These were the stakes as Soper saw them. Confusion,
suspicion, contagion, neighbor pitted against neighbor,
panic in the streets, and ultimately, chaos and death.
Epidemics — especially unexplained ones — tended to
bring out the worst in people, and the `carrier' theory,
however fearful its implications, was far preferable to some
of the alternatives. In the past citizens thought to be
contagious — particularly if they were members of the
minority or underclass — had hardly been taken to the
bosom of their communities. Instead the usual outcome
was for mob rule to win out. It was not unheard of for
those thought to be infected to be run out of town on a
rail or set adrift in the Long Island Sound — often at the
point of a gun — or worse still. As Soper saw it, he needed a
quick and tidy solution to the Oyster Bay problem.
Looking at pictures of Soper — a serious, narrow-faced,
whippetlike man with a neat mustache and a receding
hairline — one gets the impression of not so much the
dogged detective he might have liked to see himself as,
but of a timid, fastidious scientist, a man ensconced in
reasoned practice and methodology. That he might have
been racist, sexist, and far too influenced by the prejudices
of his class — as has been suggested by revisionist accounts
— a flawed, ambitious fellow who looked for the first likely
Irish woman he could clap the manacles on — does not
present itself through photography. Nor do we get much
of that from his work later in life: tomes with titles such as:
The Air and Ventilation of Subways (1908), Modern Methods
of Street Cleaning