The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-02-06
.REFORMERS CHALLENGED
is HONOLULU WICKED ABOVE
ALL CITIES?
Are We Not Bad Enough without
Being misrepresentation Anteceden
AS Well as Present Conditions.

EDITOR STAR: Honolulu just now
seems to be inundated with reformers.
No doubt we can stand 1t If the reform
ers can. No doubt, also, there is plenty
of room in Honolulu for reform. There
is only one city in existence where there
isn't and that is the city lying four
square described by ST. John.
But while we ought to hear, with
humility, warnings, suggestions, and
even reproaChes, for those things which
ought to be reformed, it seems to me
it is asking a little too much too en-
dure without protest ISLANDERS and false
statements the careless CONGRATULATIONS
of imperfectly informed people who
pose as reformers.
Miss Alderman and Miss Murcutt
have taken it upon themselves to make
repeated statements regarding the sa-
looms and the social evil existing in
Honolulu which are altogether mislead-
ing and false in the impression they
give. And If they make such state
ments here where they are necessarily
though perhaps unconsciously res
trained by the general information of
those they address on the subject what
false impressions may they not make
when they leave here and address per-
sons who have not the local knowledge
to correct the loose CONGRATULATIONS they
may make?
As for the saloons, these women
would abolish them altogether, and
with the saloons, the whole liquor ira
ffic. On that issue l will not disagree
with them. But since nowhere in any
English speaking country has the Ii
quor traffic been abolished, surely Ho-
nolulu is not to be held up as wicked
beyond all the cities of Christendom
because it has not abolished the traffic.
AS there is probably not a city of its
size owing allegiance to the Stars and
stripes which has not saloons, open or
covert, we can hardly be charged with
the objectionable sin. unless we have
been delinquent in efforts above most
other cities or the best of other cities
Now l have been in hundreds if not
thousands of saloons in various places
and l can say candidly that in no city
or town in which | have ever been, did
the saloons average as few objection
able features as the saloons of Homo
lulu. And as for the liquor traffic a
term which includes more than the sa-
looms, | think the police records will
bear me out in the statement that it is
the Illicit part of the traffic, the part
which the police are doing probably all
that it is possible for them to do that is
responsible in Honolulu. rather than
the saloons, for the degrading and pal
pably demoralizing effects of the liquor
of any other city l know anything
about, except cities in prohibition states
or where prohibition is the local policy.
If this is true, these women ought in
fairness and candor to show us how to
get rid of the illicit traffic, rather than
to rave about our saloons.
But in regard to the social evil
think these women are more censurable
because of their statements regarding
1t, than they are as to their statements
regarding the saloons. The impression
created by their statements at least as
these statements are reported in the
newspapers, is that that the social evil
here is worse, more Haunting, more de-
moralizing and degrading than any,
where else. They speak of 800 Slaves
at IWilei, and go on to declare that
these are slaves in the legal sense.
Now all of these statements are I'M
true. There are not 300 prostitutes at
Iwilei and they are not slaves in any
legal sense, or in any sense other than
the general one that one is a slave to
passion or to vice. In other words their
slavery cannot be relieved by legal
enactment, unless legal enactment can
abolish prostitution, which it has never
done yet
None but registered prostitutes are
permitted to ply their profession at
/ lwilei and as there are not two thirds
of 800 registered prostitutes in Homo
| lulu, there cannot be 800 at Iwiel, a
fact which Miss Murcutt and Miss
Alderman could easily ascertain. That
prostitutes are segregated in Honolulu
to greater extent than in most cities
in true. But Honolulu is not the only
place in which they are segregated To
very great extent. And there is this
difference between segregation here
and segregation elsewhere. In Honolu-
Ia only the vicious, the prurient and the
few persons directly concerned in it see
the segregation; the innocen, and the
virtuous have no occasion. to go near it,
In other cities, the segregation is al
most If not always in quarters where
those who would not, must sometimes
| see it.
Whether it should be segregated or
not may be a debatable subject 1t al
ways has been more or less segregated
| Vice always segregates itself. Prosti-
tuition in Jerichoa seems TO have been
segregated on the city wall and Calet
and Joshua, apparently had no Difficult.
~ in finding where.
lwilei like everything else has reasons
| for its existence. Not necessarily good
or sufficient reasons. But no fair or
reliable judgment of the situation car
be obtained without knowing these rea-
sons. Following the great fire of a
year ago which destroyed the quarter
in which this form of vice had for years
/ segregated itself, there were daily and
almost hourly complaints TO the then
marshal, from citizens in all parts of
| the city that women of this class had
located and We're plying their trade in
the neighborhood from which these
complaints came. The city experienced
for a few months just what it was not
to have this vice segregated. A con-
sensus of opinion at that time would
| certainly have been in favor of segre-
cation.
As for official participation in the
matter, let Miss MurcUt and Miss Ack-
erman read the Act 60 Mitigate" and
then say if officials are doing anything
except what the law has commanded
then to do. AS to the law itself, Opt
Mons may differ. But it has been on
the statute book for nearly forty years.
CITIZEN OF HONOLULU.
Honolulu February 6.