Chicago has many dark places, not the least among which are the low
theatres, the concert halls, and other similar resorts where
immorality nourishes as it flourished in Rome during that long moral
night when Messalina dragged down an already debauched court to
unspeakable debasement, when Nero thirsted for blood and wallowed in
the sewers of moral degradation, and when Domitian's frightful cruelty
only equaled his gross sensualism. The saloon, the black plague of
nineteenth century life, overlaps all other degrading evils, its
miasma of death fills every rendezvous of degradation, and until its
ever increasing power is checked, nay, more, until its power in
American politics is broken, other allies in crime, debauchery, and
moral death will flourish. By the side of the rum curse flourishes, as
our author points out, the low theatres and concert halls, but he
wisely observes that these places must not be confounded with the
first-class and reputable houses, whose managers are ceaselessly
striving to entertain and elevate their patrons. Music may be made one
of the most inspiring and ennobling agencies, while the theatre holds
a power for the education and elevation of the masses possessed by few
other popular agencies, for it appeals simultaneously to the eye, the
ear, and the heart of the people. It possesses the power of educating
while it entertains, it may be made to elevate while it amuses. I am
profoundly convinced that Victor Hugo was right when he claimed that
the theatre held possibilities of the widest and most far-reaching
character for the education and enlightenment of the masses; and when
the leaders of moral thought and reform work come to realize this,
they will call to their aid this most powerful agent for touching,
thrilling, and swaying the heart of the people which a noble cause can
summon. But while the possibilities for good possessed by the theatre
are well-nigh inestimable, its capacity for evil is no less marked. In
many of our large cities to-day low theatres and concert-halls,
masquerading under the robes of respectability, are feeding all that
is vilest and most repulsive in life. In these places in Chicago there
are nightly enacted practically above board the same revolting scenes
which marked the lowest depths of human debasement in the day of
Rome's greatest depravity. To feed the rum-inflamed lusts of men, the
managers of these craters of bestiality and depravity have nightly
exhibitions which mark the nadir to which abandoned womanhood can
sink. No one can enter those dens of infamy without inhaling the
contagion of moral death. The records of the commissioners who
investigated the concert halls and low theatres sickens one much as
the frightful revelation of Mr. Stead sickened while it appalled the
civilized world. And let it be remembered that this unutterable social
depravity is flourishing in a city richly jewelled, with magnificent
temples dedicated to Deity; a city which contains the moral power to
quickly banish her monstrous evils, if the conspiracy of silence be
broken and the leaders of thought be brave and wise enough to boldly
move in concert against the great forces which every thoughtful man
and woman admit are, more than aught else, the source of social
demoralization, crime, and human degradation. If the Church has any
mission worthy of serious thought at this juncture of civilization,
that mission is to overcome these evils, to cleanse society of these
plague spots, and avert the spread of that moral degradation which,
unless checked, will as surely sap away the life of our Republic as it
has destroyed proud civilizations of older days.