River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1889-01-24

dgdlnSJ any lDcnDcI WHO uOcS uOI
plead guilty by the very act charged.
The literature of the "dive" is as
inexhaustible as it is dirty, disgusting
and demoralizng. There is scarcely
paper, from the Chicago Times,
daily. to the backwoods News, weekly,
but serve up from one to three COL
umns of this prurient stuff in each
issue. The reigning patron saint of
the "dive" crusaders is DR.. Kate
Bushnell, who is a professional agi-
tator in the social purity department
of the w. G.. L. U. The end ostensibly
aimed at is commendable. The meth
DDS employed in the work are, at the
very least, questionable. For instance,
it is an open question whether the
probability of saving single inmate
of one of the northern dives is as
great as the probability of corrupting
the minds of scores of young boys and
girls who are permitted to crowd the
secrets of the brothels she claims to
have visited; or whether the w. G. 4.
U. column of the country paper, filed
week after week with The same pruri.
ent matter is not as liable to con-
taminate the fountain-head of social
purity, the young who read that
column from week to week, as it is to
reform an inmate of the dives" so
graphically described.
There is another phase of the ques-
tion which is worthy of passing notice.
This whole crusade has been aimed,
not at the keepers of the dives, but at
Gov. Rusk and the republican party.
1t is not of record that DR.. Kate Bush
nell or the w. G. I. U. have expended
one-tenth the energy in the prosecu.
tion of northern dive keepers as they
have in villification of the governor
and the republican party, neither of
whom can be properly charged with
responsibility in the matter. Back of
both, and animating the crusade, will
probably be found the prohi par
ty--as a political party and not as a
moral force. The energizing influ.
ence in the present outburst appears
to be Mr.. j. NJ. Olin. lie is also the
brains of the prohibition party, of
which the w. c. L. T., as society,
is an annex. These confederate par.
ties have two missiOns--to reform the
world by legal enactment, and as a
prerequisite. to Kill the republican
party. They have big contract in
hand. and they are going about it as
the Chinese go to war--armed with
stink-pots. They can stand it them
selves, but the decent public is begin
ming to tire of it, And in the ranks
of the w. G. I. U. itself are many
ladies who think the road TO social
purity does not lay in this direction,
and IN this city many of them are pri-
vately, and some are publicly, dis
claiming any part in the present cam.
paign of politics and filth.
The Young Women's Christian AS.
ISOLATION, which has just closed a
three days convention in this city,
stands entirely aloof from this cam.
paign, and has nothing in common
with the methods of the people who
are conducting it. Their effoi is are
all directed in the line of social purity,
in the conservation of purity among
the young, rather than in the attempt
to reform hardened criminals. The
society has membership of $4,000, is
organized in over 200 schools and
colleges. and is practically helpful
as well as outstanding in its meth.
DDS. 1t is unsectarian and non pOliti-
cal, and is already power for good in
the chosen field of its labors.
1t is encouraging to turn from the
doubtful methods and still more
doubtful politics of the professional
reformers to the clearly healthfulness
and practical plety of the younger
society, aud it is not doubtful that
they will keep more from falling than
the former will ever be able to rescue
along the lines of their present en-
deavor. G.. b. NJ.