WHAT THE DOCTOR SAID
Officer Bobbie Burke found the case at the Men's Night Court to be less
difficult than his experience with Dutch Annie and her "friend." The
magistrate disregarded the pleading of Alderman Kelly to show the
"law-abiding" Morgan any leniency. The man was quickly bound over for
investigation by the Grand Jury, upon the representations of Captain
Sawyer, who went in person to look after the matter.
"This man will bear a strict investigation, Mr. Kelly, and I propose to
hold him without bail until the session to-morrow. Your arguments are
of no avail. We have had too much talk and too little actual results
on this trafficking and cocaine business, and I will do what I can to
prevent further delays."
"But, your honor, how about this brutal policeman?" began Kelly, on a
new tack. "Assaulting a peaceful citizen is a serious matter, and I am
prepared to bring charges."
"Bring any you want," curtly said the magistrate. "The officer was
fully justified. If night-sticks instead of political pull were used
on these gun-men our politics would be cleaner and our city would not
be the laughing-stock of the rest of the country. Officer Burke, keep
up your good work, and clean out the district if you can. We need more
of it."
Burke stepped down from the stand, embarrassed but happy, for it was a
satisfaction to know that there were some defenders of the police. He
espied Jimmie the Monk sitting with some of his associates in the rear
of the room, but this time he was prepared for trouble, as he left.
Consequently, there was none.
When he returned to the station house he was too tired to return to his
room in the boarding-house where he lodged, but took advantage of the
proximity of a cot in the dormitory for the reserves.
Next day he was so white and fagged from the hard duty that Captain
Sawyer called up Doctor MacFarland, the police surgeon for the precinct.
When the old Scotchman came over he examined. Burke carefully and
shook his head sternly.
"Young man," said he, "if you want to continue on this work, remember
that you have just come back from a hospital. There has been a bad
shock to your nerves, and if you overdo yourself you will have some
trouble with that head again. You had better ask the Captain for a
little time off--take it easy this next day or two and don't pick any
more fights."
"I'm not hunting for trouble, doctor. But, you know, I do get a queer
feeling--maybe it is in my head, from that brick, but it feels in my
heart--whenever I see one of these low scoundrels who live on the
misery of their women. This Jimmie the Monk is one of the worst I have
ever met, and I can't rest easy until I see him landed behind the bars."
"There is no greater curse to our modern civilization than the work of
these men, Burke. It is not so much the terrible lives of the women
whom they enslave; it is the disease which is scattered broadcast, and
carried into the homes of working-men, to be handed to virtuous and
unsuspecting wives, and by heredity to innocent children, visiting, as
the Bible says, 'the iniquities of the fathers unto the third and the
fourth generation.'"
The old doctor sat down dejectedly and rested his chin on his hand, as
he sat talking to Burke in the rear room of the station house.
"Doctor, I've heard a great deal about the white slave traffic, as
every one who keeps his ears open in the big city must. Do you think
the reports are exaggerated?"
"No, my boy. I've been practicing medicine and surgery in New York for
forty years. When I came over here from Scotland the city was no
better than it should have been. But it was an _American_ city
then--not an 'international melting pot,' as the parlor sociologists
proudly call it. The social evil is the oldest profession in the
world; it began when one primitive man wanted that which he could not
win with love, so he offered a bribe. And the bribe was taken, whether
it was a carved amulet or a morsel of game, or a new fashion in furs.
And the woman who took it realized that she could escape the drudgery
of the other women, could obtain more bribes for her loveless barter
... and so it has grown down through the ages."
The old Scotchman lit his pipe.
"I've read hundreds of medical books, and I've had thousands of cases
in real life which have taught me more than my medical books. What
I've learned has not made me any happier, either. Knowledge doesn't
bring you peace of mind on a subject like this. It shows you how much
greed and wickedness and misery there are in the world."
"But, doctor, do you think this white slave traffic is a new
development? We've only heard about it for the last two or three
years, haven't we?"
The physician nodded.
"Yes, but it's been there in one form or another. It caused the ruin
of the Roman Empire; it brought the downfall of mediaeval Europe, and
whenever a splendid civilization springs up the curse of sex-bondage in
one form or another grows with it like a cancer."
"But medicine is learning to cure the cancer. Can't it help cure this?"
"We are getting near the cure for cancer, maybe near the cure for this
cancer as well. Sex-bondage was the great curse of negro slavery in
the United States; it was the thing which brought misery on the South,
in the carpet-bag days, as a retribution for the sins of the fathers.
