Chicago Tribune
VICE LANDLORDS FACE
PUBLICITY?
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Episcopal Association of Chicago Demands the Names of Resort Owners.
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PUTS GUILT ON THEM
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Asks Commission Recently Appointed by Mayor Busse to Act in the Matter
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Publicity of the names of owners of all Chicago property used for immoral purposes was urged as a vice curbing agency yesterday at the final session of the annual convention of the Episcopal diocese of Chicago, and the following resolution was adopted with the report of the committee on Christian social service:
"Resolved, That the Chicago vice commission be requested to secure, so far as possible, the names of the owners and leaseholders of all the property in Chicago used for immoral purposes, and that they consider the advisability of publishing the same."
Directs Attack on Owners
In offering the resolution for action by the convention the committee had this to say.
"It is said upon good authority that many houses in Chicago used for immoral purposes are owned by respectable people and corporations Can their owners, however remote they may be from the direct management of their property, disclaim the responsibility of ownership and be guiltless before God and their fellows in the enjoyment of the revenue so derived?
"We desire to call attention to a principle of great and far reaching importance which has a direct bearing upon the social problems. It is the morality of investment and the obligation which rests upon every Christian man to see to it that the source from which his income is derived is unpolluted. Every man is, as a rule, responsible for the conditions under which the wealth he controls is accumulated and the channels through which it goes in exerting its energy.
Question for Conscience
"Every Christian man must ask himself this question: ‘Have the men and women who have been instrumental, directly or indirectly, in producing the wealth I enjoy been benefited by its production and received their fair share of it?"
"Many a man sanction corporate acts which in his individual capacity he disapproves. He is willing to share in gains which he knows to be unjust when judged by ethical standards; to sanction, at least by his silence, methods which he knows to be unfair. Can a man accept and use revenues arising from an iniquitous traffic and be innocent of iniquity? Can he at the same time serve God and Mammon" That is the question.
"Here is a corporation, let us say, which exploits child labor and employs labor at unfair wages or under unsafe or unsanitary conditions, which engages in unfair methods of competition, which is guilty of illegal practices. Supposing the facts to be indubitably known, can a Christian man share in profits so made and be guiltless?"
Bishop Anderson Presides
The convention, which was presided over by Bishop Charles F. Anderson and consisted of 300 lay and clergy delegates, voted to establish at once a Christian Social service extension committee to work in every parish. Tow representative from each parish and mission are to organize classes for systematic study of social, economic and civic problems.
The following delegates from the clergy and laity were chosen to represent the diocese at the general convention of the Protestant Episcopal church of the United States at Cincinnati next October: Dean Sumner, the Rev. George C. Stewart, the Rev. W. C. DeWitt, the Rev. John H. Hopkins, D. B. Lyman, E. P. Bailey, H.J. Ullmann, and H. S. Hawley.
