The Colorado statesman., 1912-05-25
VICE IN CHICAGO
NOTED socloLoolsT SPEAKS TO
LARGE CROWD AND TELLS Me-
GRoEs TO PROTECT THEIR
GIRLS AND WoMEN-DlscRIM
ATING LAWS IN WINDY CITY.

Chicago. Ill-Dean Sumner, the not
ed sociologist and chairman of the
Vice Commission of Chicago, address
ed mass meeting of negroes held un-
der the auspices of the Western
league, organized for the protection
of colored women, at the Odd Fellows
hall.
Among other speakers was Mrs. Ce-
liza Parker Wooley the staunch friend
and social settlement worker among
colored people.
Dean Sumner, after an introduction
by Father Massey of the st. Thomas
Episcopal church, Immediately
plunged into his subject: How to
save our colored girls" He stated
that the subject of vice was not
race question, and he disliked very
much to discuss 1t along those lines,
but 1t is very evident that the moral
conditions in Chicago and many 9TH
ers warrant immediate steps to eradi-
cate vice and change the moral situa-
tion among the colored people.
He gave in detail facts and figures
listing in Chicago from segregated
vice.
According to police regulations
there are districts set apart for the
practice of prostitution, and it is gen
orally located in colored neighbor-
hoods. Consequently, those who will
not submit to their families being sur
rounded by such intolerable conditions
are forced to move into more desirable
neighborhoods; and those who are un-
able to avail themselves of this oppor-
tunity-which seems to be their only
alternative-are compelled to remain
with their young girls and children of
a tender age, completely immersed in
an ocean of vice and corruption of the
most degrading sort.
In one segregated vice district there
are 1,475 colored children, and besides
coming into unavoidable contact with
the lowest and most degraded kind of
prostitutes, thieves, robbers and muir
derers, they are permitted to frequent
these resorts and run errands for the
inmates. Such conditions are out
rageous, intolerable and should not be
| permitted for a moment.
Upon these facts Dean Sumner laid
great stress, stating that such condi-.
tions would not be tolerated by white
people for an instant Moreover, there
| is law upon the statute books of Illi-
nois which prohibits white girls or
women from working or acting in any
capacity as a servant in a house Of
prostitution; while colored girls and
women at any age beyond sixteen are
permitted with the greatest of free
dom to work as servants, he said.
THE Everleigh club alone employs
fifty-two colored servants, many of
them girls and women. Is this right :?
Shall this crowning shame of the age
be allowed to continue, Go unrebuked,
unchecked without a vigorous protest
| from our leading colored citizens to
the public authorities, the mayor, city
council and the state legislature?
There is no doubt but that such law
in substance is just and equitable.
But where is the justice and protec-
ton to human morals in such a law
as this? 1t is manifestly unjust, dis
criminatory, class legislation and
therefore unconstitutional. 1t should
be amended or repealed.
For the leaders of the race to su-
| pinely submit to the continuance of
such a law, is an obvious resignation
of their inherent rights and privileges
| of citizenship"