We cured that and the South is bigger and better for that terrible
surgical operation than it ever was before. But this latest
development--organized capture of ignorant, weak, pretty girls, to be
held in slavery by one man or by a band of men and a few debauched old
hags, is comparatively a new thing in America. It has been caused by
the swarms of ignorant emigrants, by the demand of the lowest classes
of those emigrants and the Americans they influence for a satisfaction
of their lust. It is made easy by the crass ignorance of the country
girls, the emigrant girls, and by the drudgery and misery of the
working girls in the big cities."
"I saw two cases in Night Court, Doc, which explained a whole lot to
me--drunken fathers and brutal husbands who poisoned their own
wives--it taught that not all the blame rests upon the weakness of the
women."
"Of course it doesn't," exclaimed MacFarland impetuously. "It rests
upon Nature, and the way our boasted Society is mistreating Nature.
Woman is weaker than man when it comes to brute force; you know it is
force which does rule the world when you do get down to it, in
government, in property, in business, in education--it is all survival
of the strongest, not always of the fittest. A woman should be in the
home; she can raise babies, for which Nature intended her. She can
rule the world through her children, but when she gets out to fight
hand to hand with man in the work-world she is outclassed. She can't
stand the physical strain thirty days in the month; she can't stand the
starvation, the mistreatment, the battling that a man gets in the
world. She needs tenderness and care, for you know every normal woman
is a mother-to-be--and that is the most wonderful thing in the world,
the most beautiful. When the woman comes up against the stone wall of
competition with men her weakness asserts itself. That's why good
women fall. It's not the 'easiest way'--it's just forced upon them.
As for the naturally bad women--well, that has come from some trait of
another generation, some weakness which has been increased instead of
cured by all this twisted, tangled thing we call modern civilization."
The doctor sighed.
"There are a lot of women in the world right now, Burke, who are
fighting for what they call the 'Feminist Movement'. They don't want
homes; they want men's jobs. They don't want to raise their babies in
the old-fashioned way; they want the State to raise them with trained
nurses and breakfast food. They don't see anything beautiful in home
life, and cooking, and loving their husbands. They want the lecture
platform (and the gate-receipts); they want to run the government, they
want men to be breeders, like the drones in the beehive, and they don't
want to be tied to one man for life. They want to visit around. The
worst of it is that they are clever, they write well, they talk well,
and they interest the women who are really normal, who only half-read,
only half-analyze, and only get a part of the idea! These normal women
are devoting, as they should, most of their energies to the normal
things of woman life--children, home, charity, and neighborliness. But
the clever feminist revolutionists are giving them just enough argument
to make them dissatisfied. They flatter the domestic woman by telling
her she is not enough appreciated, and that she should control the
country. They lead the younger women away from the old ideals of love
and home and religion; in their place they would substitute
selfishness, loose morals, and will change the chivalry, which it has
taken men a thousand years to cultivate, into brutal methods, when men
realize that women want absolute equality. Then, should such a
condition ever be accepted by society in general, we will do away with
the present kind of social evil--to have a tidal wave of lust."
Bobbie listened with interest. It was evident that Doctor MacFarland
was opening up a subject close to his heart. The old man's eyes
sparkled as he continued.
"You asked about the traffic in women, as we hear of it in New York.
Well, the only way we can cure it is to educate the men of all classes
so that for reasons moral, sanitary, and feelings of honest pride in
themselves they will not patronize the market where souls are sought.
This can't be done by passing laws, but by better books, better ways of
amusement, better living conditions for working people, so that they
will not be 'driven to drink' and what follows it to forget their
troubles. Better factories and kinder treatment to the great number of
workmen, with fairer wage scale would bring nearer the possibility of
marriage--which takes not one, but two people out of the danger of the
gutter. Minimum wage scales and protection of working women would make
the condition of their lives better, so that they would not be forced
into the streets and brothels to make their livings.
"Why, Burke, a magistrate who sits in Night Court has told me that
medical investigation of the street-walkers he has sentenced revealed
the fact that nine of every ten were diseased. When the men who
foolishly think they are good 'sports' by debauching with these women
learn that they are throwing away the health of their wives and
children to come, as well as risking the contagion of diseases which
can only be bottled up by medical treatment but never completely cured;
when it gets down to the question of men buying and selling these poor
women as they undoubtedly do, the only way to check that is for every
decent man in the country to help in the fight. It is a man evil; men
must slay it. Every procurer in the country should be sent to prison,
and every house of ill fame should be closed."
