Los Angeles herald., 1909-04-14
FLEMING TELLS GRAND JURY HOW PEARL
MORTONS PROTECTED' RESORT WAS CLOSED

A N interesting phase of the testi-
IN mony before the grand jury was
"A that of throwing light on the clos
ing up of the famous resort conducted
by Pearl Morton on New High street,
which had been operated for sixteen
wears and was popularity regarded as
lnassailable. The history of how this
came about was revealed in the tes-
timony of &c. ]. Fleming, former city
prosecutor, who said his attention was
called to the place by Rev. Dana w.
Bartlett.
~ was struggling along the best 1
could to accomplish the results" said
Mr.. Fleming. II had frequent confer
ences with the Rev. Dana w. Bartlett,
who is interested in settlement work in
that part of the city where those places
were, and telephoned for Mr.. Bartlett
to come up and talk to me about the
matter in December, 1907. He had been
there many times before, but ! sent for
him on this particular occasion. He
came I'D and we went over the situa-
ton, and he said that had the right
idea to accomplish the result, that Is, to
get rid of all the places, going at 1t step
hy step. But he said that he Thought
that I ought to start in on the parlor
houses, the biggest parlor house IN
town. because that was notorious; ana
that would do more than anything else
that l could do to break the power Oh
the social evil, because this particular
house and the woman who operated II
were looked upon as PROOF against IN
reference by the police.
Claimed Protection
1.-THE house was Pearl Morton's, stu
ated somewhere here on New High
street. He said she had been running
YT1n a
over the United States, and people said
she was protected. And I then, when
Mr.. Bartlett was present, called Mr,
Ford and Mr.. Alexander in, or Mr.. Ford
and Mr., Russell, the clerk, l don't re-
member which, but anyway, Mr.. Ford
was one of them-I never allowed the
men to go alone. So I sent Mr.. Ford
and one of the others up to Pearl MOT
toms with the instructions for them u
tell her to come down, and she came
down according to appointment, and
told her that she would have to close.
This was on December II, 1907 She
replied that she was operating a hote
and that she had as much right to ope'
rate her hotel as any other hote
keeper in town-she had license as
hotel keeper. I replied that she couio
call it a hotel or sanitarium or hospita
or what she pleased-whatever she
Cdlleu IL, LllS INSTITUTIONS "S"AN A -
close up.
"And then she said she knew toe
much; they couldn't close her up. So
replied that I probably knew some OF
the things she knew about some of the
public officials of the city, and because
she had strings on them she didn't have
any on me, fortunately for the CITY,
and she would have to close up, nc
matter what she knew.
Demands Answer Tuesday
"I said: Now, today is Friday and to-
morrow is Saturday and will give you
all day Monday to go and talk to your
LAWYERS She said: Davis & Rush are
my lawyers. I said: You go and tell
them that you have got to close, and
want your answer Tuesday. Well, fear
ing that she would fight, got detec-
tive from the district attorneys office
and had him go UP there that same
night and get evidence and had 1t
brought to me. Tuesday she brought
the answer that she would close up, On
Monday the politicians-several of them
came to me and told me that 1 could
not afford to close up Pearl Morton"
who was it came to you and told
you that?" asked District Attorney
Fredericks.
"Mr. Leo Youngworth," answered
Mr.. Fleming, told me that it would
wreck too many men, that she would
make a lot OF noise about 1t and there
would be trouble and scandal having
her going and telling about all that
happened to the business men in that
house. I told him that could not help
that: I didn't think the Republican
party would stand for the protection of