After diagnosis of the deficient cases, the next natural step is that of observation. Our observation, covering only a short time and therefore not very dependable, and perhaps of only slight suggestive value, has shown that these mentally deficient delinquents, while under discipline, seem to be inclined to commit only offenses that may be called neglects, and not offenses that are vicious in character, unless some one of a stronger mind has inspired the more vicious deed. The
great number of their failures are failures of omission, due to lack of apprehension. They fall below the standard because their minds are below it. It is also most apparent that there is need of a special method of treatment of the delinquent who is defective. There should be a separation of him from the normal. His mind is slow. He does not grasp instruction as quickly as the normal, and to subject him to the same standards under the same rules is inhumane. In discipline he is seriously interfered with by those who are bright and yet wilful, and who make him the butt of their jest. He cannot be taught the same subjects that can be taught to the average mind. It is a waste of time to undertake to teach him more than the simplest rudiments of the lower grammar grades. In work he is most successful in that which is purely methodical, in which there is little intelligence and initiative required. He can rise very little above the laborer, and to expect him to be a real mechanic or to try to train him for such will only mean failure, and the reformatory system that recognizes these limitations will certainly be most apt to succeed.
The reformatory needs to be most discriminating in dealing with this class when they are dismissed. The character and influences of the place to which they are paroled is a vital matter. These delinquents amid evil surroundings, or in the hands or under the influence of unscrupulous people are most dangerous. Unhesitatingly and almost without knowing it, they become the tool of the vicious. They are like the weather vane, which sways instantly in the direction of the power that is exerted upon it. The best people, those who are interested in helping the unfortunate and who will seek to carry on through the years the work which the institution has but begun, ought to be sought to help them when these individuals are dismissed from the institution. If this class is wisely dealt with, a percentage of this by-product of humanity, large enough to make it worth while, will be changed from mere animal things into individuals of value in the world.
CHICAGO’S VICE COMMISSION
[Editorial Reprinted From New York Evening Post, April 10]
[During the first week of April a remarkable report was issued by the Chicago Vice Commission. The editorial of the New York Evening Post of April 10th on the Chicago report merits reproduction in full.]
The report of the Chicago Vice Commission, made public last week, is a notable document for many reasons. To begin with, this is said to have been the first commission appointed by the mayor of a great city to deal with this question. In the next place, it conducted its inquiry in a scientific and dispassionate manner, and as a result has some definite and practical recommendations to make. But most important of all is that it rejects definitely and vigorously the theory that since prostitution has always been and is always likely to be, therefore there is nothing to be done but to regulate and tolerate and segregate. Into none of these pitfalls has it fallen. Without letting its idealism run away with it, the committee—a strong one, composed of business men, teachers, editors, doctors, and ministers—lays down the sound truth that the proper policy for a city is “constant and persistent repression,” with “absolute annihilation as the ultimate ideal.” There is no counsel of cowardice and despair here; no advocacy of those evil, out-worn policies of toleration which have long since demonstrated in Europe their inability to protect the public health or morals. What is counselled is a determined and vigorous grappling with the evil by the municipality, while the community as a whole devotes itself to those far-reaching policies of education and economic readjustment, which must eventually control some of the human currents that underlie this fearful social peril.
How great that evil is in Chicago alone appears from the committee’s sober estimate
that the annual loss in lives is 5,000 and the annual profit of those engaged in the trade is $15,000,000, which latter figure has since been raised four-fold. It has often been pointed out in these columns and elsewhere that, if there were any other single drain upon a city that cost it 5,000, or let us say even 2,500, lives a year, the community would be up in arms about it. A fire loss of that figure would stir this city to its foundations; the heavy toll in children’s lives paid every summer because of impure or improper food has roused the humanitarian spirit, and we are all familiar with the public determination to blot out the tuberculosis scourge as rapidly as possible. But these matters here come under the Board of Health, which spends great sums every year in such crusades. No department really has charge of this scourge of immorality save the Police Department, which in the past has regulated it as though merely with a view to obtaining for its corrupt members as large a share in the profits as possible.
That this indifference of the municipality to one of the most glaring and discouraging evils of our modern life is intolerable, the Chicago committee has fully realized, for it has recommended the immediate appointment of a morals commission of five members to be chosen by the mayor and approved by the city council, to serve for two years without pay, the commissioner of health to be an ex-officio member, its duty being to “gather evidence and to take the necessary legal steps for the suppression of vice in Chicago wherever such suppression is believed to be advisable.” Its jurisdiction is to cover Chicago and the territory three miles beyond its corporate limits. In addition to this morals commission, there is urged a morals court to consider the cases submitted to it by the morals commission. But far-reaching as these are, they are not the only practical remedies suggested. The city is urged to erect a trade school and hospital for wayward women on a farm owned by the municipality. A special house of detention is urged as absolutely necessary, as is a second state school for wayward girls, the existing one being overcrowded. Of vast importance in any city would be