Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-05-01
THE WHITE LEGION.
An Organization Whose Avowed Objects
Are Entirely Praiseworthy.

IA <ASO"Cu oDlCCk0
Are Entirely Praiseworthy.
An organization with the above title
has been effected in New York, and
will 500 have branches in all the
leading cities of the country. Its OBJ
ject is a noble one, for it aims to incul-
cate purity of life, thought and speech
among men. A similar organization
has had a most beneficial effect on the
social life of England. The White Le-
gion demands of its subscribers that
they should apply the same rules of
conduct and conversation to men that
have always been demanded of women.
This organization does not pretend to
be religious in its aims; only ethical.
Its object is to create greater reverence
for the female sex. It would have all
men regard all women as they would
their mothers, their sisters or their
wives. The White Legion intends. if
possible, to stamp as ungentlemanly
and unbecoming loose and indicate
conversation among men. All it asks
of women is that they shall pass as
stern a judi gment upon men whose lives
are immoralas itnow does on members
of their own sex who have disregarded
the higher canons of conduct. OF
course it is easy to ridicule the objects
of a society of this kind, but all good
men and women should in every way
encourage it. Branches of the White
Legion will be established among the
young men in colleges. Herding
together in their dormitories, and away
from the refining influences of their
female relations, young collegians are
apt to become coarse in their converse
ton and immoral in their conduct, hence
! they need some standards of behavior to
save them from giving way to their
lower natures. It is always well to
keep before the young man a knowl-
edge of the dual aspects of love be-
tween the exes. In one view the APP
petite is that experienced by the tiger.
the goat, or the hyena, but this same
brute impulse becomes, under tho
manipulation of humanizing agencies,
the inspirer of all that is noble in life.
The romance, the chivairy, the self
sacrifice involved in the higher rela-
! tons of the sexes is. what makes this
life endurable, and stimulates all the
sentiments that center about the family
and the home. These higher senti-
ments are a matter of cultivation, and
hence the value of refined society, good
books, inspiring poetry, religious en-
thusiasm and influences such as can be
brought to bear by organizations such
as the White Legion.
In a new play by Alexander Dumas,
called 'Denise," one of the characters
enunciates The following sentiment,
which should be written in letters OF
gold: "Do you want to know what is
absolute truth? 1t is to respect the
first woman you have known and loved
your mother-in all the other women
you may meet hereafter. 1t is not to
make them fall if they stand high-not
to drag them lower if they are debased
already; it is to associate yourself for
life with onlySone woman, your wife,
and to have but one motive in mar
riage-love. This is truth. All that
borrows the name and is not this, has
been invented to suit a society which is
at once elegant n d.ssolute. DEM
0rest'S MONTHLY.