[EDITORIAL REPRINTED FROM NEW YORK EVENING POST, APRIL 10]
[During the first week of April a remarkable report was issued by the
Chicago Vice Commission. The editorial of the New York Evening Post of
April 10th on the Chicago report merits reproduction in full.]
The report of the Chicago Vice Commission, made public last week, is a
notable document for many reasons. To begin with, this is said to have
been the first commission appointed by the mayor of a great city to
deal with this question. In the next place, it conducted its inquiry
in a scientific and dispassionate manner, and as a result has some
definite and practical recommendations to make. But most important of
all is that it rejects definitely and vigorously the theory that since
prostitution has always been and is always likely to be, therefore
there is nothing to be done but to regulate and tolerate and
segregate. Into none of these pitfalls has it fallen. Without letting
its idealism run away with it, the committee—a strong one, composed
of business men, teachers, editors, doctors, and ministers—lays down
the sound truth that the proper policy for a city is “constant and
persistent repression,” with “absolute annihilation as the ultimate
ideal.” There is no counsel of cowardice and despair here; no advocacy
of those evil, out-worn policies of toleration which have long since
demonstrated in Europe their inability to protect the public health or
morals. What is counselled is a determined and vigorous grappling with
the evil by the municipality, while the community as a whole devotes
itself to those far-reaching policies of education and economic
readjustment, which must eventually control some of the human currents
that underlie this fearful social peril.
How great that evil is in Chicago alone appears from the committee’s
sober estimate that the annual loss in lives is 5,000 and the annual
profit of those engaged in the trade is $15,000,000, which latter
figure has since been raised four-fold. It has often been pointed out
in these columns and elsewhere that, if there were any other single
drain upon a city that cost it 5,000, or let us say even 2,500, lives
a year, the community would be up in arms about it. A fire loss of
that figure would stir this city to its foundations; the heavy toll in
children’s lives paid every summer because of impure or improper food
has roused the humanitarian spirit, and we are all familiar with the
public determination to blot out the tuberculosis scourge as rapidly
as possible. But these matters here come under the Board of Health,
which spends great sums every year in such crusades. No department
really has charge of this scourge of immorality save the Police
Department, which in the past has regulated it as though merely with a
view to obtaining for its corrupt members as large a share in the
profits as possible.
That this indifference of the municipality to one of the most glaring
and discouraging evils of our modern life is intolerable, the Chicago
committee has fully realized, for it has recommended the immediate
appointment of a morals commission of five members to be chosen by the
mayor and approved by the city council, to serve for two years without
pay, the commissioner of health to be an ex-officio member, its duty
being to “gather evidence and to take the necessary legal steps for
the suppression of vice in Chicago wherever such suppression is
believed to be advisable.” Its jurisdiction is to cover Chicago and
the territory three miles beyond its corporate limits. In addition to
this morals commission, there is urged a morals court to consider the
cases submitted to it by the morals commission. But far-reaching as
these are, they are not the only practical remedies suggested. The
city is urged to erect a trade school and hospital for wayward women
on a farm owned by the municipality. A special house of detention is
urged as absolutely necessary, as is a second state school for wayward
girls, the existing one being overcrowded. Of vast importance in any
city would be the suggested creation “of a sympathetic agency with
paid agents, who have followed a special instruction and would be
charged with regular supervision of the children of unmarried
mothers,” and also an amply financed committee on child protection,
unrestricted in its scope. Indeed, the welfare of the children has
been a deep concern to the committee, which would keep them off the
streets at night, forbid the sending of any messenger under twenty-one
to a disreputable resort, while it suggests an increase in the number
of small parks and recreation centers. It urges dance halls, properly
supervised, with the sale of liquor prohibited; it implores the
churches to use their facilities for sane entertainments and urges
wise instruction in sex hygiene in the public schools.
As for the worst offenders, the procurers, the committee urges that
there should be relentless prosecution of them and the professional
keepers of disreputable resorts. For the betterment of the police
force in relation to the evil there are suggested a number of remedies
for the existing conditions, such as the severe punishment of
grafters, the constant rotation of patrolmen in the various districts,
and the investigation of complaints by picked men from distant
districts. Most interesting of all is the suggestion that women police
officers be appointed to deal with the question of morals, and
particularly to protect strangers on arrival. Why this important duty
has thus far been left to volunteer effort in almost all of our cities
passes understanding. First offenders ought, the committee thinks, to
be invariably placed under the charge of women probation officers. We
note also this suggestion:
To Federal authorities: A Federal bureau of immigration should be
established in great distributive centers, such as Chicago, to provide
for the safe conduct of immigrants from ports of entry to their
destination. Efficient legislation should be enacted and present laws
enforced in such a manner, as to the traffic in women within the
boundaries of each state, and as thoroughly, as the Federal
authorities have dealt with the international traffic.
Not unnaturally, it finds that the public health authorities could do
much to better conditions if they would put an end to the wholesale
dispensing of cocaine and morphine by certain druggists.
Finally, these investigators are convinced that much of the race
friction in large cities is due to the vice problem, and it dwells
vigorously upon the crying injustice of the Chicago authorities in
invariably driving the prostitutes into the quarters occupied by
colored people—in one instance into the section occupied by the
homes, Sunday schools, and churches of the best class of colored
people. One feature in the report appeals to Chicago’s pride. After
all the terrible stories of her “levee” districts, the committee is
certain that Chicago is “more moral proportionately to its population
than most of the cities in her class.” Are we so sure that New York
is—as Mayor Gaynor would have us believe? Has not the time come for
adapting to this city some of the many admirable, practical, and
constructive suggestions this report contains?