Newspaper Page Text
I?
IMorJlepers give physical lepers a run
FOR THEIR MONEY IN UNCLEANNESS
i ' BY JANE WHITAKER
Tliere is a cry that sends a chill of horror through every human being
that hears it. It is the cry "unclean' that is uttered by pnysical lepers.
But physical lepers are not the only ones unclean. Moral lepers are
just as unclean, and just as dangerous to society, but they never utter a
warning cry, instead they stalk quietly and in shadowy places, and always
they endeavor to conceal their condition of leprosy.
' K Tonight, in the world of mimicry, an actor will impersonate an old
!roue, Scott, wealthy and married, who attempts to seduce Gerty Meyers, a
, little stenographer, pretty and weak.
Scott is a moral leper.
Yesterday in the Chicago avenue police court, a middle-aged roue, John
Cunningham, wealthy and married, was accused by Dorothy Moore, a weak
little stenographer, pretty, of accomplishing her ruin.
It is not necessary for us to consider the truthfulness of Dorothy's
t, story that she was taken,-unconscious, to the New Albany Hotel by Cun
opningham, and ruined, or Cunningham's story that she went there of her
own volition the court will decide that.
" fr tv, But the thine we must consider is that Cunnineham stalkerf his nrev
ELhy the method used by men of his caliber, a method which rarely varies, as
lougn ail moral lepers learned from
rtheame book.
kiJHe took her to luncheon in an ex-
. nensive restaurant where, at his in.-
l -vKahon, she drank.
f ' That was not the day Cunningham
;i-ruinea ner. we was most consider
ate umi uay, aucoruing to jjorotny,
arid lie was most considerate the next
day when he again asked the" child,
Btni sick from her experience of the
day before, to lunch with him once
more.
3Vfen of Cunningham's class never
I am going
say to weak little girls:
to take you to lunch, and then to a
Tiotel, and I am going to ruin you."
.C-h, no. They always say: "Don't
you trust me? Don't you know I ad
mire you? It was a mistake that I
asked you to drink yesterday and I
i am very sorry. I will never do it
again, u you win trust me. Ana
ireak little girls always believe.
'There was less excuse for Ger-
I. trude Meyer than f pr Dorothy Moore,
'lot Scott was an old roue, and
jjyoung girls instinctively rebel against
age; but Cunningham is still quite
Jvirfle'and very charmingly persua-
iva
It doesn't matter whether Dor
othy drank a glass of water and
then became sick and has no recol
lection of what happened to her
thereafter until she awoke, alone, in
a room in the New Albany Hotel, and
realized she was ruined, or whether
Cunningham was so persuasive that
she accompanied him to the hotel un
der the spell of passion or "even of
alcohol.
Tbes thing that matters is that
Cunningham took Dorothy Moore, a
mere child-woman, with a flower-like
face so sweetly innocent that no
man, however much of a roue he
might be, could for a moment be
lieve the girl was anything but a
good girl, and that when he left her
he had branded her with his unclean
touch.
There are men who never stalk
prey unless they are positive it has
not been wounded by any other hun
ter. There are men who boast --of
this decadence.
Whether this was the first good
girl Cunningham ruined is .not
known. If it was he is quite a mas
terhand at tempting good little girls.
