The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-02-18
One of the Delegates to the
Mothers Congress
Utters Warning to the Moth
erS Gathered There.
100000 DETECTIVES.
Nearly a Million ImbeciIes, Deaf
Dumb, Blind Infants Born,
Due to Crime and IngOrance
and Wickedness.

Washington, Feb. 1S.-The First Bap-
fist church was crowded long before the
opening of the Mothers Congress and
an overflow meeting was held i'll the
large Sunday school room. Mrs. Bal
lington Booth conducted the devotional
exercises and spoke of her work among
the poor and criminal classes in New
York city. When she appeared on the
platform dressed in the uniform of the
American Volunteers she was greeted
with burst of enthusiastic applause.
She appealed to the mothers to guard
every avenue by which their children
could be led aStray and declared that a
mothers love was the most potent in
fiuence in the formation of the charac-
ter of the child.
Mrs Louise Hogan of Germantown,
IA. read an interesting paper on Die
tetics,' in which the subject of food
especially for children, was treated in
practical manner.
Mrs. Helen H. Gardner of Boston read
a paper ON the moral responsibility of
women in heredity, in the course of
which she said:
Il fear that 1 shall strike a less pleas
ant note than those who have dealt with
the ideal motherhood. My theme is sci
entific. 1t deals with demonstrable
facts and it goes back even of the kin
dergarten. Self abnegation. subserVien-
cy to man-Whether he be father, lover
or husbands the most dangerous the
DRY that can be taught to- or forced up
on woman. She has no right To trans
nit a nature that is SubSerVient and
a slavish character, either blindly ODE
diently, or blindly rebelliOus, and there
fore set as is a time lock, to prey or to
be preyed upon by the society of the flu
ture.
Woman is not brave enough person.
anlly to demand, to obtain absolute per-
sonal liberty of action. equality of
status. entire control of her great and
race endowing function, maternity; she
has no right to stamp upon a child
and to curse a race with the descend
ants of such a servile, a dwarfed, a
time and master-serving character.
I'VE wonder how she dares to face
her child and know that she did not fit
herself by acknowledgment and by di-
rect, sincere, firm and thorough quail
ficatiOnS for ma ternity before she dared
to assume it's responsibility. We Won
der that man has been so slow in learn
ing to read the message that nature
has telegraphed to him in letters of
fire and photographed with a terrible
persistency upon the distorted, diseased
bodies and minds of his children and
upon the moral imbecileS that she set
before him as an answer to his message
of sex domination.
DO you know that there is an army
of 100000 detectives in this country?
Seven hundred thousand imbecile, in
sane deaf and dumb, blind and crimi-
nal victims of maternal and paternal
ignorance. Our standing army is only
% 600 Inen-theSe for our projections;
our defective army 700, 0O0-these for
our destruction.
Mrs Jenness Miller of Washington
read a paper on the mothers relation to
sound physical development of her
child and Mrs. Alice Lee MOque of
Washington spoke on the subject of re-
production and natural law.