Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1912-06-20

liquor should be sold in any disreput-
able house. The difficulty of enforc-
ing such an order is greatly increased
because such houses, as we'll as the
questionable ~dance-halls commonly
sell liquor under a federal license.
The aggregate annual profit of the
two hundred and thirty-six disorderly
saloons recently investigated in Chi
cago by the Vice Commission was $4,-
100000. This profit on the sale OF
liquor can be traced all along the line
in connection with the white slave
traffic and is no less disastrous from
the point of view of young men than
of the girls.
A Menace of Mlitarisn1.
During the recent military encamp-
menJ in Chicago, large numbers OF
young girls were attracted to it by
that glamour which ever surrounds the
soldier. On the complaint of several
mothers, Investigators discovered that
many of the girls Were there without
the knowledge of their parents, some
of them having literally climbed out
the windows after their parents had
supposed them asleep. A thorough
investigation disclosed not only an in
crease of business in the restricted
districts, but the downfall of many
young girls who had hitherto been
thoroughly respectable and able to
resist the ordinary temptations of city
life, but who had completely lost their
heads over the glitter of a military
camp. One young girl was seen by
an investigator in the late evening
hurrying away from the camp. She
was so absorbed in her trouble and SO
blinded by her tears that she fairly
>ran against him, and he heard her
praying as she frantically clutched
the>~ beads around her neck, ooh,
Mother of God, what have l done!
What have ! done!" The Chicago en-
campment was finally brought under
control through the combined effor,s
Of the park commissioners, the city
police, and the military authorities,
but not without a certain resentment
from the last toward civilian intec-
ference" Such an encampment may
be regarded as an historic survival
representing the standing armies
sustained in Europe since the days Of
the Roman Empire. These large
bodies of men, deprived of domestic
life have always afforded centers in
which contempt or at least indiffe'-
ence to the chastity of "the women
of the lower classes" has been foster
ed. The~ older centers of militarism
have established prophylactic meas.
ures destined to protect the health OF
the soldiers but evince no concern for
Che fate of the ruined women. The
primary difficulty adheres in the
withdrawal of such large number of
men from normal family life and
hence from the domestic restraints
and social checks which are operative
upon the mass of men.
|, The great peace propagandas have
emphasized the unjustifable expense
involved in the maintenance of the
standing armies of Europe, the social
waste in the withdrawal of thousands
of young men from industrial, COM
mercial and professional pursuits in
! to the barren negative life of the bar
racks. They might go further and
lay stress upon the loss of moral
sensibility, the destruction Of roman
tic love, the perversion of the longing
for wife and child, all so necessary
to the stability and refinement Of tie
social order.
Would commerclaIized Vice Disappear
Under Socialism?
In addition to the large social move
ments for the betterment of public
health, for the establishment of tenn
perance, for the promotion of equal
suffrage, and for the fastening OF
peace arbitration, is the worldwide
organization and active propaganda of
international Socialism. 1t has always
included the abolition of this ancient
evil in its program of social recon
struction, and since the publication of
Bebel's great book, nearly 80 years
ago, the leaders Of the Socialist party
have never ceased to discuss the
economics of prostitution with its
psychological and moral resul .ants.
The Socialists contend that CONNER
! ciaIized vice is fundamentally a q"es-
ton of poverty itself; that it persists
not primarily from inherent weak
ness in human nature, but is vice