Omaha daily bee., 1908-05-01
PREACHER SICK OF FAKERS
Rev. G. ". savidge Advocates Sanity
in Curbing Vice.
APPEAL TO SENSE ON SOCIAL EVIL
want Creatures Confined in District,
So that They May DO the Mini
mum Amount of Harm to
the Community.

'In my Judgment. the bad woman ques-
ton Is in the worst condition II has been
s,nce I came to Omaha twenty-six years
aeo" said Rev. Charles W. SRvidge, pastor
and founder Of the Peoples church. And
this is so. because a few unthinking and
overzealous people who call themselves re-
formers have talked too much.
when Elmer Thomas stands up with
Police Judge Crawford and says these
women should be run out of the Arcade and
similar houses in the prescribed district
he does q terrible injury to his city, that he
processes so passionately to love- and re-
fleets a gross lack OF study Of his subject
When wiiber Crafts. who knows nothing
about Omaha nor any other city except
as he catches a glimpse Of it on his flying
visits, comes here and says the millennium
has come because these women are scat
tered all over the city. he ought to 90 and
knock his head against the stone pavement.
II think my record in this city will permit
me to speak plainly of this or any other
question without my motives being i'm
pugped. 1 have gone into this thing and
am prepared to talk Of IT, 1 had man
get me the names and addresses of every
bad woman in Omaha and from that learn
that since the women were run out OF the
prescribed cribs they are scattered through
out our best residence districts and they
do not IN some cases maintain a residence
longer than a week It's fitting from this
place to that. spreading their odium.
Pats Question TO Sane Men.
Now. in all candor, ask the sane, SEN
sible, thinking men and women Of Omaha,
those who really care something beyond the
limit OF promoting some selfish political or
business scheme, is this the best condition?
Does this state Of affairs tend toward cor
rectinE an evil or magnifying it?''
"Of course, there is but one answer to
that question. The best way so far
as experience and the best regulation in
any city In the United States has taught,
60 handle this evil is to have it under police
surveillance, have 1t concentrated where the
law OF the city can lay its hand on it.
That is simply not possible under present
conditions And 1 want to say that those
persons or concerns that are constantly
hammering Chief Of Police Donahue, or
wailinE for a grand jury to deal with this
evil, are doing so for some other reason
than the welfare OF Omaha. They have
sinister motive somewhere.
only a few months ago, we had ii
drummed in our ears that the police were
recreant to their duty, because many such
women were occupying houses in residence
districts. The police corrailed them. Then
the hue and cry arose for the abandonment
OF those cribs and the women were scat
tered. Now the same old cry Is raised for
their concentration.
Really. II It were not so serious a thing
It would be ludricrous. 1t is a shame to
bat about the sacred interest and welfare
of a community in such fippant manner
~ could tell these persons that some Of
the women they run out of that neither
world are today occupying houses in dis
tricts where only the strictest respectability
is supposed to exist"