Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1916-10-02
A MEDICINE FOR FOOLS.

| MEDICINE FOR FOOLS.
| The mysterious stranger of the
| federal prosecutors, he who had been
! blackmailed Of $4,000 by wicked
women turns out to be prominent
druggist at Cedar Rapids man 81
years old. Some of the letters that
passed from him to the girls-who it
is stated are daughters of retired
farmers living in the vicinity of Cedar
Rapids-are illuminating on the sub
ject of "blackmailing" as connected
with wealthy victims" and the Mann
law. The question of who was VIC
timized is in argument. He says he is
It. The girls say they are victims.
There has been a very determined
opposition to the Mann Law ever since
it was found that the law not only in
Guided the agents Of white slave traffic
out gathered in those wealthy vic
Tins to whom white slave agents
pander. A widespread and vociferous
a
official in nigh position was one of the
first to feel the hand of the statute and
ever since a steadfast and continued
effort has been continuous to impress
the public with the false idea that the
law was a tool for blackmailers instead
Of check on immortality and a de-
Tense of womanhood. Without doubt
hlackmail has flourished since it be-
came crime under a federal statute
for immoral purposes. The wealthy
victim is an easy mark for the
CRATER. However no case has been
Yet advanced where wicked women
took decent man away from his
home for purposes of blackmail
There's a reason. He didn't go.
There is class of men who attain
to competence or wealth in later
middle life and imagine that the &C
quirement of such wealth puts them in
favored class. Those are the senile
victims OF chorus girls. However they
are not so contemplate as those elder
~ men who make use of their wealth
and Injuries they are able to command
in order 10 debauch youth. There is a
large class of the lattet kind. Posing
before the community as highly re-
spectacle citizens" they are scared to
death at the thought of exposure when
them pay and keep quiet. Others, torn
between their shame and their loss of
money break out with the wall Of
blackmail and try to save few dollars
from the wreck.
When man 81 years old, with
shrewdness and system sufficiently de-
veloped to have attained high bust
ness standing in his community pleads
what the FOUNDERS would call "the
baby act" after he has been nipped
he will have hard work arousing SYM
patty for himself or resentment and
opposition against the Mann law. On
the contrary those exposures should
strengthen public defense of the law.
Whoever the women are and whatever
they are they are surely as decent as
their partner in immortality. If they
are blackmailers there is a law to
punish them and they should be
punished. AS to that all decency will
agree but all decency will also agree
that the wealthy victim" and sue
cessful business man" is getting what
he has coming when he falls afoul of
the Mann law as a result Of what he
pleases to consider an "escapade' but
what the law classifes as a serious
criminal offense.
There is no fool so great as an old
fool who imagnes himself gay
lothario between so and three score.
Let them take the medicine of
fools It is the only effective
remedy The Mann law may not be
a. specific but it certainly shows
remedial qualities.