The Nome daily nugget., 1916-06-19

 has always dono so, will tho community be better off by having vice in a dozen that the restricted district is plague spot and an eye sore but If prostitution is to exist at all. and 1t seemingly cannot be prevented, Is it not better to have 1t where it will be under the direct surveil. lence of the law rather than scattered in dozen and one places. It is not doubted that the district attorney will make every possible effort to stamp it from the community, but If he is able to do SO he will be doing what has long proved to be practically impossible.
 If he does not succeed the situation will be exactly as 1t is with gambling which mas been prosecuted and prose- cuted but Is still in existence and but slightly abated. If we may accept gam bling as an indication of what may be expected from the suppressive efforts in this direction il would appear that She enforcement of the public vice laws will mean nothing more than that vice will be removed from its accustomed haunts to places where it will be less easily dis cerned.
 If we have an evil that cannot be eradcated. is it not better to keep it in such surroundings as will least ex- pose the young and innocent? IT the scarlet woman in public house of ill fame Is a menace to society, is she not an even worse menace if existing in private and secluded places? The dis trict attorney may drive her out of the brothei but it seems doubtful if he will eliminate her from the community. II he fails to do so the evil at which the law 1 Is aimed will remain We may not see l il so plainly as at present, but it will | be here just the same-and no less in- nocuous through being concealed. Con sldering the matter solely from the standpoint of the good of the community there is a serious doubt as to the ad- visibility of attempting to wholly elim- mate the demi-mondaine. Not only do we believe that efforts in that direction will fall to abolish prostitution. but we also believe that they will have decided tendency to create conditions which will jeopardi2e the safety of the innocent and virtuous and menace the homes of the 1 community besides assuring still further of the Eskimo. to whom moral iaxity is natural attribute. The Nugget has no moro desire to uphold prostitution than has the district attor- ney himself but We recognize 1t as an evil that will probably continue 10 exist. just as gambling exists. in spite of all that may be done to prevent it. Hence. come effective only in the degree that 1t will substitute concealed evils for public evils, matters had best be left as they are. Efforts made by official would be in the past have had no other effect than to leave an unwholesome stench in the public nostrils without
 batting the evil in the slightest degree. Instead each effort had only made mat ters worse
 We are but voicing the doubts of a large percentage of the decent. law abid- ing citizens of the community when we offer the opinion that the contemplated vice prosecution present little or no prospect of improving either the welfare or the moral tone of the community for the reason that they will not eliminate prostitution but will. on the contrary, create conditions which may result in even greater evils.