Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-08-25
VICE IN YOUR CITY
(By H. n. Pringle)

ford Institute and many other tnstitu-
tons. The average education OF the
prostitute Is to the nth grade IN
school. and the average age when she
begins immoral acts is about sixteen
years. About $4,000 new girls are re-
uuired annually in the United States
to recruit the army Of 100000 profess
sional prostitutes.
This vice is secretly disseminating
syphilis and gonorrhea. which res
pective1y claim ten and seventy per
cent. of adult males as victims. The
scourge is transmitted to innocent
wives and children, where the after
math is % per cent of infant blindness,
50 per cent Of sterility and so per cent
of abdominal surgery on women.
There are 100000 syphilitics in our
country. while only 100000 are suffer
ing with tuberculosis. Missouri is the
only state in the Union which ever
legalized prostitution and that law was
repealed the next year (1s73), one
petition for repeal containing 100000
signatures.
m A National Purity Movement.
Medical science, sociology and bust
ness have laid bare the falsity, injus-
tice and loss of the old system Of toll
Grating and regulating vice. More
than 220 cities of 10000 population, or
more. in our country have closed all
brothels and more than half the states
of the Union have enacted injunction
laws. which facilitate such closing in
places where the municipal or county
authorities cling to the old system of
regulation. The "Stockade' is now
empty in Salt Lake City; the 100
room Crib" in Seattle has been de-
molished; Denver's infamous Market
Street and Chicago's Armour Avenue
have been cleansed; the San Francisco
"Barbary Cost" is now civilized, but is
your city On the white list?
1t is easy to prick the bubble of
police-regulated crime: of restrict
ed district" where perversion, cir
cuses. robbery. disease and liquor SELL
ing go: of an American Yoshiwari in
terspersed with the homes of the poor,
or of officials doing the best we are
able" with their mouths and taking
brides with their hands. Prostitution
is always largest in volume and worst
in quality in cities where there is Of
iiNioi ACS 0iatlSlt, % nave ODSSIV6u III
Washington, New Orleans, Louisville,
Erie and many other cities.
Churches Have a Duty.
OF course, it is the mayor and dis
trict attorney who should enforce the
law; but, If they are like Mayor
Schurtz and Abe Reuf of San Fran
cisco, they will not. If there is
graft system like that under NORM, d.
rector of public safety at Pittsburgh,
when $1,600.000 was levied annually
from the red light district, your Of
ficers will not raid or prosecute. 1.-The
Almighty could not devise a system of
government" said President Harrison,
which would work we'll if everybody
went off and left it, but many Chris
tians are too busy in Office, mill or
shop to discharge their duty as citi-
zens. Bad men in politics and good
men out Of politics are making lots of
trouble. and I do not know which of
the two is worse. Any police force in
America will enforce the laws up to
the hilt, when the men at the top say,
60 to it," When the church is silent
on matters Of morals. compromise and
crookedness flnd 1t easier to do bust
ness at the city hall.
The church can not afford to leave
out of its sphere of activities these
moral and local issues which involve
the ruin or salvation of scores of souls
in its own parish. The average
church is a hundred times more inter-
ested. apparently. in obtaining a fine
choir or an elegant building than in
obtaining a clean town and safe
street, because it will expend one hun
dred times as much money for the for
mer, as compared with the latter.
When brothels, gambling places and
saloons flaunt their vices before law
respecting citizens and even the school
children of the city. and when officials,
sworn to enforce the laws, dictate who
may violate them and when and
where, the church has a tremendous
duty of utterance and action.