The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-03-20
Topeka STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
FREDERIC J. HASkIN, Director.
Washington, D. c.
THE FEDERAL CLEANUP OF
AMERICAN CITIES.
Washington, ID. C.

Washington, D. c.. March 17.-That
there is not red light district To-Day
within an effective radius of any army
cantonment or naval station where
any considerable number of soldiers
or sailors are in training, is the ciaiin
of Raymond B. Fosdick, chairman Oh
the commission on training camp az
tivities
The commission makes the furtner
statement that commercial vice has
not been scattered by this actloh' put
has really been reduced to mini
mum. and that as result the per
centage of venereal disease among our
troons which is the greatest danger to
which they are exposed in training,
has been reduced in most OF the camps
to one or two per cent ana soihe,hie9
to less 1t is claimed that most OF the
venereal disease existing rs prought n,
by recruits from civil life, and not
contracted in the army. Tales TO tne
effect that these diseases are Wldeiy
prevalent in the camps, Ilke otheI
tales of the shooting OF desertefs anu
of wholesale drunkenness in the can
comments, are asserted to pc lies CIT
culated by enemy influence
Several months ago a series OF
Haskin letters described the drastic
methods by which the government Is
eliminating commercial wee from lne
vicinities of the environments ana
naval training stations. 1t was then
prophesied that the result would De
complete change of public attitude
toward the vice problem. Inns Ia
borne out by data now available
The federal commission wnich ma
been appointed to handle the vice
problem, sees it as problem IN
health and efficiency. NenereaI as
ease is a terrible epidemic. and one
which has been made worse by the
world war. Furthermore, there is no
excuse for it; it is hang over from
barbar ism Science has successfully
combated plague, yellow fever, ma
laria, and typhoid, but altho thoro!y
equipped to do so. it has been unable
to eliminate venereal disease, because
of the public attitude toward 1t
In Puritanica, America, especially,
has this public attitude been cause
of much avoidable death and suffer-
ing The question of eliminating wee,
which is primarily and essentially
| sanitary question, has been MADE
moral, a political and a financial one
| There is scarcely an American city
which has not passed thru successive
waves of reform and vice crusading,
| which have always subsidized without
eliminating the evil, because they
were not sincerely and scientifically
| conducted. The result has been to
develop in this country an attitude
| of skepticism toward all anti-vice
| measures. The very words reformer
and vice crusader have become jokes,
| and all persons proposing to eliminate
/ vice have been regarded either as in
sincere deElaSogueS or as prudeS.
Now the federal government, which
| has grown so much in power and
scope in the past year, has stepped in
| and demonstrated that science backed
| by power can stamp out this cpl
! demic just as surely and effectively
as it can eliminate typhoid or ma
! laria.- The carriers are persons of
certain known classes, just as the car
! ri rs of malaria are certain kinds of
mosquitoes. Red light districts are
removed in the same spirit and for
the same reason that stagnant pud-
| dies in which mosquitoes breed are
| removed. Scattering cases are fol-
lowed up and cured, just are scat
| tering cases of malaria in the Canal
zone. No claim is made that human
nature can be altered, that all
| vice, so-called, can be eliminated. But
the claim is made that by these meas
| ures the efficiency of the army can
| be increased by a considerable per-
centage, and much death and suffer
ing can be prevented.
This sane and civilized attitude
toward the great modern plague il
beginning to be reflected in the pres
of the various cities which have COM
in contact with the Federal commits
sion. Newspapers which formerly re
Trained with maidenly modesty from
mentioning the subject, now recoun
with large headlines the story of thei
reform. Among the southwestern cit
les, especially, freedom from tn
plague-spots of prostitution has be
|, come a point of somewhat belligeren
pride. and keen rivalry. As these liv
and huStling towns used to vie will
each other in population and business
they now make claims and counte
claims to which is the cleanes
and purest. Every one of them /
Caesars wife. When Mr.. Fosdick in
discreetly made the statement tina
San Antonio was the cleanest city il
the Southwest, he got a volley of pro
tests from other cities which com
PEELED him to modify the statement S
that it was more inclusive.
The frank attitude of the wester
cities toward the matter is reflecte
in the following account of the clean
up of an Arizona city, published in
p, local newspaper:
THE red light district was close
= with a bang at, O'Clock yeSterda
evening and this morning, 70
the first time in the city's fifty-od
years of existence, the lid has bee
r placed on commercialized prostitu
ton, the crimson lights have bee
| switched off and the squeaky piano
which for years have furnished tn
| shrill jangle of 'bearcat dance musi
= for the frequenters of the honky-ton
are silent-silent for all time, the wa
e Credit for this effective transforms
d ton is frankly given to the feders
power and the failure of local a.
tempts admitted.
: while many local attempts hav
e been made to close up the bad lands
4 it was not until the war departmer
, got behind the movement ths
it attained sufficient momentum I
successfully carry it thru
r That paragraph might stand as
succinct history of all the towr
which have been cleaned up since til
d war began.
# Tn. length to which the war de
partment is prepared to go in order I
make its will effective in this matte
was sharply realized by a northwes
, ern town which refused to clean up
response to a demand from the wa
department. The comma nding office