Chicago Daily Journal
THOMAS AFFAIR ONLY
RESEARCH
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Ex-Professor Only Apparent Regret is That His Adventures Were Discovered
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TALKS ABOUT ‘MY STANDARDS’
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Makes Statement on Why He Was In Hotel with Wife of Soldier.
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The University of Chicago, from the littlest undergraduate to the most acdate professor of philosophy, joined with the rest of Chicago today in disagreeing with Prof. William Isaac Thomas’ defense of himself and Mrs. Pearl Granger and his theories of conduct. The professor’s lengthy statement, which is the first "official" word he has spoken since his arrest with Mrs. Granger in a room in the Brevoort hotel, his discharge from the university faculty and his arraignment and discharge in the Morals court, assumes the attitude that the worst part of breaking the laws and the ordinary conventions by registering as man and wife with the wife of an army officer fighting in France "is being found out."
"My Standards"
His statement contains several of the phrases "according to my standards."
"My own association with women has been varied," he writes, " but always of a constructive kind, according to my standards. I have met with many women in many situations which would be called compromising, have gained through this much new experience, and have incidentally been instrumental in raising a number of the persons concerned to higher levels of efficiency."
Frequently the savant takes advantage of his ill luck and capitalizes his misfortune by quoting from and "boosting" the books which he has written on sociological lines. He admits, modestly enough, that the English suffragists called one of his publications, which American women condemned as offensive, "one of the main aids to their cause."
In Hotel Room for Life Story
The "alibi" for their presence in the hotel room which the erstwhile educator puts forth, does not quite jibe with the story told by the police and the hotel room clerk. He says Mrs. Granger and he went to the hotel to meet a young woman whose "life story" they were to get for a literary production. The hotel clerk says he went in the room after becoming suspicious of the registry, "C. Roland and wife, Gary, Ind." and found them en dishabille.
"Sexcerpts" from His "Standard"
Some of the "sexcerpts" of the professor’s statement, which give the general tone of his defense, are:
I have committed not one but many indiscretions in this connection (social research), but I have done no injury to society, nor to individuals, according to my standards.
Society certainly should not interfere with the free association of mature persons capable of planning their own lives and seeking their own values, and it certainly should interfere in the case of the immature and those incapable of doing so.
Admits It’s Dangerous
I must point out that sex is a dangerous subject to study because it is the only remaining subject which has not been opened up freely to scientific investigation.
Society needs the dissent and innovation of the individual, for otherwise there would be no change, no progress, no increasing efficiency, but society tends to destroy the individual who introduces the change.
Sex bears to my work only the relation it ought to bear as a part of human nature. It is a nasty thing or a dignified thing, according to the purpose with which it is approached.
There are no possible substitutes for originality and creativeness, and there are no possible substitutes for personal freedom in developing originality and creativeness in the individual.
But there is also a large region of sexual life, both inside and outside of marriage, in which the state and the public should not concern themselves.
Seeks for More Happy Society
Part of the professor’s defense statement reads:
"I have no desire to make a formal statement concerning the incident which led to my dismissal from the University of Chicago unless it is done in connection
