The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1913-05-19
THE AWFUL VICE
CONDITIONS IN
LARGE CITIES
ABSTRACT OF FORTHCOMING RE-
PORT BY A SPECIAL IHvEsTI.
GATOR FOR BUREAU OF SOCIAL
HYGIENE REVEALS AN ALARM
ING STATE OF AFFAIRS.
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS.

New York. May 1s.-F9fteen thou
sand women Of the under world-a
scarlet army no census has hereto
fore enumerated-p1y their trade IN
one borough of Greater New York
alone. This is the estimate of the
Bureau of Social Hygiene, an organi-
zation of which John D. Rockefeller
Jr.. is chairman. as made public to-
night in an abstract of a Forthcoming
report by George J. Kneeland, a special
investigator, after a. painstaking in
curry into conmercialized vice condi-
tons in Manhattan. extending over q
period of nearly ten months.
The report suggests no remedies
fixes no responsibility. That pha Sc
ports merely TO describe accurately
vice conditions in New York City with
the sole purpose of bringing out the
facts The hope is expressed that
subsequently, sattsfa Glory policy to
check the evil may be worked out
Mr.. Rockefeller himself contributed
the foreword to the volume. Future
reports will deal with conditions in
other large cities in America and with
methods and their results of combating
the problem in Europe. Existing pre-
ventive. reformative and corrective
agencies in New York are described
as wholly inadequate to their ask
Aside from q series of chapters deal
ing in minutes frankneSs with the op-
Grafton of notorious resorts through
out the city, the report treats of the
dance hall evil and Of the alarming
spread of the so-called massage par
lors. "Over three hundred of these
exist in the city" says the report. land
in many of them not the slightest eff
fort was made to cloak the immora.
nature Of the business. Operators for
these establishments are often pro-
Izy +ic;- S,o
pers." OF the dance halls the report
says:
The public dance hall was found
to justify the worst that has been
said of it. OF IS dances reported on
only five were characterized by the
investigators as decent Nor are these
dances attended only by hardened pro-
figates. Young girls-some innocent
Others, if not entirely innocent, at
any rate not wholly depraved. and
young men not yet altogether vicious,
attend the gatherings in search of
amusement and change. Many are
innocent working girls, who seek legit-
innate recreation. The similar element
in attendance is the hired cadets, who
attend with the cod blooded purpose
of finding new subject of debauchery
and of subsequent exploitation for
gain. These agents of conmercialized
vice are usually we'll dressed. we'll
hammered, and introduce themselves
politely and easily to strangers. They
often pretend to love a [ first sight and
exhibit marked devotion, by which the
girls are deceived and 90 which they
too often yield. When the seduction
Of the girls is accomplished. they are
put on the street, and their ruin is
complete"
Mr.. kneeIand argues. contrary to the
expressed views of so many investi-
eating bodies, that girls do not as
general thing take up life of shame
because of the pinch of poverty. He
holds that oftener they are victims in
their ignorance of the agents of COM
mercialiZed vice.
1T is idle" he says, ito explain away
the phenomena on the ground that
they are the results of the inevitable
weakness of human nature: human
weakness would demand far fewer and