Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO’S MORAL CONDITIONS GET FEDERAL O.K.

Washington, D. C. March 31.– [Special.] – That moral conditions in Chicago are on the whole satisfactory was disclosed today following the issuance of a report by Raymond B. Fosdick, chairman of the commission on training camp activities, exposing the prevalence of vice in Philadelphia.

"We have our agents on the watch in Chicago all the time, as in 125 other cities in or near which troops are quartered," Mr. Fosdick said tonight. "I have comprehensive reports on conditions in Chicago, and I can say that there is nothing in them causing us any apprehension.

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"Such condition in Chicago as we have found reprehensible are not general and have been reformed or are in process of being reformed by governmental agencies. There is no ground for complaint of general conditions in Chicago, as in the case of Philadelphia."

Mr. Fosdick charges that the police force of Philadelphia "is not only inefficient; it is corrupt."

Mr. Fosdick declares that during the last six months many attempts have been made to clean up the unwholesome conditions in Philadelphia, and adds:

"I am convinced that the fundamental reason for the failure of these attempts is the intimate connection of responsible officials with those who profit form the continued existence of vicious conditions."

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Secretary Daniels sent copies of the document to the governor of Pennsylvania and the mayor of Philadelphia urging them to use every influence of the city and state to "clean up and make a wholesome environment for the young men who are in training to serve the country in this crisis."

"Reports reaching this office from every city in the country show that nowhere else are conditions so intolerable," Mr. Fosdick says.

The reported lists a limited number of known disorderly houses and states that they represent only a small fraction of such places in Philadelphia.

"In practically every disorderly house visited our investigators were informed by the women in charge that they paid weekly sums to the police for protection and that liquor could be purchased in the house," the report says.

 

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