The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-02-02
W. C. T. U. ANGRY.
Arraigns Lady Somerset for
Her Indian Policy.

New York. Feb. Another echo of
the storm of feeling aroused by Lady
Henry Somerset's compromise with
vice. apropos of the English garrisons
in India, was heard yesterday at the
Friends meeting, when the Philan-
thrOpic committee held it's quarterly
session. Anna Rice Powell, president
of the Union County Equal Rights as
ISOLATION, and secretary of the Ameri-
can Purity alliance, was talking of the
revival of state regulation of vice in
India and England, and its bearing up
on the country.
Those who traffic in vice for mer-
cenary purposes seek recruits from
young and exposed girls. The time has
come, declared the speaker with fiery
emphasis, when people can no longer
keep quiet, but should protest Public
opinion condones in one sex what it
condemns in the other. Boys and girls
should be taught the Sacredness Of
marriage.
"A man who holds the opposite sex, -
she went on bittsyly, as a. toy or slave
can have no idea of the sacredness of
girl who is immodest in dress or bear
ing in high society or in the sIums is
weakened in moral power. There are a
thousand conditions that invite impur-
ity in a big city. Starvation wages is
one of them. We should reach the
causes of decentralization of men and
d.
spasmodic movement" declared Mrs.
Powell, trenchantly, will do this 1t
must be slow growth based on radical
reform. We must educate the thought
to high ideas of reform"
Here Mrs. Powell made allusion to the
helpful work of Josephine Butler, the
English purity woman, and led up to
her final arraignment with dramatic
force.
1T is shameful she cried. that a
small company of titled English women
should give their sanction to regulat-
ing vice. Lady Henry Somerset has
been caught in the snare and has
thrown the weight of her influence
against Mrs. Butler. The latter is in
alienably opposed to official regulation
of vice Stories told by the missiOnar-
les of these victims in India would
wiring the heart of any whose sympa-
thtes were not wholly dead. Many girl
victims are only eleven years old, and
half from Il to 16 years DID,
The intense feeling of Mrs. PowelIs
address is practically the voice of the
American Purity alliance, at whose an
nual meetingOn Tuesday last the Rev
Anna G. Spencer, of Rhode Island, was
equally strong in her denunciation of
Lady Henry Somerset's attitude
Since the EnglishWOman yielded to
Lord Saltsbury's persuasion and gave
her consent to medical inspection of the
unfortunate women of India as a com
promise of her demand for purity, dele
gates sent from the American w. c. T
U. have returned with reports strongly
opposed to the temperance leaders at
titude. Their evidence has stirred I'D
bitter antagonism, which in Canada has
just reached the climax in the deter
minatiOn to appeal to Miss Willard as
head of the w. c. T. Z. to remove Lady
Henry Somerset. The withdrawal of
the Canadian branch in event of refusal
is threatened
Miss Willard has been in delicate
health for some weeks, and the attack
upon the woman who has been her tried
and trusted cOmrade in her life work
will doubtless be a heavy blow.