The day book. [volume], April 01, 1914, NOON EDITION, Image 7

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
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Jt-UK IHtlK MONEY IN UJNCLfcANINfcSS
BY JANE WHITAKER
There is a cry that sends a chill of horror through every human being
A that hears it. It is the cry "unclean" that is uttered by physical lepers.
ft But physical lepers are not the only ones unclean. Moral lepers are
I just as unclean, and just as dangerous to society, but they never utter a
I warning cry, instead they stalk quietly and in shadowy places, and always
they endeavor to conceal their condition of leprosy.
Tonight, in the world of mimicry, an actor will impersonate an old
roue, Scotf, 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
story that she was taken, unconscious, to the New Albany Hotel by Cun
ningham, and ruined, or Cunningham's story that she went there of her
own volition the court will decide that.
But the thing we must consider is that Cunningham stalked his prey
by the method used by men of his caliber, a method which rarely varies, as
though all moral lepers learned'irom
the same book.
He took her to luncheon in an ex
pensive restaurant where, at his in
vitation, she drank.
That was not the day Cunningham
ruined her. He was most consider
ate that day, according to Dorothy,
and he was most considerate the next
day when he again asked the child,
still sick from her experience of the
day before, to lunch with him once
more.
Men of Cunningham's class never
say to weak little girls: "I am going
to take you to lunch, and then to a
hotel, and I am going to ruin you."
Oh, 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
am very sorry. I will never do it
again, if you will trust me." And
weak little girls always believe.
There was less excuge for Ger
trude Meyer than for Dorothy Moore,
for Scott was an old roue, nd
young girls instinctively rebel against
age; but Cunningham is still quite
virile and very charmingly persuasive
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 awolie, 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.
The 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 wha 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
ielhand at tempting good little girls;
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