The Vices of Sodom by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 5, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 43.

The Vices of Sodom

By T.

Their Significance

THE social vice that has become chronically epidemic in our large cities, and that is spreading so rapidly into our smaller places, is one of the great problems of the time. Investigations in the large cities have shown such an alarming condition of vice that an American Vigilance Association has been formed to work for its suppression. Eminent men and women are at the head of this association. For instance, Dr. David Starr Jordan, president of Leland Stanford Junior University, is the president; the vice-presidents are Cardinal Gibbons; Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University; and the Rev. Dean Walter T. Sumner, of Chicago. The organization publishes a monthly called "Vigilance," at 156 Fifth Avenue, New York.

A Vice Commission appointed by the mayor of Chicago in the early part of 1910, at the instance of the Federated Churches, conducted a very thorough investigation. This Vice Commission is affiliated with the American Vigilance Association, and it found that in Chicago alone the income from organized prostitution amounted to between $15,000,000 and $16,000,000 a year. They found that this organized vice was largely in the hands of men. They estimated very conservatively that some five thousand women were under the control of the organization. These five thousand did not include the many other individuals that they were satisfied were engaged in the wicked business. Their investigations gave them data from which they present in detail, conditions that are unspeakably vile. "For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret."

These brothels are supposed to be under certain restrictions and regulations. Physicians in many instances were supposed to give certificates showing that the women were not diseased. But the investigators of the commission found numerous cases where the prostitutes were decaying with syphilis, and because of this, it is stated, they are alarmingly spreading a plague that is worse than leprosy.

The men who own and conduct these vile resorts spend their time for the most part in gambling, and their work also lends itself greatly to such crimes as robbery and everything that is comprehended under the title of "grafting." The unfortunate women under their control are charged exorbitant prices for their clothing, their light and heat, and everything else that they require.

This system of vice keeps itself in touch with the country in every direction. It has a regular network of avenues through which it reaches young girls to entice them into its dens. Dance halls, boating on the lake, theatrical amusements, and the like are arranged so as to make the start on the way to ruin as glittering and enticing as possible.

It is strongly affirmed that the conditions in Chicago are in no wise worse than in any other city. But it is felt that if our civilization is not to go down before vice and crime, something must be done to stamp out the evil. It is with this matter in mind that the American Vigilance Association has been organized. It is to be the effort to embrace within this organization the American Purity Alliance, the oldest organization of the kind in the nation, together with any other groups or smaller organizations, so as "to concentrate forces for the complete suppression of the so-called 'white slave' trade and every other agency of commercialized vice."

A strong note of optimism is sounded by the organization. It hopes to suppress this gigantic evil. It may not do it in a year or even in a generation, so it is affirmed, but forces must be combined to put it down. Every good person should bid Godspeed to any true work for the drying up of the appalling flood of vice that is deluging the world. For as the Chicago Vice Commission has suggested, conditions in Chicago are to be taken merely as an index of what may be seen in all the other great cities of the world.

The conditions in New York have been kept too constantly before us in recent months through the Becker case to make a repetition necessary to refresh the mind concerning the vices and crimes that are sinking that great metropolis. Becker, a police lieutenant, was at the head of one of the worst gangs of criminals that has ever cursed any quarter of the globe. His control of the prostitutes, or his "vice trust," as it came to be called, was one of the leading departments of his infamous business. His boldness in requiring the murder of Rosenthal by one of his pals, led to his arrest, and the evidence was so overwhelming against him that the jury found him guilty of murder in the first degree. This means that he is to be sentenced to the electric chair unless he can get a stay of proceedings and a new trial. It is an exceedingly rare thing

for a man to be executed for murder when he did not actually do the killing himself. But the evidence that he demanded and required his subordinate to do the deed is so clear that the sentiment is quite universal that Becker should suffer the penalty.

Some hope may be held out to us in the fact that Becker is brought to justice so speedily. But he has not been executed yet. He is demanding a new trial; and following the usual custom, some technicality may yet be found that will keep him from the electric chair. But if this curse of legal technicalities and delays is swept aside by the overwhelming evidence in this case, it will be found that it will only drive the forces of evil to be a little more cautious for a time, and then the awful work of vice and criminality will sweep on again like a resistless torrent.

