Chicago Daily Journal
THOMAS GIVEN THEIR
SUITCASE
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Federal Officer Returns Brevoort Evidence; Case Against Ex-Professor Dropped.
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William Isaac Thomas, former college professor, appeared at the federal building today and claimed the suitcase that was seized by federal agents when he was arrested in a room at the Brevoort Hotel with Mrs. R. M. Granger. It was turned over to him.
This was taken as an indication that the government had officially closed the Thomas scandal and that the loss of his place on the University of Chicago will remain as Thomas’ only punishment.
The professor appeared weary and dejected when he entered the federal building. His smile was entirely gone. As he passed a group of federal operatives one of them said:
"There goes a man who looks down and out."
He pretended not to hear and walked hurriedly on. Despite the fact that the case had been dropped federal officials insisted an investigation was still being conducted.
"You may quote me as saying that the federal authorities pay not the slightest attention to the ‘discharge’ of Thomas and the woman in the Morals court," said United States District Attorney Charles F. Clyne. "The department of justice is still investigating the movements of the couple and we are almost ready to decide our future course. Stories that we have dropped our planned action are utterly false.
In the office of Acting Chief Mooney of the detective bureau and Second Deputy Funkhouser, the precedent established by Judge Graham and Prosecutor Harry B. Miller in freeing Thomas and Mrs. Granger on the theory that acts of vice must be public was viewed with more alarm. They profess to see it as crippling their efforts to control vice and also a general tilting of "the lid."
One man assigned to Deputy Funkhouser’s office, said:
"Judge Graham, who has jurisdiction over all such cases, has ruled in effect that a man may take any woman to a hotel, preferably one of the larger hotels, and register there as man and wife and they may not be arrested."
After their technical victory Friday Thomas and Mrs Granger returned to the Thomas home, 6132 Kimbark avenue, where they are still under the watchful protection of William Thomas, 24 years old, the "boy who wasn’t raised to be a soldier," and his pacifist mother.
Rumors were current to the effect that Thomas, having been cast out by the University of Chicago, would use the publicity given him by the arrest to take to the lecture platform with discourses on sex.
