A Mead Project clipping page

Originally published as:

Chicago Tribune. "Don’t Do As Did Prof. W. I. Thomas, Thrasher Warns." Chicago Tribune, 10 May 1918: 17.

Editors' notes

This news clipping forms part of the newspaper coverage from the Thomas Scandal.

The Chicago Vice War of 1917-18 is key to understanding W. I. Thomas's dismissal from the University of Chicago in April of 1918. This article and the others collected in "The Five-Mile Zone" scrapbook provide a good starting point for understanding the Department of Justice's involvement in the case.

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Chicago Tribune

DON’T DO AS DID PROF. W. I. THOMAS, THRASHER WARNS

Samuel P. Thrasher, superintendent of the Committee of Fifteen, paid his respects yesterday to W. I. Thomas, discharged professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, who was arrested in a downtown hotel recently with a young woman.

The occasion was the annual meeting of the committee. Mr. Thrasher presented his annual report, showing that the committee had made inroads on commercialized vice. One part of Mr. Thrasher’s statement was:

"If the Thomasonian theory prevails, I do not see why any libertine may not take another man’s wife or any other woman to the hotel, and if caught in dishabillé put up the defense that he was engaged in scientific research. What twaddle! Mark me, if I catch a highbrowed university professor paying for scientific research in the same way that the lowbrowed, shortjawed, licentious cuss pays for his he will get what is coming to him, or the Committee of Fifteen will get a new superintendent."

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