Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1893-05-17

De beaten by her brutal husband for sus-
picion Of the act of which he is daily
guilty.
(b) Such solution would only aggra-
yate the evil by emphasizing its cause
namely, a dual standard of right The
secret of the curse today is that there
are two codes of morals-one for women,
another for men Any proposition to
regulate this vice is a proposition to
erect dual standard of right, of truth.
1t proclaims the monstrous lie that in
diligence in vice is necessity for man.
Prostitution is not weakness-it is a
crime.
(c) Therefore the state cannot legalize
crime without committing suicide. The
state has no more right to recognize
prostitution as necessary evil than it
has the right to recognize stealing as a
necessary evil. Stealing will doubtless
never be totally suppressed. Is it sane,
therefore, to say that because we cannot
totally suppress it we must regulate it?
(d) No system of regulation has ever
checked the evils of prostitution, but has
only served to increase them and aggra-
vate them. This is the testimony incon-
trovertible from every experiment where
1t has been tried. The result has been
not the decrease of disease, but the in
crease of disease. 1t has not diminished
the evil, but increased it in the number
of those who fall victims. The number
of evil women has increased; the num-
Der of young men debauched has in
creased. A wider harvest of death has
always been reaped. The city of Colmar,
Ca, has recently abolished the system
of regulation, having pronounced it a
dismal failure. The mayor of Colmar de-
clares that the morals of the town have
steadily improved from that day. All
the laws on the subject of regulation
have been swept from the statute book
of England as a disgrace to the
nation. In Russia the system has
been pronounced failure. In Aus
tria it has been pronounced a
failure. None Of its professions has
ever been carried out, and in every case
they have failed to do what was pre-
tended could be done by their promoters
III EJtiill AetslCAlO pidlto ludb LILO l4Cdllb
for regul r ion are utterly imperfect; that
the visitation provided in law is inef-
ficient and the treatment in hospitals
equally So In Germany we have the
same story of failure in her great cities.
In Italy the laws regulating prostitution
were repealed in 1888. In 1880 the laws
of regulation were abolished in Bern,
Switzerland. and in Christiania, Norway
Denmark swept the laws from her stat
ute books in 1880. In France the failure
has been most dismal of all. The city
of Paris has registered between 1000 and
5000 women of i'll repute, and yet we
are told that in the city there are 100000
such women.
THE ONE POSSIBLE SOLUTION.
What does regulation amount to?
Paris is the most corrupt city socially in
the world. Contagious diseases are more
prevalent in Paris than any city in the
world. What has regulation done for
Paris? 1t has simply debauched the pub
lie conscience and taught the young
manhood of France that prostitution is
a necessary evil; that the state recog-
nizes it, and that therefore indulgence is
a question of taste. But men say thatit
is impossible to suppress the evil; that it
has always failed where tried. Is this
true? Where has it failed? Where has
it ever been tried? We have not yet
emerged from the primitive barbarism
that would seek to degrade woman by
the process of regulation. We have never
failed because we have never tried. Man
has never really risen to the position of
meeting woman upon an equal ground.
Charles Darwin, the great scientist, tells
us that man is the only animal in which
the male is ever unkind to the female.
1t was a subtle Frenchman who said, in
view of the long subjugation of women,
THE virtue of woman is the wittiest in
vention of man."
This is the opinion, know, of certain
leaders of thought in the old world, but
are not better things to be expected of
American manhood? We have been the
of the world in leading the race
to the heights of liberty and of truth.
Shall we crawl back to the sewers of the
dark cities of the old world to find the
ways of life? Let American manhood
look to higher and diviner ideal. Well
has Miss Willard said on this point again:
1.-The manhood of America is the noblest
and most masterful on earth because it
has mastery of itself. Our everyday re-
ligion has so developed women and re-
fined men that men think of us with re-
spect and reverence" Let American
manhood not crawl to the depth of in
fanny of the European ideal, which de-
grades woman to the level of brute.
who may be deprived Of her person, Of !
her rights. of her life to feed the lust of
man.
There is only one possible solution for
this question, and that is suppression.
and it should be wrought in two ways
legally and persuasively. Our lawsshould |
enforce a single standard of truth and |
purity. The house of the strange woman
4