"Don't you think the traffic would go on just the same, doctor? I have
heard it said that in European cities the authorities confined such
women to certain parts of the city. Then they are subjected to medical
examination as well."
"No, Burke, segregation will not cure it. Many of the cities abroad
have given that up. The medical examinations are no true test, for
they are only partially carried out--not all the women will admit their
sinful ways of life, nor submit to control by the government. The
system prevails in Paris and in Germany, and there is more disease
there than in any other part of Europe. Men, depending upon the
imaginary security of a doctor's examination card, abandon themselves
the more readily, and caution is thrown to the winds, with the result
that a woman who has been O.K.'d by a government physician one day may
contract a disease and spread it the very next day. You can depend
upon it that if she has done so she will evade the examination next
time in order not to interfere with her trade profits. So, there you
are. This is an ugly theme, but we must treat it scientifically.
"You know it used to be considered vulgar to talk about the stomach and
other organs which God gave us for the maintenance of life. But when
folks began to realize that two-thirds of the sickness in the world,
contagious and otherwise, resulted from trouble with the stomach, that
false modesty had to give way. Consequently to-day we have fewer
epidemics, much better general health, because men and women understand
how to cure many of their own ailments with prompt action and simple
methods.
"The vice problem is one which reaps its richest harvest when it is
protected from the sunlight. Sewers are not pleasant table-talk, but
they must be watched and attended by scientific sanitary engineers. A
cancer of the intestines is disagreeable to think about. But when it
threatens a patient's life the patient should know the truth and the
doctor should operate. Modern society is the patient, and
death-dealing sex crimes are the cancerous growth, which must be
operated upon. Whenever we allow a neighborhood to maintain houses of
prostitution, thus regulating and in a way sanctioning the evil, we are
granting a sort of corporation charter for an industry which is run
upon business methods. And business, you know, is based upon filling
the 'demand,' with the necessary 'supply.' And the manufacturers, in
this case, are the procurers and the proprietresses of these houses.
There comes in the business of recruiting--and hence the traffic in
souls, as it has aptly been called. No, my boy, government regulation
will never serve man, nor woman, for it cannot cover all the ground.
As long as women are reckless, lazy and greedy, yielding to temporary,
half-pleasant sin rather than live by work, you will find men with low
ideals in all ranks of life who prefer such illicit 'fun' to the
sweetness of wedlock! Why, Burke, sex is the most beautiful thing in
the world--it puts the blossoms on the trees, it colors the
butterflies' wings, it sweetens the songs of the birds, and it should
make life worth living for the worker in the trench, the factory hand,
the office toiler and the millionaire. But it will never do so until
people understand it, know how to guard it with decent knowledge, and
sanctify it morally and hygienically."
The old doctor rose and knocked the ashes out of his briar pipe. He
looked at the eager face of the young officer.
"But there, I'm getting old, for I yield to the melody of my own voice
too much. I've got office hours, you know, and I'd better get back to
my pillboxes. Just excuse an old man who is too talkative sometimes,
but remember that what I've said to you is not my own old-fashioned
notion, but a little boiled-down philosophy from the writings of the
greatest modern scientists."
"Good-bye, Doctor MacFarland. I'll not forget it. It has answered a
lot of questions in my mind."
Bobbie went to the front door of the station house with the old
gentleman, and saluted as a farewell.
"What's he been chinning to you about, Burke?" queried the Captain.
"Some of his ideas of reforming the world? He's a great old character,
is Doc."
"I think he knows a lot more about religion than a good many ministers
I've heard," replied Bobbie. "He ought to talk to a few of them."
"Sure. But they wouldn't listen if he did. They're too busy getting
money to send to the heathens in China, and the niggers in Africa to
bother about the heathens and poor devils here. I'm pretty strong for
Doc MacFarland, even though I don't get all he's talking about."
"Say, Burke, the Doc got after me one day and gave me a string of books
as long as your arm to read," put in Dexter. "He seems to think a cop
ought to have as much time to read as a college boy!"
"You let me have the list, Dexter, and I'll coach you up on it,"
laughed Burke.
"To-day is your relief, Burke," said the Captain. "You can go up to
the library and wallow in literature if you want to."
Burke smiled, as he retorted:
"I'm going to a better place to do my reading--and not out of books
either, Cap."
