Knoxville Journal and Tribune
DR. W. I. THOMAS HELD IN CHICAGO
Registered in Hotel with Woman as Man and Wife
Well Known as Sociological and Sex Lecturer was Former Knoxville
Resident and U.T. Graduate
Married Miss Hattie Park
Chicago, April 12 — Federal authorities tonight turned over to the local police Dr. W. I. Thomas, sociologist at the University of Chicago, and Mrs. R. M. Granger, of Washington, D.C., who were taken into custody last night, it was announced by Hinton G. Clabaugh of the bureau of investigation of the department of justice.
Dr. Thomas and Mrs. Granger, who says she is the wife of an army officer now in France, are said to have registered at a downtown hotel last night as "C. Roland and wife, Gary, Indiana." They were questioned today by U. S. District attorney and department of justice men acting under Mr. Clabaugh, but Mr. Clyne would not discuss what action, if any, would be taken.
Mr. Clabaugh said he had turned over to Mr. Clyne evidence for the institution of charges of violating the Mann Act and the act forbidding false registration at hotels.
At the hotel the clerk's suspicions were aroused, and he notified Mr. Clabaugh, the latter sending agents to look through their luggage.
Both were taken before Mr. Clyne last night and are quoted as having attempted little, if any, concealment.
According to Mr. Clabaugh, Dr. Thomas said: "I love her and I don't care if the whole world knows it. My arrest is a tremendous injustice."
Mr. Clabaugh further quoted the woman as saying: "Dr. Thomas was kind to me. After my husband left for France, Dr. Thomas was most solicitous for my comfort. I just liked him at first; late it grew into love.
Dr. Thomas is 55 years of age, married, and has grown children. Mrs. Thomas was one of the founders of the Woman's Peace Party. Mrs. Granger is 24 years of age and has a 3 year old child living with her mother in Fort Worth, Texas.
She said, according to Clabaugh, that she accompanied her husband to New York to say good-by when he sailed. Dr. Thomas was in the city to gather material for a book on Poland.
Dr. Thomas for some time was much in demand for his lectures on sociology and the relation of sex thereunto. Among his teachings were:
Women are better off for having had their fling as men do; dissipated women often make excellent wives.
Chivalry is the persistence of the old race habit of contempt for women.
Any girl, mentally mature, has the right to have children and the right to limit their number.
The morality of women is an expediency rather than an innate virtue.
Marriage as it exists today is rapidly approaching a form of immorality.
Matrimony is often an arrangement by which the woman trades her irreproachable conduct for irreproachable gowns.
Children are not the result of marriage, but marriage is the result of children.
"No action will be taken today," said Mr. Cline, in whose hands the case now rests. "Although we have the results of the investigation of the department of justice, we feel we must make additional investigations because of the fact that there are a number of peculiar angles to the case."
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Dr. William I. Thomas, who spent his youth and early manhood in Knoxville, was the son of the late Dr. Thomas, of the Holston Methodist church conference, whose death occurred here a number of years ago.
He was graduated from the University of Tennessee in the class of 1884 and later became and instructor in the Oberlin, Ohio College, where he remained for some time before going to Chicago. He is well remembered by many residents of this city.
