Deluded Divines by Melbourne P. Boynton, D.D.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 13, 1912

"Deluded Divines"

By Melbourne P. Boynton, D.D.

Pastor Lexington Ave. Baptist Church, Chicago, Ill.

ONE of the most discouraging features of any reform work is the difficulty of securing unity of opinion among good people concerning the evil attacked, as for instance, in the question of the segregation of vice.

Heretofore this difference of opinion has been due to a lack of exact knowledge gained in patient, thorough investigation of existing conditions.

However, we have now come into possession of very reliable information on these lines. Recent years have brought forward such works as:

1. The Committee of Fifteen in New York and its startling report as to the conditions in that city.

2. The Immigration Commission, spending nearly one million dollars in its work, and producing a report which waked the nation, and which was so startling in its revelation as to cause a Chicago congressman to oppose its publication for general distribution.

3. The Rockefeller Grand Jury of New York, and the clear proof of a white slave traffic in that city.

4. The Chicago Vice Commission and its monumental work.

5. The Federal White Slave Traffic Act, and new laws in some thirty States, of which Illinois was the leader, and whose laws are modeled on the Illinois Pander Act of 1908 and 1909.

6. A new library on this theme is growing, of which one Chicago book has gone into over three hundred thousand libraries and homes.

In all the above, notably the Chicago Vice Commission report, the segregation policy as applied to the social evil is condemned.

Our own Vice Commission begins its report with the following sentence, printing it in black type at the very head of the book:

Constant and persistent repression of prostitution the immediate method, absolute annihilation the ultimate ideal.

The moment a community consents to the segregation policy, they have commercialized this miserable business. There is absolutely no escape from this conclusion. Our Vice Commission has this further word upon this phase of the problem:

Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of the citizens of Chicago and the fathers and mothers of its children never will countenance the recognition or legalization of a commercial business which spells only ruin to the race. It is therefore incumbent upon us to take a bold stand against this curse of society. It behooves us to raise social life to the highest possible standard of righteousness—to teach the youth of our land loyalty and honor to womanhood.

Minneapolis followed Chicago's example and appointed a Vice Commission. Judge Daniel Fish, the city's legal adviser, says:

The illegal setting apart of a district in which the law may openly be violated is even more vicious than the vice proscribed.

During this last week one of our municipal judges, Judge William N. Gemmil, is quoted as saying, in refuting a report that he had criticized the Vice Commission report:

Instead of being opposed to the report, I most heartily approve its conclusion. I am unalterably opposed to the system of segregation, a system which is operated in defiance of the law and of common decency, and which is the underlying cause of the demoralization of the police force.

I think, however, it is much to be regretted that the Vice Commission concealed from the public the names of the criminals, high and low, whom it claims to have discovered to be the owners of property leased for vicious purposes, the givers and receivers of bribes, etc.

These names should have been turned over at once to the State's attorney of this county. Had this been done, the report of the commission would have had vital force.

America is not alone in its abhorrence of segregated vice.

Norway has pursued the policy of extermination since 1886.

Sweden has appointed a Parliamentary Committee, which reported recommending abolition of State regulation of vice and the inauguration of a policy of extermination.

Even in France, where the whole system of regulation originated with Napoleon I about one hundred years ago, the Extra Parliamentary Commission has reported against the system, and the most earnest minds of France are demanding an abandoning of the Napoleonic delusion.

An eminent Frenchman, Merle D'Aubigné, son of the famous church historian, himself a director of religious and social work in Paris, said recently with much feeling:

The system of regulation is tottering. It does not come to us from old France, but was introduced by Napoleon and his aids, who supposed that thereby they could preserve the health and military efficiency of the French army. Their belief in this respect was an utter delusion. The morning is dawning toward the supremacy of the moral law in France.

In England the destruction of segregated districts began in 1889, in Liverpool, formerly the "black spot on the Mersey," a very great seaport, where it was supposed the morals of the people were protected by the operation of vile resorts, kept open for supposed protection of good women. In one district of that city there were 443 tolerated houses quite immune from prosecution, tho the criminal code of Great Britain demanded their destruction. Under the leadership of Mr. Alexander Guthrie, a son of the famous Scotch preacher, himself an eminent business man in Liverpool, the honest people of that great city united, and left out of office politicians who thought the law could not be enforced, and in a new régime, exterminated the vice districts of Liverpool.

