Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-03-21
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. 4.
In Which, Having Thus Provided
fer the Immediate Wants OF Our
Heroine. We Tear Back Mad
" to the Assistance of
Hur Hero


Our Hero.
! We left our hero, if you recall,
! seated on a little row of dots be
| tween the lowest-necked dress he
I had ever seen and the most beauti-
full eyes he had ever gazed into
Of course, as yet, he has not
/ seen our heroine's. -. But that
will come.
Both neck and eyes were advis-
| eddy so.
| There are certain things in life
that people will not talk about be
/ cause It Isn't Proper. There are
certain open sewers in life that
! people keep stepping over, eyes and
noses aloof, because to recognize
] these sewers Isn't Being Done.
Whereby the Things that Aren't
| Proper, and the open sewers have
all the best of it, Because, While
society sits by refusing to talk OF
/ to notice, the sewers grow more
foul. and the Improper Things wax
more improper yet. For it must be
| that the first step toward the cor
rection of an evil or an abuse, is
to admit its existence.
Otherwise one were in the posi-
ton of a man having appendicitis.
but refusing to acknowledge it
under the plea that appendices are
not proper. and to mention them
simply Isn't Being Done.
Whereby it would be merely ques'
ton Of time when his Borrowing
relatives gazed on his horizontal
visage through a sheet of plate
glass and murmured, Doesn't he
look natural"
Therefore. it is that to deny the
existence of the open sewer of the
social evil is TO deny the closed
sewer of the bDbonic plague. To
deny the dangers of malicious sex
is to deny the dangers Of smallpox
or infantile paralysis.
That it Isn't Proper. or Isn't Be-
ing Done, is as foolish, as fatuOus
and as fatal in the one case as in
the other. and more so.
Sex is at once the greatest bless
ing and the greatest menace of the
human race. 1t perpetuates the
human race and many of the dis
eases thereof. 1t is the flaming
plaything of youth, soaring the
young bodies of some. consuming
the Young bodies of others. 1t is
the greatest, and the least recog-
nized, pitfal1 on earth. \ Parents
will explain and elucidate 10 their
children nine of the Ten Command
ments. But when it comes to the
remaining seventh. they hem and
haw and it's late now and you'd
better go to bed and we'll talk
about that some other time. Where
by they. in their arrant cOwardice
sacrifice their children on the altar
of flaming shame with all the
sacerdotal cruelty of the Aztecs,
and none of the eXtenuating super
stition: for the Aztecs at least
thought they were pleasing God.
Parents such as l have mentioned
know they aren't pleasing their
God And they are too cowardly,
or too lazy. to try. Whereby they
leave their children to wander into
the mysteries of sex as child wan
ders into a moras6. And when
the fiithed little body is brought
back TO them. they weep and wall
and tear their hair and blame ev-
cry body except those that are to
blame-themselves
There are probably in this coun-
try one million women. married
and single. professional and unpro-
fessional, respectable and unre-
spectacle, supporting themselves
solely by their sex This makes sex
a greater industry than iron, or
steel, or railroading, CT cotton
planting, or potato-raising, or silk
worms. II makes il q greater men
ace than food, or famine or
drought; d greater danger than dis
ease, or murder. or burglary.
Why, then refuse TO recognize it,