pitts
burg. The Sun says that generous and en-
lightened public sentiment would not
| justify the police in a proceeding SO violent
for the following reasons:
These places do not create sice. Vice creates
| them. If their wretched inmates are driven out
| of tho houses in which tlsey now live, the.
| must find residences elsewhere. Even if they
were all killed or sent to psison for life, their
| places would be supplied by tf,e same infamy of
! men which sent them down into degradation.
aud the police could no more stop the source OK
| the new supply than they could dam up the
source of the old. They can punish the exist
| ing feminine victims, but they cannot whiten
the black hearts OF the mazculine despoilers
which keep up their numbers in fixed ratio to
| the whole population.
The truth is that men are ashamed to make
a woman alone punishable COR an offense OF
| which q man is equally guilty. 1t is not fair.
| 1t outrages the sense of Justice in men, II
society is determined to cuEs this terrible dis
ease. it must cease to discrim Inate between men
and women after its present fashion. 1t must
impose the same legal ana social penalties on
both the SHINING man and the SHINING woman.
| 1t must make the vice equally punishable by
whichever practiced. The sense OF justice in
men is already put to a painful strain even
by the restraining severity OF the police upon
these wretched victims of masculine lust.
That is the explanation of tse public consent
| to the liberation of the social evil, The police
merely represent the sentiment OF mon. The
necessity Of providing safeguards for the public
health aud public order requires q discrimina-
ton against the women whSch in itself 10
harsh punishment, and the social ostracism to
which they must submit is a powerful deterrent
from vice that is not applied 10 their seducsrs
and associates among men.
Hence this liberation must continue in the
form OF secluding the evil so far as practicable,
or it must be replaced by the direct legal recog-
milton and licensing of vice AZ a social necessity
SO long as the moral standards OF vast numbers
of men remain they are now. This il the
alternative. Both courses are shameful enough
to men.
The only effectual cure for the disease is to
raise the moral standard of men, and it ia a
remedy to be applied by the cslurch and not by
the state. Make all men good and there will DO
no bad women. Even as it Is, vice Is rare among
women compared with men
This is a square. frank answer, and in
our judgment it is the truth. Men are re-
sponsible primarily for PROSTITUTION, and
yet society refuses to impose the same
legal and social penalties upon SHINING
men and SHINING women. Society within
and without law discrirainates between
men and women in this illegal and Illicit
sexual association. and antil society is
ready to make the man az odious socially
and legally as it does the ogending woman,
society will continue to tolerate and Sc
clude the evil of prostitution. The moral
standard of the vast majoFity of men is SO
low that society is not ready to cease its
legal discrimination between the offending
men, whose lusts are Standing bid for
the multiplication of prostitutes. and the
victims and sexual confeaerates OF those
men.
Men are to blame; ara primarily re-
sponsible; they will not DIAL manfully by
the evil. They continue 10 discriminate
between the sexes who maintain the evil,
and so long as society does this society will
tolerate prostitution, and will not push its
discrimination, social ana legal. against
the offending women to further extent
of cruelty and outrage. The sexes must
be held to like responsibility or you cannot
get humane men to persiss in extending
one-sided social and legal persecution.
The whole wretched neral logic of the
present situation is as gotten as that
which makes US in some states prohibit
under fine and imprisonment the sale of
| ardent spirits and yet doe1 not make il an
| offenss for a man to offer a premium to a
| leuor seller to break the law for the salts
| faction of the drinker WHO knows that
| the sale is illegal. A lnan buying goods
| he knows to be.stolen is neld TO punish
ment; i: TO sell liQuS illegally is an ottense
! why IS not in equity t5e purchase of
| liquor, knowing 1t TO be illegally sold, an
! ottense? The logic of prohibition is al
| ways lame when it punishes the liquor