Thomas W. Lamont, partner of J. Pierpont Morgan, succeeding Mr. Perkins. Morgan considers him one of the brightest minds in the financial world—(Clinedinst).

In London, under the leadership largely of the bishop of London, the extermination of the vice districts began a few years after Liverpool had set the bright example. The vice districts and the protected resorts in London are now facts of an evil past, which no Londoner dreams of recalling.

In Holland and Denmark the policy of extermination has been in effect for some years.

In Berlin tolerated houses are not permitted. All Teutonic Europe seems ready to reassert its ancient character of chastity attested by the Roman historian Tacitus.

In our own country our cities are beginning to wake to the deadly peril of the segregation policy. Philadelphia has recently shown a deep resentment against the imputation that her clergy were in favor of this damnable heresy, and the Philadelphia clergy have unitedly professed their abhorrence of any such doctrine.

Seattle, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Des Moines, and the entire State of Iowa are now clear of recognized open dens of infamy.

Even the Orient is changing its attitude toward this policy.

In Japan this question is receiving wide-awake attention. When the Yoshiwara (the vice districts) of Osaka and Tokyo were burned, they were not allowed to rebuild in the midst of the city, but were driven to the outskirts, and indeed some of the districts have not yet been rebuilt. Public conscience is awakened, led by the great Count Okuma. The men of power in Japan are the Satsuma men, from the southern island, Kiushi,—men who in the days of old Japan stood firm against social corruption and would not allow vice districts in the cities of the southern islands. This chaste Satsuma clan made, and is still powerful in, new Japan.

In China segregation has always been abhorred by society at large. The dissolute characters were always driven beyond the walls of the city, and in many instances were compelled to dwell on boats in the rivers.

There is an ancient law in China by which, if a man proves that property was used for impure purposes, he acquires title to that property by means of such prosecution.

It has sometimes been earnestly protested that to rid a city of the tolerated houses would jeopardize the residence districts and make the streets unsafe. No lie of Satan's has ever been hurled back into his teeth with greater force than this one.

Take the experience of London for instance, the greatest city in the world. So far from the abolition of the vice districts and protected houses, increasing street-walking, the midnight meetings held for many years at the expense of Sir George Williams and others for the women of the street are now no longer possible for the lack of women to attend them, and these midnight meetings are now considering the question of discontinuing, and the whole movement is about to be disbanded.

In the face of all this evidence, in the presence of a world awakening such as the world has never experienced before on moral issues, it is indeed a sorry sight to see a clergyman come forward supporting this discredited, infamous policy of the segregation of vice; especially so when some of these clergymen are boastful in their declarations that they have never visited the districts, have never investigated the houses and will not do so, and yet do not hesitate to pose as the high priests of the segregation policy.

It were better that the clergymen listen to the words of the great Huxley, who shortly before his death, in addressing a company of clergymen, said that men of science, in their search for the truth, may find themselves obliged to return to the guardians of divine revelation, the ministers of God; that if they did so return, he hoped the clergy would not have betrayed the gates.

There is no more perilous delusion in the social mind to-day than this of the segregation of vice. This more than any other thing in the city of Chicago has debauched and disintegrated her police force and has brought about the present wholesale dismissal of commanding officers. What a pity that a Christian community should complacently endure a situation that spells inevitable disgrace and dismissal of the policemen, betraying them into a betrayal of their sacred trust! While I have no excuse for the corrupt policeman, yet, we must not forget that if we tolerate this ungodly, unrighteous situation in our cities, we are not free from our share of the responsibility, and no one is more immediately responsible for the perpetuation of the deplorable vice districts than the "deluded divines" who unblushingly proclaim their faith in this discredited and now rapidly being discarded method of handling the social evil.

There are three classes of "deluded divines" in this matter:

First, those who, without thoro investigation or personal knowledge of existing conditions, proclaim faith in the policy of segregation.

Second, those who are fearful of their standing, and fearing the conventions of society, refuse to take an interest in the situation, and remain silent in these hours of peril.

Third, those who, knowing the facts and realizing the situation, but fearful of possible notoriety or opposition of influential members, remain silent.

God grant to the clergy keen seeing eyes, flaming tongues, and a splendid unity of opinion and purpose in the work of morally cleansing our cities. The clergy must never "betray the gates."