It does not pay to repress human nature too much, or to
try to make out of a red-blooded young man or woman a mere machine.
Gambling, drunkenness, prostitution, and all sorts of pathological
vices flourish largely as a reaction from the dullness and monotony
of the day's work. We are paying this heavy penalty for our increase
of material efficiency at the expense of normal human living.
(4) With the increased possibilities of undetected sin, above
mentioned, and the opportunity which criminals now have of forming
within a city a little community of their own which permits them
fellowship without rebuke for their sins, there have arisen whole
classes of vice-caterers. These men and women make their living by
tempting others to sin; the allurements which they set before the young
constitute a great check to moral advance, and even threaten
continually a serious moral degeneration. The keepers of gambling
houses, saloons, and houses of prostitution, the venders of vile
pictures and exciting reading matter, the proprietors of indecent
dance-halls and theaters, of the "shows" of all sorts that flourish
chiefly through their offering of sexual stimulation these are the
worst sinners of our times, for they cause thousands of others to sin,
and deliberately undermine the moral structure so laboriously reared,
and at such heavy cost. Conspicuous in commercialized vice-catering
is the Casino of Monte Carlo, where thousands of lives have been ruined.
Pages:
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60