The Crusade against Vice
Alarmed by the expansion in the number of brothels and “streetwalkers” that accompanied the growth of cities, progressives sought to eliminate prostitution. Some framed the issue in terms of public health, linking prostitution to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Others presented the crusade as an effort to protect female virtue. In 1907 the muckraking McClure’s Magazine, reporting on the spread of prostitution in Chicago, contended that many of the women were victims of “white slavery” and had been forced into prostitution against their will. Such reformers were generally interested only in white women, who, unlike African American and Asian women in similar circumstances, were considered sexual innocents coerced into prostitution. Still others claimed that prostitutes themselves were to blame, seeing women who sold their sexual favors as inherently immoral.
Reformers offered two different approaches to the problem. Taking the moralistic solution, Representative James R. Mann of Chicago steered through Congress the White Slave Trade Act in 1910, banning the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes. This legislation became known as the Mann Act after its sponsor. By contrast, the American Social Hygiene Association, founded in 1914, subsidized scientific research into sexually transmitted diseases, funded investigations to gather more information, and drafted model ordinances for cities to curb prostitution. By 1915 every state had laws making sexual solicitation a crime. The United States’ entry into World War I further helped curtail prostitution; brothels near military bases were closed because reformers argued that soldiers’ health was at risk.
Prosecutors used the Mann Act to enforce codes of traditional racial as well as sexual behavior. In 1910 Jack Johnson, an African American boxer, defeated the white heavyweight champion, Jim Jeffries. Black Americans took great pride in his triumph, while his victory upset some white men who were obsessed with preserving their racial dominance and masculine integrity. Johnson’s relationships with white women further angered some whites, who eventually succeeded in bringing down the outspoken, black champion by prosecuting him on morals charges in 1913.
Moral crusaders also sought to eliminate the use and sale of narcotics. By 1900 approximately 250,000 people in the United States were addicted to opium, morphine, or cocaine—far fewer, however, than those who abused alcohol. Patent medicines, such as “Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup,” a remedy for crying babies, contained diluted amounts of opium, and cocaine was an ingredient in Coca-Cola until 1903. On the West Coast, immigration opponents associated opium smoking with the Chinese and tried to eliminate its use as part of their wider anti-Asian campaign. In alliance with the American Medical Association, which had a professional stake in the issue, reformers convinced Congress to pass the Harrison Narcotics Control Act of 1914, prohibiting the sale of narcotics except by a doctor’s prescription.
Progressives also tried to combat juvenile delinquency. Led by women, these reformers lobbied for a juvenile court system that focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment for youthful offenders. Judge Ben Lindsay of Denver, Colorado, removed delinquents from dysfunctional homes and made them wards of the state. Despite progressives’ sincerity, many youthful offenders doubted their intentions. Young women often appeared before a magistrate because their parents did not like their choice of friends, their sexual conduct, or their frequenting dance halls and saloons. These activities, which violated middle-class social norms, had now become criminalized, even if in a less coercive and punitive manner than that applied to adults.