The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1918-12-10
Grand Jury Charged To
Examine Into Financial
And Criminal Status
OF City and County
CONTINUED from Page y


mate sum OF $33,000,000. A hear
ing was had upon the pleadings
in that case, certain testimony was
taken, and upon demanad of the
court a purported financial state
ment OF the City OF Ardmore was
filed in this court. The court de-
clined to render judgment as pray
ed for, and the suit was dismissed
1t is worth while that you invcsti-
gate this whole affair, together with
the testimony taken in the case.
Satisfy yourself as to these mat
ters, and report what you may find
that the people may know the truth
OF these matters.
Something more than two years
ago, | caused to be empanelled a
grand Jury for this county, and
charged them to look especially into
the moral conditions OF our citi-
zenship, and the enforcement ,ot
laws for protection and safeguard
ing OF the public morals.
Investigate Vice and Crime
When this country was provoked
into the World War some year and
a half go, and the finest young men
between the ages of Il and 81 years
we're called, and when these were
passed through rigid physical ex-
animation, we we're startled with
the announcement that even the
finest Of our fine young men were
unfit for immediate service, because
afflicted with yenereal disease, so
large a percentage that we were all
put to shame. Public opinion had
lullcd itself into the pipe dream OF
security, while the vipers OF vice
and viciousness were eating away
the very soul OF our whole social
fabric, destroying, like blighting
plague, the beauty and strength OF
our young manhood, befouling the
shrine of virtue, and assaulting the
sacred citadel of the motherhood OF
our county.
When that grand jury entered up
on it's labors, started out on the
hunt of such vice and crime, it was,
as you will be, confronted by every
apologist for what they are pleased
to term Social Evils" ! may be
pardoncd if, in this connection, !
quote literally from little pam
phlet lying before me, prepared by
Major Bascom Johnson, for and
on behalf of the Sanitary Corps, U.
S. N. A..
"American communities are no.
torious for their ostrich like atti-
tude on this subject. Most OF us
think that if we pass law and elect
some man to enforce it who has
never been in Jail, we have done
our full duty and may then attend to
our private business with child-like
confidence in the result"
"Of course, nothing is further
from the truth, particularly as re
CARDS enforcement of the laws
against prostitution. Every law
that interferes with business in be-
half of the public welfare has inn
arrayed against it all the
power, political and financial of the
interests interferred WITH Com
prostitution is one Of the
most profitable businesses that has
ever existed
Prostitution and Bootlegging
As 4 rllc prostitution runs hand
in hand with the illicit sale of intoXi-
eating liquor. Mutual interest be-
tween commercialized prostitution
and bootleggers and illici, liquor
dealers, has heretofore often result
ed in a working alliance between
the two. These interests, together
with certain financial interests. who
either own or hold mortgages on
such property, real estate owners,
and agents who may make easy and
eXorbitant profits, and
business firms or houses who sell
iewelry, fine clothing, silk hoisery,
and other luxuries to prostitutes
are loud in their denunciation OF
avs against prostitution. How Of
-en have you heard this upon our
own streets.
They give as the reasons the film
" argument in favor OF segregation
IS the only alternative of scatter
alton; or they fall back upon hy-
,ocritical sympathy of the poor girl
IL. -.-a.lL -.nr,-n = Lnnrired nf the !