But while recognizing that sexual immorality means social degradation, and that it is a most prolific source of crimes in general, it nevertheless tolerates and condones it, and in many countries has even actually favored it.
"There are no grotesques in Nature", and shame will fall upon that nation which adopts the scoundrel maxim that unchastity is necessary for the health of men.
The appetite comes by eating; and vice, if cherished and stimulated, will excite a relish for indulgence which Nature never intended, until the frightful monster lashes and stings the immoral gluttons, and menaces with the foulest corruptions the community in which it is tolerated.
Such cobweb laws cannot restrain the fixed activities of the universe, and when law is not at least to some extent in accord with +he eternal truths which science has revealed, then tyranny begins.
Prostitution is regarded as the shame of women; it is not it is the shame of men. It is the unwholesome play of men, but the degradation and death of women.
In the United States there is no regulation of prostitution openly recognized by law; but propositions are constantly brought before the legislatures of the various States, having in view the "State Regulation and Control of Vice".
Within the past few years strenuous efforts have been made to secure the licensing of brothels in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, Chicago, Pittsburg, San Francisco, and some other cities; but public sentiment has so far caused the projects to fail with one exception, the St. Louis experiment of 1870-73.
This St. Louis experiment of 1870 was the one instance in our country in which regulation was enforced by law, in accordance with the recommendations of commissioners who were sent to Europe to study the methods there in vogue.
It, however, proved an utter failure, and was repealed by the Missouri legislature of 1873 in deference to the appeals of the best citizens, assembled in mass meet ings.
During the unwholesome years in which the license laws were in force there, the number of prostitutes increased at the rate of twenty per cent a year, and venereal disease extended in a corresponding ratio, as shown by the records of the United States Marine Hospital.
The license system has been found pernicious and has been repealed in many municipalities and localities in France, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Sweden, and some other countries; and Great Britain and Norway have absolutely abolished aU regulations.
For us to take it up would be a step downward.
And yet the reader has probably heard intelligent men lawyers, doctors, business men, and even occasionally a minister of the Gospel assert strongly that the police should be given control to license and regulate brothels for the safety of the community and the prevention of disease.
To every important question there are two sides a right and a wrong one and it is the duty of every citizen to seek light; to have a reason for the faith that is in him; to see when he cannot argue against the inevitable, and in no case to be an invertebrate.
The expounding of this subject rightly belongs to the medical profession, while to the layman is left the work of appointing the authorities who shall frame and execute the laws; so it is surpassingly important for every citizen to be thoroughly informed as to the exact truth. Truth is adamantine absolutely unbending and uncomplying; and therefore it is not astonishing that the majority of thinking men and women, who are in a position to understand the question, are unconditionally opposed to this unscientific and unnatural law which is rightly termed license.