He changed his clothes, and soon emerged in civilian garb. He had
never paid his call on John Barton, although he had been out of the
hospital for several days. The old man's frequent visits to him in his
private room at the hospital, after that first memorable meeting, had
ripened their friendship. Barton had told him of a number of new ideas
in electrical appliances, and Burke was anxious to see what progress
had been made since the old fellow returned to his home.
Officer 4434 was also anxious to see another member of his family, and
so it was with a curious little thrill of excitement, well concealed,
however, with which he entered the modest apartment of the Bartons'
that evening.
"Well, well, well!" exclaimed the old man, as the young officer took
his hand. "We thought you had forgotten us completely. Mary has asked
me several times if you had been up to see me. I suppose you have been
busy with those gangsters, and keep pretty close since you returned to
active service."
Bobbie nodded.
"Yes, sir. They are always with us, you know. And a policeman does
not have very much time to himself, particularly if he lolls around in
bed with a throb in the back of the head, during his off hours, as I've
been foolish enough to do."
"Oh, how are you feeling, Mr. Burke?" exclaimed Mary, as she entered
from the rear room.
She held out her hand, and Bobbie trembled a trifle as he took her
soft, warm fingers in his own.
"I'm improving, and don't believe I was ever laid up--it was just
imagination on my part," answered Burke. "But I have a faded rose to
make me remember that some of it was a pleasant imagination, at any
rate."
Mary laughed softly, and dropped her eyes ever so slightly. But the
action betrayed that she had not forgotten either.
Old Barton busied himself with some papers on a table by the side of
his wheel-chair, for he was a diplomat.
"Well, now, Mr. Burke--what are your adventures? I read every day of
some policeman jumping off a dock in the East River to rescue a
suicide, or dragging twenty people out of a burning tenement, and am
afraid that it's you. It's all right to be a hero, you know, but
there's a great deal of truth in that old saying about it being better
to have people remark, 'There he goes,' than 'Doesn't he look natural.'"
Bobbie took the comfortable armchair which Mary drew up.
"I haven't had anything really worth while telling about," said Burke.
"I see a lot of sad things, and it makes a man feel as though he were a
poor thing not to be able to improve conditions."
"That's true of every walk in life. But most people don't look at the
sad any longer than they can help. I've not been having a very jolly
time of it myself, but I hope for a lot of good news before long. Why
don't you bring Lorna in to meet Mr. Burke, Mary?"
The girl excused herself, and retired.
"How are your patents?" asked Bobbie, with interest. "I hope you can
show tricks to the Gresham people."
The old man sighed. He took up some drawings and opened a little
drawer in the table.
"No, Mr. Burke, I am afraid my tricks will be slow. I have received no
letter from young Gresham in reply to one I wrote him, asking to be
given a salary for mechanical work here in my home. Every bit of my
savings has been exhausted. You know I educated my daughters to the
limit of my earnings, since my dear wife died. They have hard sledding
in front of them for a while, I fear."
He hesitated, and then continued:
"Do you remember the day you met Mary? She started to say that she and
Lorna could not see me on visiting day. Well, the dear girls had
secured a position as clerks in Monnarde's big candy store up on Fifth
Avenue. They talked it over between them, and decided that it was
better for them to get to work, to relieve my mind of worry. It's the
first time they ever worked, and they are sticking to it gamely. But
it makes me feel terribly. Their mother never had to work, and I feel
as though I have been a failure in life--to have done as much as I
have, and yet not have enough in my old age to protect them from the
world."
"There, there, Mr. Barton. I don't agree with you. There is no
disgrace in womanly work; it proves what a girl is worth. She learns
the value of money, which before that had merely come to her without a
question from her parents. And you have been a splendid father ...
that's easily seen from the fine sort of girl Miss Mary is."
Mary had stepped into the room with her younger sister as he spoke.
They hesitated at the kindly words, and Mary drew her sister back
again, her face suffused with a rosiness which was far from unhappy in
its meaning.
"Well, I am very proud of Mary and Lorna. If this particular scheme
works out they will be able to buy their candy at Monnarde's instead of
selling it."
Bobbie rose and leaned over the table.
"What is it? I'm not very good at getting mechanical drawings. It
looks as though it ought to be very important from all the wheels," he
said, with a smile of interest.
Spreading out the largest of his drawings, old Barton pointed out the
different lines.
