LAST week we had something to say in this department of the paper in regard to the wickedness of Chicago and New York City. The prophecy of Jeremiah was quoted to show that because of the wickedness that is centering in the great cities, they are doomed to destruction.
While New York and Chicago were used as examples, yet it was stated, on authority, that those cities are in no wise worse than the average city of the nation, or for that matter, of the world. We promised that this week we might give some of the details of conditions as found in Portland and elsewhere, in order to show that the degradation of the cities is becoming universal.
Toward the close of last year, leading citizens of Portland, Oregon, organized a Vice Commission, on a plan similar to the commission of Chicago, spoken of last week. This commission employed a number of "operatives," or detectives, to investigate conditions carefully. No one of these investigators knew of the existence or work of any other one. They were kept under the direction of the commission, and worked apart, in different sections of the city, as they were ordered. When there was any doubt in regard to a case after one investigator had made his or her report, another one would be sent, without the knowledge that the other had worked there; and their reports on the case were compared. This is an indication of the painstaking work that the commission did in order to arrive at accurate results. They sought carefully neither to minimize nor to exaggerate, but to get the exact facts.
Their investigations covered certain central sections of the city where there were the most rooming houses, apartments, hotels, and the like. Five hundred forty-seven places were investigated. Of these, only 98 were moral, while 18 were of a doubtful character, and the remaining 431 were pronounced immoral under the following classification:
Wholly given up to prostitution or assignation, 113; immoral tenants desired or preferred, 124; immorality countenanced or ignored, 194.
Two paragraphs from the report of the commission read:
"A person might stand on the roof of one of the principal churches of the city and throw a stone into any one of fourteen immoral places, ten of which are wholly immoral.
"Nine places were investigated, immediately surrounding one of the principal department stores of the city, and only one of them was found to be moral. Four were wholly given up to prostitution or assignation, and the remaining four were of the intermediate grades of immorality."
Several leading ministers of Portland were members of the commission, hence it can not be said that the foregoing reference to the meeting-house is made with a view to casting slurs at religion. It is simply a statement of a condition over which that particular church has no power.
Vice Monopoly
It was found, in the investigations of Chicago and New York, that a regular "vice trust" or "vice monopoly" existed. The gain was so great that individuals and also small combinations of individuals formed "trusts" or "combines" on the same general plan that is followed in legitimate trade. The commission in Portland gives quite an extended report on this subject, from which we subjoin a few paragraphs:
"Justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity can not enter." Isa. 59:14.
"Closely allied to the element of profit in commercialized vice in relation to the conduct of hotels and rooming houses is an observed tendency on the part of individuals and realty firms to acquire and either manage or control properties in which immorality contributes to the revenue. This tendency is manifested from instances where one person owns or controls two such properties, to that wherein a dozen or more such places are owned or controlled by one real estate firm.
"This tendency is illustrated in its incipient form by two cases, one of which concerns two respectable appearing hotels under the management of the same landlady, and the other involves four houses, a shade lower in the hotel classification, in all of which immorality is simply countenanced or ignored. In this latter case even the passive encouragement of immorality is found to be profitable, and the impulse is to reach out and make more money.
"As an intensification of this tendency, a startling example is afforded in the case of a group of fourteen apartment houses under one management."
Speaking of the assumed respectability of some of those who engage in this infamously degrading "business," the commission say of the proprietor of a certain resort, that he "is a business man of some means and social standing, evinced by the fact that he maintains a handsome and luxurious home on the Heights." The "Heights" is the name for the location of the exclusive aristocratic dwellers in Portland.
In regard to the owner of a group of four of these immoral places, the report states that—
"This landlord is a young man, single, clean-cut, well educated, and evidently of respectable antecedents. He engages in this business in a spirit of cold cynicism, giving to its direction his entire time and mental energy. His sole ambition seems to be to acquire other property of the same general character, and conduct it in the same manner."
