The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 19, 1899, Page 30

80 THE SUNDAY CAIL The Soctal Evil tn San Francisco. with them ahould be Nymphia affair, 1 be suppressed. We Pomapell brought to o gulse of a modern e sho \" FRANCISCO is confront- J ed by a most grave problem of t must be ” fed by the prop- ho have inter i ” iam Rader. 3 5 Congregational urch <onal nt as to ’ " ¢ een punished Ly death, ’ § of nfls alando flogring and fsm was a e thine and of the = ' from ; ) ted and time tmmen e all of 3 md £ s press, as servilors of place before them ti:e clergy upon this present queésiion in order that the ma wnderstand the ez wth 2wh are threatened which it may be averted hettor this ession- 2t he 13 talking about. but the hard facts inst him. The testimony f six thousand years sweeps and take s Rev. Robert M s 1c in San Francisco pays much at- Nobody D.D ntion (0 the matter. It {s driven from i strest to street and from local = but the el 1a not lessen Pastor First Presbyterlan s retorm to « h t closing up the C PRNED pects the » enforced and they are not enforced. The police laugh at our statutes. They talk and write and occa- sfonally make arrests, but nothing s ac- complished except the redemption of cer- tain localities. The whole question of the . ews by & 3 1 s stroved. But its des the great evil t houid be Voorsa Rev. Jacob nge he fact is o 18 to whose b batere be to a lag, Rabbi Congregation Emanu- El remalr » waters Strange moral communities. of human nature and it ther restrictive s it. Many lons are restrictive the pres ent s e whbo sustaln t De identified and h police ar ties sk ence of h a conition, gov. thing possidle. The in their character, tending to educate so- clety to a bellef or a conviction that the indulgence of nature is unbecoming our higher ideas of olvillzation and sn of- fense to the !deals which govern the ma- Jority of the community. But personal vice, the indulgence of the flesh, in fact every characteristic that recails man s pagan nature and his alien- ation from the standards of a civil, moral eoclety, is conditioned by the re- sponsibilities which the community se- ume. Legislation can control lation has the right to deter- Ing and at the same time qu action a long suffering public sentiment. The work of the press in this connection, however, 18 by no means complete. The scarlet woman of San Francisco is not to be disposed of by the closing of a = of her haunts in a given part of the city. Of course, what public sen- timent has done it can do again; but the trouble ‘with public sentiment is that when it has indulged in 8 gush of vice, mine that it shall be neither a sore in the eves nor a stink in the nostrils of ite soclety. Legislation has the right to say that vice, if it be abso- lutely impoesible to uproot it, shall hide ite face and be not seen of o/ those who are offended by its sigh That {s not hypocrisy, it is p ution. If I admit my tnablity uproot certain phases of vice I have at the same time a constitutional right to prevent my children from seeing it. Vice—that is, specifically, the business of the bawd and the beer bottle—have v increased in San Francisco. It was un- avoldeble. If San Fran- > pride s stimulated s position as the to Orfent 15t be preparsd to the consequenoes x of population, 1d ctvilien, that 1a being looks Yerenceat thestald of our people. The 1 a business » result of the t populat: Rev. E. A. Woods, D.D. Pastor First Baptist Church, The soclal evil has long ex!sted and still exists in all large citles. It has not beem and perhaps can- not be fully eradicated. The same Is e of many other evils. But laws agatnst these evils been enacted and should be executed as 1 as fully as possible. localize and attempt to control the soctal a sense to legalize that which is im- egal. Laws attempting this have »d_In some American cities, but ave fafled to control all but the more end shameless characters, and 4!d not reach the root of the evil. It followed that the outraged moral sense of the commun- ity demanded and secured their repeal. uch legislation is Itself a degeneration and longs to darker centuries and an un- christian age. An attempt to localize and t crime minal. Such leg- ev by encourmging ic example of it tn our of law. The very egal and that their and punishment {s upon those who 11 ways. t In disease 1s a loud re tempted to commit 1 that ‘the way of " and it is not for egal enactments. It is he “who sows to the eap corruption,” and to 1w is both irreverent nst such evils are and more rigid laws ¢ purity of soclety, » can be secured the press unite in of such protece tamuel Slocombe, Pastor Fourth Congrega- ticnal Church. enthusiasm or a spasm of Indigna- tlon it s qui t to “rest and be thanktul” for long while. Later it may wake up from a protracted slumber to find that the results of Its revious virtuous efforts have been un- one by the Peaction of a ant enemy. The present 1s a time when the best moral sentiment of the community needs to be kept awake and on the watch. II- lusive articles and plausible paragraphs in certaln soclety papers are just-now circulating the rankest and most perilous heresles upon this question. It Is sald, for example, th severity of our code of soclal ethics af- focting the relations of the sexes that the scarlet woman could not reform if she would. “Her whole life Is forfeit by the unwritten law of soclety as the dire penalty of her fall.”” It is broadly intimated that she is not only a victim ot soclal conditions but a necessary evil, and that even if she could be exiled her place would soon be filled by other vie- tims of human passion and weakness. All such is the |this and much more of the same kind ) (Interlarded w such exclamations