Baltimore Evening Sun (10 February 1913): 6.

The recommendations of the penitentiary committee conjure up a vision of heavenly jail life in the future--life mellowed and made sweet by the exquisite boons of penalogy, that exact and effecting science. The Zulu rapist, no longer a criminal undergoing punishment, will become the ward and guest of the State. His private apartment will resemble a room at the Belvedere; his meals will be cooked by a cordon blue; he will be rescued from degraded industry in the iron foundry. Suppose he sneaks up behind a guard with a length of gas-pipe and essays to produce a fracture of the parietal ivory. Will he be cuffed up, flogged, manhandled? A thousand nos! Penalogy will tackle him psychically, appealing to his “better instincts,” awakening his ethical sense, transforming him into an archdeacon--even, perhaps, into a vice crusader. No more the echo of the corrective bastinado! No more the dark cell! No more the torture of the erring! And meanwhile, to show their confidence in penalogy, the guards will wear harveyized steel skull-caps.

THE VICE CRUSADE

I need not say that I should strongly favor any feasible plan to abolish houses of ill fame. * * * I am, however, thoroughly convinced that a violent crusade, with the sole object of driving them from their present location, which is known to the police, would be the worst possible policy. For in this way they would be driven to seek houses in respectable neighborhoods, and not until much harm was done to respectable girls and boys in the neighborhood and to the good name of those living nearby could such people be forced to leave through recourse to law. I am altogether convinced that such a plan would be far worse than the one now adopted by the police authorities.–The Rev. Dr. William T. Russell, rector of St. Patrick’s, Washington.

Dr. O. Edward Janney, writing in today’s Letter Column, rehearses the arguments against the segregation of the social evil. Let us grant them without qualification. Segregation does not stamp out the evil. On the contrary, it recognizes and protects it, and, to some extent at least, prospers it. But would scattering do better? Dr. Janney and his “experts” believe that it would. A multitude of other men think that it wouldn’t. Let me call a brief roll of such men:

Against Prof. Graham Taylor, of Chicago, a preacher turned sociologist, I bring forward Dr. Frederic C. Howe, an international authority upon municipal government. Against Dean W. T. Taylor, of Chicago, I bring forward Dean H. Martin Hart, of Denver. Against Dr. David Starr Jordan, whose specialty is ichthyology, I bring forward Havelock Ellis, whose specialty is the psychology of sex. Against Dr. F. W. Gunsaulus, author of “Phidias and Other Poems” and “Loose Leaves of Song,” I bring forward the Rev. Dr. W. T. Russell, a hard-working parish priest of Washington. Against the Hon. Edwin W. Sims, “expert” upon the white slave trade and the Alaskan seal fisheries, I bring forward Dr. Jefferson R. Kean, U. S. A., chief of the Sanitary Division in the Surgeon General’s office. Against the Hon. Clifford G. Roe, professional pursuer of white slaves, I bring forward Dr. W. W. Sanger, author of the standard history of prostitution in English. Against Mrs. Kate Barnett, who, according to “Who’s Who in America,” is “well known as a public speaker,” I bring forward the chiefs of police of Chicago, New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, Denver, Washington, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New Haven, Richmond, Detroit, Kansas City and Pittsburgh. Finally, against Dr. Charles W. Eliot, whose experience has been at Harvard University, I bring forward Mayor William S. Gaynor and Mayor Carter H. Harrison, whose experience has been in New York and Chicago.

I could supply such evidence in rebuttal indefinitely, but there is no need to do so here. All I want to establish is that the views of Dr. Janney’s “experts” are by no means unquestioned–that every one of them, however respectable, has an even more respectable witness against him. It is this that the Maryland Vice Commission must bear in mind. The vice crusaders bring forward their “experts” with a great flourish of trumpets; no one takes the trouble to marshal the impressive testimony on the other side. It is the duty of the Vice Commission to seek out and study that testimony. The public looks to it to cover the whole ground.

Progressivism, that sweet, sweet Peruna, is now proving its efficacy in the Republic of Mexico. Old Diaz was too hunkerous for this progressive age. He held to the foul doctrine that the intelligent few knew more than the unintelligent many. He was against mob role. He had no confidience in the wisdom of persons who had to work for 50 cents a day, nor in the virtue of those too lazy to work at all. He believed that he himself was better able to manage the finances of Mexico than the Yaqui Indians of Yucatan. He looked on petty politicians and rabble-rousers as offensive pediculidae and brazenly jailed them whenever they tried to stir up the chandala. For such high crimes and misdemeanors he was bounced from the Presidency and driven out of the country. Progressivism engulfed and obliterated him.

Now the honest folks of Mexico are free to rule themselves. The lowly peon is the full equal of the doctor of philosophy. The old oligarchy is extinct. Bleases arise to deliver the peepul from their ancient wrongs. Whoops resound from the Rio Grande to Vera Cruz. The populace is in the saddle. * * * And Uncle Sam reaches for his club.

My thanks are due to the Hon. Jacobus Hook for a noble gift of lead pencils, each bearing the sign manual of the Hon. gent himself and the modest announcement of the Old Town Bank. If I had any money, the Old Town Bank would get it. Friends of mine who have millions on deposit there tell me that it is the most gemuethlich bank in Baltimore. Every caller is received by Colonel Hook in person and treated to the best cigars produced on Gay street, and whenever there is a rush at the receiving teller’s window and customers have to wait in line, the Colonel passes lettuce sandwiches and bouillon. Most banks are arctic and forbidding sarcophagi. The depositor is made to feel like an invader. The visitor with a check to be cashed departs with inflammatory rheumatism. But at the Old Town there is no such chill. The Jacobin smile mellows and irradiates the premises; it is more fun to be refused a loan there than to be given the money in South street.--Free Adv.

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage can! Observe the swallowing of the Women’s Civic League by the Vice Crusade!