Under the head of "General Observations," the commission says:
"First.—The general absence of a keen sense of personal responsibility on the part of owners of real estate for the proper conduct of their property. In this connection, this commission has on file an accurate list of all properties investigated, together with a list of the names of owners of such properties, as they appear on record. Among owners of land on which, or of buildings in which, immorality is carried on for commercial gain, are the names of men, women, and institutions that for probity, honor, and good repute, stand high in public esteem—lawyers, doctors, bankers, real estate firms, prominent business men, city officials, church corporations, publishers, members of the Vice Commission. It is a general condition. And it is this general inertia of ignorance or indifference or denial of responsibility on the part of good men that lies close to the couch of this ugly problem. . . ."
"Second.—The economic effect of commercialized immorality as it obtains in the various classes of houses reported on is a matter of simple deduction. Obviously, the ability to command higher prices for rooms rented to immoral people and for immoral purposes materially increases the rental price of rooms to respectable folk. Therefore a burden is imposed upon all classes of hotel and lodging house patrons, especially upon respectable girls and women who are working in this city without the protection of a home and are obliged to seek living accommodations in the cheap hotel, or in the lodging or rooming house. The spread of immorality among the more ostensibly respectable of these places raises the room rent to a figure which drives many of these girls and women into cheaper and manifestly disreputable houses. Contact and association deadens the sense of decency, and at the same time widens the area of demoralization. Almost by involuntary process the army of fallen women is thus recruited.
"Third.—The insidiousness of this evil is evident. As commercialized vice spreads through houses of public accommodation, its demoralizing influence is exerted in a most insidious way. It tempts11the cupidity of proprietors. It furnishes a convenient and comparatively safe field for the lecherous exploits of the libertine. It subjects the vanity of weak women to terrible temptation, which too often leads them, for the sake of gaiety and good clothes, to take the plunge into the underworld. It opens up new territory in which men and women who trade and barter in prostitution may conduct their business with greater profit and safety. It develops abnormal phases of viciousness and dangerous deceit, as this commission discovered and can show by its records cases wherein apparently respectable lodging houses and hotels have been converted into centers of activity for a wide circle of depraved people; where debauchery of almost unbelievable character is practised; where blackmail is hatched against those who have money and social position. Even beyond all this, the evil of commercialized vice has been found by this commission flourishing virulently in a house of refined and respectable surroundings, under the managerial control of a minister of the gospel who lives outside the city, and on the list of one of the city's benevolent institutions as an applicant for the patronage of young women who were seeking respectable rooming places."
The conditions set forth in the conservative report of this Vice Commission of Portland are certainly appalling. And the most appalling thing about it is that any well-informed person will tell you that what exists in Portland is characteristic of all the other cities. Men claiming respectability are making a business of trading in vice. The only excuse the proprietors of these resorts have to offer is that "it pays." They can make money fast and easy by giving their time and their properties to such work, and hence they go into it headlong. Is it any marvel, in view of these conditions, that the apostle Paul says, "In the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money"? 2 Tim. 3: 1, 2. Note particularly that it is in the "last days" when the apostle says these grievous times shall come, and it is all because men are "lovers of self" and also "lovers of money." Supreme love of self, manifested in part through the love of money, is loading these last days with grievousness. "Commercialized vice" is only one of the avenues through which this love of money is manifesting itself, but the "grievous times" ought to come as a penalty if there were nothing in addition to the "vice trust" to call for it.
What are men thinking about? How can any one give himself to such a work of degradation as is manifested in what is brought to light through the investigations carried on in so many of the cities?
God's Word says that He turned "the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes," condemning them "with an overthrow, having made them an example unto those that should live ungodly." 2 Peter 2: 6. God's Word plainly tells what He intends to do with the corruption that is spreading like a plague in our great cities. He has given examples of His displeasure with such wickedness. The day of His retribution can not be put off. The warning should be sounded with intense earnestness, that destruction lies just before all this wicked work, and that all who continue to pursue it, will be destroyed along with their evil deeds. The hour is vibrating right over the world now when the solemnly grand words will apply. "Seal not up the words of the prophecy of this book; for the time is at hand. He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still: and he that is holy, let him be made holy still. Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to render to each man according as his work is. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have the right to come to the Tree of Life, and may enter in by the gates into the city. Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie." Rev. 22: 10-15.
