To get nearer home. In the Chicago American, February 12, 1903, Judge
Neely, in the case of the State vs. Hattie Howard, declared from the
bench that to "sell men and women in marriage is the height of crime."
Judge Neely further said:
"Men and women who engage in this business of promoting
matrimony for money are guilty of crime. It is opposed to
the fundamental principles of society. Such a practice
should under no circumstances be tolerated. This practice
should be stopped. The trade should be killed. The courts
should make it their business to discourage this thing in a
way that may be easily understood."
Judge Kohlsaat, of Chicago, has inveighed against the practice in
equally vehement terms. Judge Kohlsaat declares that "the Police
Department of Chicago is entitled to great credit for what it has done
in discouraging this business. I hope it will continue its vigilance
until every promoter of marriages of this character has been compelled
to leave the city. They should make such criminals give the city a
wide berth."
There, then, is the law. The business is a crime in its very nature.
It leads to bigamy and wholesale murder. It is made the instrument of
the thief, the swindler and the murderer. How much longer will the
American people look with calmness upon these practices, upon these
abominations, which make a stench of the very air of the great and
free country in which we live? The answer is up to you.