Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1913-05-20
Exhaustive Report by the
Bureau of Social Hygiene
Lays Bare the Real
Causes of Vice. ....
DANCE HALLS COME IN
FOR SHARE OF BLAME
Designated as Principal Re-
cruiting Ground for the
Army Of Scarlet Women
in New York.

New York, May 19.-Fifteen thou
sand women of the under world "a
scarlet army no census has heretofore
enumerated-ply their trade In one
borough of Greater New York alone.
This is the estimate Of the bureau of
social hygiene, an organization OF
which John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Is
chairman, as made public last night in
an abstract of forthcoming report by
George ]. Kneeland, special investi-
gator, after painstaking inquiry into
commercialized vice conditions In
nearly ten months. ...
The report suggests no remedies,
fixes no responsibility. That phase ts
to be dealt. with later on. 1t purports
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 satisfactory policy to
check the evil may be worked out.
Mr.. Rockefeller himself contributed
the foreword to the volume. Future re-
ports will deal with conditions in other
large cities in America and with
methods and their results of combat
ting the problem in Europe. Existing
preventive, reformatiye and cor
rective agencies In New York are
described az wholly inadequate to their
task. 4. 5a &
Aside from series Of chapters deal
ing in minute frankness with the
operation of notorious resorts through
out the city, the report treats of the
dance hall evil and the alarming
spread of the so-called massage
parlors. "Over three hundred +
these exist in the city, says the
report, "and in many of them
not the slightest effort was made to
cloak the immoral nature Of the busi-
ness. Operators for these establish
ments are often procured by advertis-
ing in the newspapers" OF the dance
halls the report says: #
'The public dance hall was found
to Justify the worst that has been said
ef it. OF Is dances reported on only
five were characterized by the in
vestigators as decent Nor are these
dances attended only by hardened
profligates. Young girls-some inno-
cent-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 in
nocent, working girls, who seek legiti-
mate recreation. The sinister element
in attendance is the hired cadets, who
attend with the cold-blooded purpose
Of finding new subjects of debauchery
and Of subsequent exploitation for
gain. These agents of commercialized
vice are usually well dressed, we'll
hammered, and introduce themselves
politely and easily to strangers. They
often pretend to love at first sight and
exhibit marked devotion, by which the
girls are deceived and to which they
too often yield. When the seduction of
the girl is accomplished, they are put
on the street, and their ruin is COM
plete.' <.. -.
Poverty Not to Blame. ....
Mr.. Kneeland argues, contrary to
the expressed views of so many in
vestigating bodies, that girls do not
as a 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 commercialized vice.
1T Is idle" he says, ito explain
away the phenomena on the ground
that they are the results of the in
evitable weakness of human nature:
human weakness would demand far
fewer and less horrible sacrifices.
Most of the wreckage, and the
worst of it. is due to persistent,
cunning and unprincip1ed explcita-
tion: to the banding together in
Infamous enterprises of madame,
procurer, brothe1 keeper and liquor
vender to carry on deliberately
a cold blooded traffic for their Joint
profit, traffic, be it added, from
which the girl involved procures at the
most, with few exceptions, her bare
subsistence, and that only so lonaAas
she has trade value" .
The complete report is probably the
most exhaustive ever completed on the
o,,h{o0f