The day book. [volume], May 26, 1914, NOON EDITION, Image 5

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

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

                
WOMAN PHYSICIAN WANTS BOTH SEXES
TREATED ALIKE IN VICE CLEAN-UP
Dear Day Book: Under the head
ing "The Social Evil Is Slated for An
other Probe," there appears in your
edition of Friday this paragraph
about a meeting of the Public Health
Committee: "The meeting nearly
split up owing to an argument over
the city's right to let a lot of scien
tists undress and examine every girl
brpught into- the Morals Court." Also,
Dr1. Evans is quoted as saying at this
meeting: "We must control the
spread of contagious venereal dis
eases, more dangerous than scarlet
fever and smallpox, or have an epi
demic of these diseases."
These paragraphs lead me to ask,
Is there any sex in the spread of
smallpox and scarlet fever? Does the
spread of gonorrhea and syphilis and
chancroids know any sex? Since
there is but one answer to these ques
tions, and that answer is "No," and
since a person does not have to be a
physician to know that there is but
the one answer, "No," then why ex
amine only the girls?
Another paragraph reads: "A wo
man who, therefore, gave no sign of
having the disease would infect
countless men."
This is the first admission I ever
happened to see in print that "count
less men would be infected." Are they
not prostitutes also?
This leads me to ask, Who infects
the clean women, that commercial
ized vice forces into the life of pros
titutes? Certainly not a woman.
Therefore, is not man an equal and a
far more dangerous spreader of vene
real contagious diseases? "Most as
suredly" and "Yes" are my answers.
The amount of stupidity and crimi
nality is inexpressible in word lan
guage, which is shown by man when
he advises examination and so-called
cures and pretentions of cleanliness
for women, and lets the men freely
go to and from the inmates of homes
of prostitution and t9 their homes
without examination or effort to cure
and without labeling one of them as
you would another with scarlet fever
or isolating one of them as you would
had he smallpox. This inequality
suggests to my mind also, Why
should not Judge Owens extend his
illegal and unjust ruling which for
bids inmates of houses of prostitu
tion from registering, to the men who
frequent these houses, who visit
these same inmates? And, also, why
should he not put the same test to
his new list of election clerks? From
an election point of view, why not
ask Judge Owens if there be, in prin
ciple, any difference between a Del
monico dinner and a glass of beer,
when he makes such sweeping
changes in Ms clerks of election.
Candidly, if there is to be any kind
of a "clean-up" of vices and dis
eases which know no sex, why not
play open and aboveboard, and fair
and honest, and clean, and be up to
the scientific knowledge at date, and
make only such rules or laws that
will affect both sexes alike. Why
make any rule for one sex only in
contagious venereal diseases, any
more than you would think of iso
lating a woman with smallpox and
not a man, or tagging the homes
where only girls are ill with scarlet
fever, and not the homes where are
the scarlet fever boys?
A professor of bacteriology once
said to me: "From a biological point
of view ten men could propagate the
world with as many children as exist
today." This might lead one to ask,
"Should incurable contagious vene
real filth be left to roam freely, even
if let to live?"
While I agree that a morals in
spection squad should go with the
Morals Commission, rather than a
police inspection squad, I wpuld wish
to insist that there be two morals
squads. Women only should exam
ine and pass upon, and care for, wo-