Innocent Passage

Hans Pete Mortensen and wife Lorraine operate a brothel called the Nifty Rooms lodging house, in Grand Island, Neb. (pop. 19,130). The Mortensens considerately took two of their girls to Salt Lake City for a brief vacation. The girls relaxed, had an innocent good time, returned refreshed to their work in Grand Island. But the Government convicted the Mortensens of violating the Mann Act.

This week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in effect, that prostitutes have as much right to vacations as anybody else. It reversed the Mortensen conviction by a vote of 5-to-4. Wrote Justice Murphy for the majority: "What Congress has outlawed by the Mann Act ... is the use of interstate commerce as a calculated means for effectuating sexual immorality. In ordinary speech, an interstate trip undertaken for an innocent vacation purpose constitutes the use of interstate commerce for that innocent purpose."

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