"This may look like a mince pie of cogs here, but when it is put into
shape it will be a simple little arrangement. This is a recording
instrument which combines the phonograph and the dictagraph. One
purpose--the most practical, is that a business man may dictate his
letters and memoranda while sitting at his desk, in his office, instead
of having a machine with a phonograph in his private office taking up
space and requiring the changing of records by the dictator--which is
necessary with the present business phonograph. All that will be
necessary is for him to speak into a little disc. The sound waves are
carried by a simple arrangement of wiring into his outer office, or
wherever his stenographer works. There, where the space is presumably
cheaper and easier of access than the private office, the receiving end
of the machine is located. Instead of one disc at a time--limited to a
certain number of letters--the machine has a magazine of discs,
something like the idea of a repeating letter. Automatically the disc,
which is filled, is moved up and a fresh disc takes its place. This
goes on indefinitely, as you might say. A man can dictate two hundred
letters, speaking as rapidly as he thinks. He never has to bother over
changing his records. The girl at the other end of the wire does that
when the machine registers that the supply is being exhausted. She in
turn uses the discs on the regular business phonograph, or, as this is
intended for large offices, where there are a great many letters, and
consequently a number of stenographers, she can assign the records to
the different typists."
"Why, that is wonderful, Mr. Barton!" exclaimed Burke. "It ought to
make a fortune for you if it is backed and financed right. Why didn't
anyone think of it before?"
Barton smiled, and caressed his drawing affectionately.
"Mr. Burke, the Patent Office is maintained for men who think up things
that some fellow should have thought of before! The greatest
inventions are apparently the simplest. That's what makes them hard to
invent!"
He pointed to another drawing.
"That has a business value, too, and I hope to get the proper support
when I have completed my models. You know, a scientific man can see
all these things on the paper, but to the man with money they are pipe
dreams until he sees the wheels go 'round."
He now held out his second drawing, which was easier to understand, for
it was a sketch of his appliance, showing the outer appearance, and
giving a diagonal section of a desk or room, with a wire running
through a wall into another compartment.
"Here is where the scientist yields to his temperament and wastes a lot
of time on something which probably will never bring him a cent. This
is a combination of my record machine, which will be of interest to
your profession."
Bobbie examined it closely, but could not divine its purpose.
"It is the application of the phonographic record to the dictagraph, so
that police and detective work can be absolutely recorded, without the
shadow of a doubt remaining in the minds of a trial jury or judge.
Maybe this is boring you?"
"No, no--go on!"
"Well, when dictagraphs are used for the discovery of criminals it has
been necessary to keep expert stenographers, and at least one other
witness at the end of the wire to put down the record. Frequently the
stenographer cannot take the words spoken as fast as he should to make
the record. Sometimes it is impossible to get the stenographer and the
witness on the wire at the exact time. Of course, this is only a crazy
idea. But it seems to me that by a little additional appliance which I
have planned, the record machine could be put into a room nearby, or
even another house. If a certain place were under suspicion the
machine could rest with more ease, less food and on smaller wages than
a detective and stenographer on salary. When any one started to talk
in this suspected room the vibrations of the voices would start a
certain connection going through this additional wire, which would set
the phonograph into action. As long as the conversation continued the
records would be running continuously. No matter how rapidly words are
uttered the phonograph would get them, and could be run, for further
investigation, as slowly and as many times as desired. When the
conversation stopped the machine would automatically blow its own
dinner whistle and adjourn the meeting until the talk began again.
This would take the record of at least an hour's conversation: another
attachment would send in a still-alarm to the detective agency or
police station, so that within that hour a man could be on the job with
a new supply of records and bait the trap again."
"Wonderful!"
"Yes, and the most important part is that this is the only way of
keeping a record which cannot be called a 'frame-up'--for it is a
photograph of the sound waves. A grafter, a murderer, or any other
criminal could be made to speak the same words in court as were put on
the phonographic record, and his voice identified beyond the shadow of
a doubt!"
Bobbie clapped his hand on the old man's shoulder.
"Why, Mr. Barton, that is the greatest invention ever made for
capturing and convicting criminals. It's wonderful! The Police
Departments of the big cities should buy enough machines to make you
rich, for you could demand your own price."
Barton looked dreamily toward the window, through which twinkled the
distant lights of the city streets.
"I want money, Burke, as every sane man does. But this pet of mine
means more than money. I want to contribute my share to justice just
as you do yours. Who knows, some day it may reward me in a way which
no money could ever repay. You never can tell about such things. Who
knows?"