Press: Champaign Campaign

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Lately so many great daily journals have dared call syphilis and gonorrhea by their right names that University of Illinois Daily Illini Editor John Mabley fortnight ago saw no reason why the fight against social disease should not be carried forward by the college papers. Especially did he think a crusade timely when he discovered that the university town of Champaign had one of the highest venereal disease rates in Illinois.

As groundwork for his drive, Editor Mabley, a 22-year-old Beta Theta Pi, assigned reporters to cover eight Champaign vice resorts. They interviewed inmates, photographed a brothel façade with the madame in the doorway, a college student "planted" on the porch. Fortnight ago the Illini opened its pack of revelations, drew forth these:

"We think there are 25 houses running wide open. We can prove 14."

"It is said that more than 70% of patrons of Walnut Street houses are students. This in spite of fact that Champaign is the railroad man's paradise."

"The situation that exists in Champaign today is indescribably bad, getting worse every day. Every resident of Champaign must help in this drive. Prostitution cannot survive if the citizens show they will not tolerate it."

"One of the things we found out is the Chicago syndicate sends only the worn out and diseased girls down here for the student trade."

Last week, halfway through its crusade the uninhibited Illini had so alarmed U. of I. President Arthur Cutts Willard that he jumped into a huddle with city officials, emerged with a warning that any student nabbed in a brothel would be expelled summarily. Said President Willard: "I don't believe conditions here are general among the University's 14,000 students. But we intend to put an end to them."