We are in times in which the evil forces have broken up the very foundations of stable government. And the large cities are the places where these armies of wicked men and women are entrenched. Corrupt men hold the balance of power, because there are enough of the apparently decent and moral element who are afraid to come out in the open and fight them. Some

business will be hurt, or something of the kind stands in the way of many men who see and deplore these conditions, and therefore they are just letting them drift. This has gone on until the cities of the world have become Sodom-like cesspools of corruption. There is no denying this open fact. We have taken the space in these paragraphs to speak only of Chicago and New York. Next week we may give in some detail what was recently found in Portland, Oregon, and other leading cities. Good people everywhere are becoming alarmed over these conditions, and well they may be.

The reader will ask, What is going to be the outcome of all this tide of corruption? The vices of prostitution are becoming so widespread, and the frightful diseases that attend them are becoming so prevalent, that leading

reformers fear that the whole of society is doomed unless something can be done to stay it. Something will be done, and there is no question about it; for we read these words:

"My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I can not hold my peace; because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is laid waste; suddenly are my tents destroyed, and my curtains in a moment. How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet? For my people are foolish, they know me not; they are sottish children, and they have no understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.

"I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved to and fro. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of Jehovah, and before His fierce anger.

"For thus saith Jehovah, The whole land shall be a desolation; yet will I not make a full end. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it. Every city fleeth for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they go into the thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city is forsaken, and not a man dwelleth therein. And thou, when thou art made desolate, what wilt thou do? Tho thou clothest thyself with scarlet, tho thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, tho thou enlargest thine eyes with paint, in vain dost thou make thyself fair; thy lovers despise thee, they seek thy life. For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that gaspeth for breath, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Wo is me now! for my soul fainteth before the murderers.

"Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that doeth justly, that seeketh truth; and I will pardon her. And tho they say, As Jehovah liveth; surely they swear falsely, O Jehovah; do not Thine eyes look upon truth? Thou hast stricken them, but they were not grieved; Thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.

"Then I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish; for they know not the way of Jehovah, nor the law of their God: I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they know the way of Jehovah, and the justice of their God. But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, a wolf of the evenings shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch against their cities; every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.

"How can I pardon thee? thy children have forsaken Me, and sworn by them that are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the harlots' houses; they were as fed horses roaming at large; every one neighed after his neighbor's wife. Shall I not visit for these things? saith Jehovah; and shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" Jer. 4:19 to 5:9.

It will not do to pass this scripture off with the suggestion that it applies to old Jerusalem and the Jewish nation before the time of Christ. "Zion" and "Jerusalem" are terms that are frequently used to represent the church in all the ages. It is manifestly used in the foregoing passage to refer to the times just before the second coming of Christ, for it specifically states that "all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of Jehovah, and before His fierce anger." This statement alone is enough to show that the wickedness in "all the cities" is to become so appalling that they call for the personal visitation of Jehovah for their destruction. And all the Scriptures show that His personal visitation for the destruction of evil is at the end of time.

But if the preceding were not sufficient to show when the Scripture text from Jeremiah applies, we have the following very positive statement from the apostle Paul. Speaking of the fornication and other sins that broke out and caused so much destruction among the Israel of old, he says:

"Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. . . . Now these things happened unto them by way of example; and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come." 1 Cor. 10: 6-11.

Everything that was written by the ancient prophets is for our admonition in this very time. This is a principle that is clear. With these facts in mind, consider closely all the striking statements in the verses quoted from Jeremiah. Note what he says concerning the wickedness that will prevail. People are gasping for breath at the fear of the murderers; men are assembling in troops at the harlots' houses, etc., etc. The records of "vice commissions" in Chicago and many other cities show how true it is that "troops" of vice-laden men are assembling at the "harlots' houses" and thus literally fulfilling the prophet's words. Who will say that the graphic language of Jeremiah is not describing these conditions? And who can not see that the corruptions that are becoming so sickeningly gross and wide-spread must very soon call for the presence of Jehovah to visit them with destruction?

Banner carried by the strikers in Lawrence, Massachusetts. It is not necessary to say that such banners show a high tension of excitement, and that they will serve their purpose still further to inflame the public mind.

It is the duty of every good and true person to do all that can be done to hold in check the evil of this time. But the one duty that is paramount to all others is that of letting the whole world know what all these things signify. Forces of wickedness are let loose that are becoming so overpowering that nothing can possibly cope with them aside from the infinite power of Christ as displayed in His second advent. Let us get ready for the great and glorious day. T.