as for the rarity of Christian char- 1ty") is made to pave the way to the ulti- mate suggestion that fallen women shall be confined to a given area of the city and there kept under municipal guardian- ship and police supervision. The mischief lurking behind all this is twofold. In the first place, the plausi- ble ideas referred to profess to emanate from a lofty sentiment of compassion for fellow women, combined with & virtuous regard for the public well being; and in the second place, It is assumed not only that the evil under discussion cannot be eradicated, but that, therefore, in direct violation of statutory law, it should be permitted, sanctioned, proteocted. Some of the fallacious assumptions” re- ferred to may be sufficlently met in terms of pointblank dental. It {s not true, for example, that thers is no avenue of re- treat by which wayward girls and women fispassionately dealt with as occasion #equires. Soclety suffered much and long—suffered in its very fiber and lifo—in obedience to the mistaken sen- timent that th! qQuestion could mnot properly be handled by the daily press. But In the closing of Morton street and other pestilent quarters infested by may return to lives of virtue honor it the scarlet woman the press has taken they so desire. The history ‘what s & vigorous and honorable part o expresa- termed refuge work in large oities affords ample proof of this. There {s abundant weauth in this city for any such work, and abundant disposition to use it wisely and worthlly. San Francisco could raise a refuge fund of ample proportions In a very short space of time. Nelther is it true that there is anything peculiar or uncontroilable in the condi- tlons of life in San Francisco tending to force our youth into vicious ways. Girls virtuously disposed do not need to sacrifica their virtue for bread, and there is probably no la city In all t broad area of this great fon in which it is easler for a thrifty young man to marry and maintain a wife in comfort thaw in Franctsco. It 1s a libel upon our fair city to afirm or imply that any of our boys or girls are forced Into vicious ways by the hard con- ditions of existence here. Viclous train- inz and environment deliberately fraught with temptation by vicious persons are the soclal conditions to which our young people are victims, and for these the body politic is largely responsible, An essentlal truth to be recognized in this connection s that what is termed the social evil is peculiarly sensitive to encouragement or discouragement It shrin before oppressive agencles or grows rank upon indulgence. Considered in the light of this truth, our laws bearing upon this matter are essentially sound in principle and spirit, In that they frankiy treat this evil crime against the public well belng—a crime to be dis- couraged, punished, suppressed. Low, soulless men, Impelled by motives of greed, plan dens of vice and give them gaudy names in order to ensnare the young, to whom they promise indulgence in vice with Immunity from its natural consequences. But the promise is an ete: nal delusion. The shaded side of human history, everywhere and always, is one long, tragic illustration of ie “‘wages of sin” in this regard. From the deep re- cesses of Africa Dr. Livingstone sent forth his plaintive wall about “the open sore of the world,” and the silent lesson of modern France, with her' debauched sense of justice, her decadent energy and her dwindling population, tells of the same thing. The laxity and indulgence of the French people are gradually but very surely unfu the power of France and inevitably destroying her historic status a8 one of the leading nations of Kurope. WHRAT PROMINENT CLERGYMEN OF TRIS QITY RAVE o SAY IN REF- ofsco. Tt s under and unlawf promoters s \ the cou the hands of the r of here morals is a thing of the up, the broom fs N\ ing process has Let the good w even the prayer. For the my duty nor my pr e t g has perty ad » rem them ich they h e elsewhe: erdiction. 1If it had never he discussion w The Call goes dee clal evil prot f the dens ry den door In the city, to acq wledge of the-existence of Iy upon their ¥ every we on, howeve from her epread, would t San Francisco or would Would the contamir morals resulting therefrom be slig nounced? If t mme web greate ynduct 50 long as there and money with minds who can it be expected that mere denial to them of sit In truth, nature 1s a soverelgn who will not brook either neglect, evasion or de- flance of her laws. Some years ago the sorts of people who are ever saying that the scarlet woman is & necessary evil gained the ear of the British Parllament and succeed WIS OD et e T e A ting certain laws passed gr: ven DaYs Bo ras W protection, medical and po SUDQES.uie) Tn el number be Y. Vision, and all the rest of it. within pegu, .l & HUmber prescribed Umits adjacent to military and v e oty naval stations. Many good and some wise el A e e Ve W men, among them Gladstone, were al- b ycogoly 'n Ran. Francisco lured into that legislative blunder. But L Ten A SO they were speedily undeceived he ex- BT TRER e RT periment and its results provoked a na- Ask the average person where ¢ tional agitation which involved all polit- tral point of area is ir 1 the Uni ical partles and all classes and condi- a1 3 tions of the people. It grew in intensity | ."[:'l‘l "“' Vil fix it somewhere v and force until it swept from the statute iim 1t is nearer San Francisco and books every vestige of the offensive laws. The history of that agitation s full of sound moral and soclal instruction suiteq to the present conditions !n San Fran- he will be incredulous until he remembers that Alaska is within the boundaries of Uncle Sa Edward Bok in th ber Ladjes’ Home Journal