Worse and Worse | AdventAI

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 24, 1908

“Worse and Worse”

The evidences of moral rottenness, especially in the large cities, are so many in number, and some of them of such a character as to render them unfit to be printed, that it is impossible, as well as undesirable, to deal with this matter in full detail. Now and then a partial revelation is made, which suggests something of what is hidden underneath. Two members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union at Pittsburg, Pa., recently visited at night some of the luxuriously furnished cafés which claim a patronage from “the best people in Pittsburg.” In court proceedings, based upon the testimony of these women, such a state of things was brought to light as has been suspected but not always proved. One of our exchanges, a Pittsburg paper, makes the following statement:—

The revelations made in the testimony given at the hearings were of such a character as to be fitly but feebly described as orgies. They would at one time have shocked the moral sense of the community, and stirred its indignation to the point of demonstration. The witnesses who told of the indecencies and debauchery were not the W. C. T. U. visitors, or other temperance “fanatics.” They were the shameless girls themselves, the waiters in the places, and policemen. It was testified that these girls, under twenty-one years of age, were sold intoxicating liquors even when plainly drunk; it was shown that they were made so drunk that they had to be helped out, and in some cases carried out of these high-toned, respectable cafés! In addition to this debauchery there were indecencies of behavior which are supposed to be characteristic alone of the haunts of her whose steps take hold on hell.

There is too much reason to believe that this is but a sample of what might be found in nearly every large city in this country. Only the fires of the last day will cleanse these sinks of iniquity.