The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-09-25
THE WHITE CROSS IN THE
UNITED STATES.

try during the past ten years, various
influences have combined to develop |
an interest in this movement. Quietly,
but persistently, the preparations for a
good and much needed work have been
progressing individual effort, by
the formation of societies, by various
publications issued for the purpose of
elevating the moral tone of society.
For several years moral education
societies have existed in the following
named places Washington, Boston,
Brooklyn, Chicago and Cleveland.
A year ago DR.. Alice B. Stockham,
now of Englewood, organized society
in San Francisco, in which the work
is conducted by both sexes, and this
has proved success there, though in
nearly all other places, men and women
have had separate organizations. A
clear and comprehensive statement of
the general aims of social purity work
is thus formulated for San Francisco:
"The object of this society shall be to
provide a better instruction upon the
laws of life; to consider the best methods
of giving this instruction to children and
youth, so that clear moral perception,
right knowledge, pure thought, elevated
tastes, refined feeling and healthful hab-
it's may raise the standard of social pur-
ity, and lift future generations above the
sensuality which is restrained only by
fear of discovery; to seek the enactment
and enforcement of laws which tend to
the removal of wire and the promotion of
morality, and to cooperate with other
societies established upon this basis
throughout the country"
A School of Maternity is one out
growth of the San Francisco work.
This furnishes lectures and instruction
on health-''how to develop harmoni-
ously the spiritual, mental and physical
nature of the child" To the girls it
gives valuable supplement to their
present course of instruction.
Rev. DR.. B. F. De Costa, rector of
the Church of St. John the Evangelist,
New York, organized White Cross
Society in that city. He is one of the
leading champions of the work in the
Episcopal church, and will, it is an
nounced, represent the interests of the
movement at the Church Convention in
Chicago, next month. In his address
before the WOman's Temperance Con-
vention, he advocated some very prac-
tical ideas wages form an important
element, in connection with vice, like
over work in connection with drunken
ness for it is idle to ask women any
more than men to be virtuous while
starvation wages render virtue impossi-
BILE. Here, then, again, comes in the
first White Cross principle to protect
women from wrong, not from one es-
pecial wrong, but from all wrong, in
Guiding the wrong of underpaid labor,
for if there is anything to which the
White Cross Knight is pledged by the
terms of his contract, it is that woman
has perfect right to the same pay as a
man, for doing the same work. Ac-
cept and practice this, and the stand
ard of morality will at once rise.''
The Woman's Christian Temperance
Union now includes Department for
Promotion of Social Purity, Co-operat-
ing with the White Cross Army" Last
January Miss Willard began sending
out White Cross pledges and literature
to all parts of the United States. In
short time superintendent of the work
were appointed in nearly all the States,
and numerous local unions were organ
lied. Reading rooms, homes, reform
atories, have been projected, and many
of them are already in operation.
In Chicago, much good has been ac-
complished, and constant efforts are
making in many directions to rescue
the fallen. The work done in cOnnec-
ton with the reading-room, is very eff
fective, as we'll as that accomplished by
CO. operation with the matrons of police
stations. A lodging house and an in
dustrial home are projected.
DR.. Kate Bushnell is organizing local
committees for co-opera"1u with W.
G.. T. u. work, and Mrs. DR.. kellogg.
of Battle Creek, is distributing informa-
ton concerning the most desirable
methods of conducting mothers meet
ings. Miss Willard has recently deliv-
cred addresses at Chautauqua, Lake
Side, Monona Lake, Saratoga, Lake
Bluff and other places. Petitions to
Congress, in behalf of the legal protec-
ton of womanhood and girlhood are in
circulation, and appeals in the same
interest will be made to all State Legis-
latures during the coming winter.
The w. C. 7. U. work for the sup
pressioc of immortality, is carried on in
the grand, aggressive way that it has
been for the humiliation of intemper-
ance, holding that the two are twin
evils. and that the Union, which has
done so much to uplift fallen men, finds
now most fitting work in raising fallen
women. One of the latest important
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