Washington Post
PROFESSOR IS QUIZZED
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Elderly Sociologist and Young Wife of Soldier Held
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MUTUAL LOVE IS THEIR PLEA
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Dr. William I. Thomas, of University of Chicago Faculty, Prominent for His
"Advanced" Views — Companion Gives Washington as Home. Inquiry by Federal
Officers
Chicago, April 12. — Hinton G. Clabaugh, chief of the local bureau of the Department of Justice, today announced that his agents last night took into custody Dr. William Isaac Thomas, of the faculty of the University of Chicago, known as an authority on sociology, and a woman said to be the wife of a Texas man now in France with Gen. Pershing.
Mr. Clabaugh said he had turned over to United States District Attorney Clyne evidence for the institution of charges of violating the Mann act and the act forbidding false registration at hotels.
Dr. Thomas and the woman, who said she was a Mrs. R. M. Granger of Washington, D. C. are said in the data give Mr. Clyne to have registered at a downtown hotel last night as man and wife from Gary, Ind. Both were taken before Mr. Clyne and are quoted as having attempted little if any concealment.
Arrest "Tremendous Injustice."
According to Mr. Clabaugh, Dr. Thomas said: "I lover her and I don’t care if the whole world knows it. My arrest is a tremendous injustice."
Mr. Calbaugh 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 like him at first; later 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 old and has a 3-year-old child living with her mother at Fort Worth, Texas.
Accompanied Husband to Ship
She said, according to Clabaugh, that she had accompanied her husband from the training camp at Fort Worth to New York, to say good-by when he sailed. Dr. Thomas was in the city to gather material for a book on Poland. There were introduced by Mrs. Granger’s sister. That latter and Mrs. Granger have been living at a South Side family hotel for about two weeks. At this hostelry it was said that Mrs. Granger left suddenly last night in a taxicab to go downtown. The sister’s name, according to G. W. Wayson, manager of the hotel, is Mrs. Rains.
In Demand for His Lectures
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 have 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 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."
Case Has "Peculiar Angles."
"No action will be taken today," said District Attorney Clyne, in whose hands the case now rests. "Although we have results of the investigation of the Department of Justice, we feel that we must make additional investigations ourselves, because of the fact that there are a number of peculiar angles to the case.
Dr. Thomas and Mrs. Granger this afternoon were examined by the district attorney in the presence of an assistant skilled in Mann act proceedings. They were turned over to the local police tonight.
