Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-04-17
SHALL WE PERPETUATE A TERRIBLE FAILURE ?

1t is quite plain-tO those who are following
the ccursc of the redlight bill in the territorial
senate that the only opposition to the bill is the
opposition of those who are willing to admit that
this city and other cities of the territory should
support prostitution.
They are willing to admit that there should
be a segregated district, that, i'm cOntrayention
to every moral and statutory law, the city should
tolerate the shame of women for the lust of men.
The only argument SO far brought up against
Senate Bill 1873, which proposes to combat pros
titution by injunction i'm the courts is the argu,
ment that to close up the segr gated district will
scatter vice through the city, and that the scat
tering of vice through the city will endanger the
homes
1t is an old, old fallacy; an old, old excuse
But the plain fact the terrible fact, the fact that
not member Of the legislature can deny, is that
segregation does not segregate. And the further
fact is that the establishment and maintenance
of segregated district does not decrease the
prevalence of sexual disease.
Facts and figures were cited last night on
both these points. They were not answered
they cannot be answered. James A. Rath, head
worker of Palama settlement, gave the health
committee of the senate the shocking Informal
ton that scores Of prostitutes are regularly ply
ing their trade outside the Iwilei district, and
that even when that district was at the height
of its reputation-or notOriety-as an estab
lished brothel-house section, only a small per
centage of the women of the streets were kept
therein. Will. ....... -. ...
Dr. VIC. Hobby gave the committee as shock
ing and unanswerable facts on the flourishing
of sexual disease even under conditions of segre
cation as nearly ideal as possible. H.
Every investigating commission, every city
every community i'm the country that has looked
this subject of commercialized vice squarely in
the face has come to the conclusion that segre
CATION is a pitiful terrible failure. 1t is fail
ure here; it is IA failure elsewhere.
And segregation is the only alternative that
has been suggested for the outlawing of vice un
der the Iowa Observation-Disclosures plan.
If segregation is a failure, is Hawaii to trust
to it? To trust to an outwOrn, illegal, danger
Gus, ineffective, corrupting and degenerating
system?
A physician from San Francisco made unsup
ported statements last night relative to the al
legged ineffectiveness of the Iowa plan. Yet the
to be the best yet conceived for battling against
vice. 1t is the plan in which Nebraska followed
Iowa, and Washington followed Nebraska, and
California followed Washington. Such a bill
applying to the District of Columbia has passed
the United States senate and been faVorably re
ported to the house. A recent summary of vice
crusading in the Literary Digest of January l l
1913, says "That segregation affords no solution
of the problem seems to be now generally con
ceded," and goes on with the significant com
ment that the Iowa plan is being adopted by cit
les that have made Investigations of the vice
question.
There is said to be yelled opposition to thu
bill because Honolulu is held to be pecularl!
situated as seaport town and with large mum
bers of unmarried men here The "st,apor
town" argument has been long ago exploded
There never was an American seaport town wild
er. for instance, than Seattle a few years agt
during the Alaska rush. Month for month tn
numbers of single men that flow; in and out o
that seaport are twenty times those in Honolulu
yet Seattle, after long and bitter experience
with the restricted district under close police Sl
,,aryision, has forever baniShed the redlight SCI
t;on and the state has just passed the Iowa in
sanction law Seattle a few years ago had tn
host established redlight district on the coast
e nor in the country. And vet it was this yer
4o,, If segregation that debauched the chic
e ,oIice and sent him to the penitentialy, con
- az receiving money from disordrrly an
,,soS and drove the maV0r of the cit