The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-02-18
JEROME ON EAST SIDE HOMES.
Describes the Folly of Present Laws
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Concerning "the Social. Evil"
 "Yes," says MT. Jerome, while his chair revolves nervously five or six times, then settlees suddenly, as if to an accustomed place; ives, we see about three thousand of these people down there annually in the evening hours between and g. The saddest things we handle are the cadet cases The Sadie Wolff case, as you know, has been the most notorious. But, you know, all such cases must be sifted to the bottom, and we often find that the Ghetto people are sadly deceived in their, belief in their daughters. Girls frequently go the wrong road for econ- omic reasons because they see other girls who are gaining large sums of money and who have elegant clothes and jewels, while they have only the pitiful wages earned at the factories and stores. know it is popularly supposed that the first misstep is us- ually betrayal by a girls lover, but in most cases here it is not so. Worldly considerations are the lure, and I don't know, after all, as it can be won- dered at. Few girls down here are sat- isfied at earning $6 a week scrubbing floors, when they see their friends all around them getting much more. It is only human nature. And the tribute these unfortunate women have to pay to the wardman, the professional bondsman, etc., is a blot on the face of our. civilization. don't believe in lega- lizing prostitution, but I would like to repeal the laws that make it a crime. This evil should be treated as vice. The soliciting that occurs on the stoops and from the windows, and the mad re- yelling that goes on by night, I would punish as a public nuisance; but the penal law is inadequate and will never suppress. These women have sorrows enough. wouldn't lay feathers weight more on them then they have already. I must say have a great deal of sympathy for them. remember once when Twas a youngster coming home from Havana on board ship with an old man named Zimmerman. One star lit night on deck the old man and got confidential, and expressed my ver- dant opinion rather strongly on a topic of which I was then wholly ignorant. Old Zimmerman looked at me pitying- 1y. Boy said he, I want to tell you something. There are more kinds of virtue than one in the world I have learned the truth of that aphorism among the fallen women of the Ghet- to. While they are physically unchaste, they have many noble characteristics; in fact, they are women, good, bad and indifferent, just like other women. When they don't take to drink or opium they really live more decently than they have ever lived in their squalid homes, and they are treated better by the men they live with than they have ever been treated before.
 ''Wllen they escape the drinking habit they often marry good men, and become good wives and mothers. I have known a number of instances where men have come here from the west, fallen in love with such girls, married them and taken them to a new environment, where their pasts are unknown, and happy married life en- sues.
 . T insist that our penal statutes against prostitution debaunch our sys- tenn. You can't stop this evil. What can be done for the unfortunate women who are leading this life? Nothing. Only protect them from the evils of our present system. Kidding them only makes the evil more fragrant. What we must do is to build the rising genera ton up against this thing. Educate them, cherish them, gave them plenty of healthy amusement. Instead of great sums to build libraries there should be erected amusement halls, where young people may go and enjoy themselves; where they may dance, and drink light wines and beer and cof- fee, while their elders sit about and amuse themselves as they like. The development and elevation of moral life-thats the library we need down here Good night. Come again."-A Tribune Interveiw.