The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-08-16
MOTHERS AND MORALITY.
French Statesman's Splendid Tribute
to the Influence of Home.

A French Statesman's Splendid Tribute
to the Influence of Home.
Almost everywhere the subject for short
er hours for women is being agitated. Dur
ing a debate in the French senate NJ Jules
Simon made grand appeal for the passage
of the law reducing the hours of labor for
women. In the course of his remarks,
which will interest people of other coun-
tries as we'll as France, the great senator
said
my friend, NJ. Berenger, argued that by
all these nice theories we are brought to
the necessity of presenting labor as pun
ishment; that in attempting to protect the
feeble against the abuse of labor we are
simply persuading them that daily labor is
hard thing, whereas there is nothing
more pleasant or certifying.
Certainly there is nothing in the world
so sweet as labor. 1t is an old friend to US
all For my part, if it has not always
given me what hoped for, it has, on the
other hand, made me pass many happy
hours. The happiest part of my life l owe
to it. Consequently am IN position to
say that work is a benefit, and l may add
that cannot conceive of any greater mis-
! fortune for a human being than to live
without working.
"But there are several sorts Of work, and
am afraid that this is something which
some people are inclined to forget. For
instance, the labor which we perform here,
seated comfortably in armchairs, is very
agreeable The task which you undertake
in your private Office charms you, and that
which my colleague performs when he
goes to the palais to plead before the courts
is for him a source of joy and satisfaction.
But permit me to say that there is nothing
in common between that sort Of work and
the manual labor of the man who puts in
his twelve hours in factory.
"Who can teach morality to a child bet
ter than a mother? Certainly moral in
struction is included in all the school
programmes, but however much | may re-
spect the teachers, believe that the moth
er is best fitted for giving that kind of in
struction. When young folk are tempted
By evil they think of their mothers; they
don't think of their schoolmasters. If,
when the worklngman comes home he
does not find his wife. who is obliged to
labor as many hours as he is, and does not
find his children properly cared form a
word, when there is in his home neither
cleanliness nor comfort nor affection, can
you not easily understand the cause of his
errors and of his shortcomings? But let
him find a neatly kept house, we'll cared
for children, humble but abundant sup
per, and the good kiss of wife happy to
see him back again. Then do you think
that he won't come home more willingly
and more regularity
my colleague, NJ. Tolain, has explained
to you why it has often been said that
steam has killed the wife and the mother
and has left us only the female. That is
only too true. In our workshops the
mother and wife exist no longer There
FORE in the name of humanity say to you,
Give us back the wife; give US back the
motherP And, l might almost add, Give
us back morality
THAT is the reason, gentlemen, why I
ask TO give the woman the hour that we
demand for her. Give it TO her, for if you
don't it will not be given to her Give
back the woman to human society; that is
to say, gentlemen, give back morality to
humanity. What is society without a
moral code, a house without children, a
home without wife and without mothers
You will, | know, vote for this law that we
present to you for woman and In the name
of woman. You all know how / love lib
erty. What would l not give for it?
Everything, gentlemen, everything, except
morality and dUty."-Paris Letter