The Topeka state journal., 1897-12-02
ALONE ARE sAYIORS
DO NOT MARRY NOW
One Million Women without
Support and Without Work.

New York. Dec. Mrs. Charlotte
Smith. whose ideas on marriage are some
what original and startling, is given
great prominence in an article in the New
York Journal as follows:
First-That every man and woman of
marriageabIe age be compelled to marry
by law.
second-That a national matrimonial
bureau be established to aid in enforcing
the law.
Third-That the Office of United States
commissioner of matrimony be created,
and that Mrs. Smith be appointed to that
office
Fourth-That a national matrimonial
fund be appropriated for doweries of from
$500 to $500 for poor girls to provide a we'd
ding trOusseau and furnish a modest
home.
Fifth-That rich bachelors who refuse
to marry shall annually pay a fine which
will be equivalent to the support of a
family.
sixth-That poor men who refuse to
obey the matrimonial law shall be pun
ished. as for any other infraction of the
law, by imprisonment.
Seventh-That women who refuse to
marry shall be punished in the same way
as men
To the President and Congress of the
United States. Greeting:
We, your humble petitioners, beg for
immediate relief from your honorable
body for the following good and sufficient
reasons:
As industrial women and wealth pro-
ducers, we are entitled to the benefits of
the products of our labor. We were
promised protection by the present pro-
lection administration, which, up to the
present time, has been an empty promise,
nothing more. There has been but little
done by manufa cturers and corporations
10 better the conditions of the wage-wo-
men. who create s4 per cent of the wealth
produced in all the light manufacturing
industries in these United States.
This deplorable state of affairs makes
it utter impossibility for 100000 wo-
men to obtain husbands or remunerative
employment, so they may be provided for
in their declining years. The manufac-
turers see to 1t that their machinery is
kept in good repair and properly oiled and
cared for, but the human machinery is
not as tenderly looked after. What are
to do with this standing army of mar
riageable and unemployed women. who
can neither marry nor go to service2
Statistics prove that so per cent of the
marriageabIe men in New York and Mas
vexed question settled at once by legisla-
tion making marriage compulsory.
The problem OF what we shall do with
our surplus female population must be
solved, either by such a compulsory law
or the establishing of state and national
matrimonial bureaus, and in the appoint
ing of committees of investigation by con-
gress.
CHARLOTTE SMITH.
President Woman's Rescue League, Bos-
ton. Washington and New York.
Mrs. Charlotte Smith is about to organ~
ize an international matrimonial bureau.
She viii form syndicates in the large
cities which will control state bureaus for
the promotion of marriage.
She will go before congress to ask
large appropriation for a national matri-
monial institution.
She will ask that a commissioner of
matrimony be appointed.
She will memorialize the pope with a
view to forming an international league of
all the matrimonial agencies.
She proposes to force the hymenea1 mar.
ket by giving doweries to young women
who might otherwise remain unmarried.
1T will be a go. OF course it will. When
Charlotte Smith determines to do any
thing you may count it done,'' says Mrs.
Smith.
Mrs. Charlotte Smiths crusade against
bachelors and widoWers has helped to
make contemporary history. The welI-to-
do man who refuses to bow his neck to
the matrimonial yoke is her bette noir.
She characterizes him as 'driftwood on
the stream of society" She thinks his is
a purposeless life, that the world would
be infinitely better OFF without him.
She is mildly desirous of his e2termina-
ton, but she prefers the methods Of civ
nization to those of barbarism. The
stake does not quite meet her approval
although it is her private opinion that
there he would meet his deserts. She pro-
poses to marry him off instead. So she
began the agitation of her pet measure,
the making of marriage compulsory.
She has brought that measure to the at
tention of several state legislatures and
lodged it safely with a congressional ju~
dietary committee She has profound faith
in its passage.
Pending that passage she will organize
the International matrimonial bureau that
no time may be lost in effecting as many
marriages as possible.
She will organize bureaus simultane-
ously in New York and Boston, where.
she says. they are most needed Then. to
use her own expression, she will move
upon congress.
Mrs Smith expects to have some
weighty names upon the list of her New
York syndicate. She may head it with
the name of Chauncey NJ. Depew. She
intends that the magic name Of the As