  The next subject allied the last, on to which I have been trying my train of thoughts to switch, Is one to which a common word is applied, That just as well fits many other things beside; But the meaning of which comes easily when tried; And seems to pop into your heads with no upheaval, Is that natural crime called “the social evil.” Now, I did not make people and neither did you, But if a certain inspired book be true, Some one made man for a start, And then chopped out him a piece near his heart, And constructed another of a little different sort. If this be true the “some one” must be divinity For, ever since, there has been a mysterious affinity, Between the two kinds in every community. On this subject we must not too widely roam, Because it might bring some trouble home, To some of you married men who every now and then Feel like jumping out of your own pen. Legislation and investigation and even humiliation, Over all creation, in homes of every station, Among peoples of every tribe and nation, Have to this offense brought emancipation. Women have been burned at the stake, In attempting to make them forsake, The lives they were leading, the men they were bleeding. In all your statute books, in corners and nooks, Laws have been framed against every thing that looks Towards countenancing any form of prostitution: Yet with all this and your contribution, In your vain attempts to revise the constitution Of woman and man ever since the world began, You have not yet laid the foundation For killing this wicked institution. You have tried segregation into dark streets, Where your own policemen lose their beats; You have tried fines in the police courts, Where they fetch up all the regular sports; You have even gone yourself among the slums; And feigned to be treating them as your chums, Doing your levelest to put them under your thumbs, And yet this evil does not seem to succumb; Now what can we do but to stop trying, And to our several good wives lying About where we’ve been now and then. You let this subject alone and stay at home As much as you can for the good of man. The more you talk and act wise, The more you’ll advertise the thing to eyes That see and ears that hear When you think no eavesdropper is near.
|
|
