The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-12-04
DRIVES TANDEM.
Difference Between Mormon and
Other Men.
One Resorts to Divorce Court,
Other Does Not.
TALKS TO WOMEN.
Address to WOmen's Clubs By
DR.. Mcfarland.
WOMEN
Mrs. Urquhart Lee Talks OF
Parliamentary Law.

of the city federation of clubs at Unity
church Thursday afternoon they will be
buster than as many gas metres. To-
peka club women are only fairly strenu
GUS They can sit through a federation
programme, followed by pink tea and
nabisco waters with comparative COM
posure, and take mild interest in pro-
viding the public school rooms with pic
lures and kindred objects but if they
get out the woman vote to promote the
cause of purity and temperance in
municipal elections or sign an equal
suffrage petition to the state legislature
they feel that they have gone the
penultimate limit for the public good.
However, among the other evils which
DR.. Mcfarland would have them buckle
on their armor to fight are social i'm
purity and the divorce abuse. Contrary
to expectation nothing was said about
the Liquor Question or the Ballot in
the hands of the Pure and Lofty Wo-
men of Our Land. In fact the speaker
whose address was the principal fea-
t. c the programme announced in
the beginning that he had decided to
cut the platitudinouS compliment and
alleged WitticiSmS usually employed by
men speakers on such occasions and
talk to the federation women as he
would speak to men, This was rece1V-
ed with a ripple of applause.He opined
! that no woman ought to belong to more
than one club at a time, basing his
opinion not as might have been expect
ed on the dire results to the home
when the wife and mother has the club
habit, but making the less hackneyed
and from a Mere Man. more palatabie
argument that club work must suffer
from such a dissipation of her ener-
gies. To belong to one club and do its
work faithfully he thought would bring
better results than to divide an equal
amount of time among NUMBER OF
clubs with their various interests. II
would be to the advantage of club in
terests in Topeka if the membership OF
the federation were cut down from its
700 members, good bad and Indifferent,
to say $50 earnest workers. presumlng
the existence in clubs as in churches OF
the droneS who add nothing TO the lie
of the organization"
The club officeseeker and the woman
who takes up club work as means OF
self-exploitation also received a mild
reprimand from the speaker who
Thought earnest, sincere club women
should give no encoura cement to any
woman who would make the clubs
means to cheap Acknowledgement or
social advancement.
With these criticisms by way of in
PRODUCTION, DR.. Mcfarland went ON to
talk about club work as 1t has come
under his observation here and else
where. He has, he said, made point
clubs Of Topeka and other towns OF the
state and has been agreeably surprised
at the seriousness of the intellectual IN
terests of Kansas club women. II the
work of these programme is being car
ried out intelligontly, as I presume 1t
is" he said 81 would say that your club
work is a great and active educatlonai
agency. The nature and scope OF the
study indicated in the programmes
speak well for the intellectual attain
nent and ambition of Kansas women. .
1t was in regard to the second pur-
pose of women's club work, as II is COM
monty understood, social reform, that
DR.. Mcfarland made his suggestions
regarding the social evil and divorce.
1.-THE club women of this federation and
of the state may do much" he declared.
''to establish the single standard OF VIZ
tue for men and women" He proposed
to speak plainly on the subject, and
there was a general pricking up OF ears,
but those who expected an Evangelist
Williams sensation, were dlsappoinIeo..
He merely ventured the statement that
the virtuous, respectable and pure
minded women of Topeka were not do
! ing all that they could to promote So
cial respectability.. He thought no wo-
man should receive socially man
whom she knew to be vile, merely on
account of his position, and compared
| the treatment accorded the moral leper
of the masculine gender TO mat winch
| is the lot of a SHINING woman.
The divorce evil was another which
DR.. Mcfarland believes the Kansas club
women is strong enough to attack he
suggested that the women OF IoIsek e
| Shawnee county in this respect and by
way of a pointer stated thai the oil
yorces granted by our district court
riages which take place in this judicial
| district. There ARE ten causes for
which divorces are granted in this
state he said, ''of which not more than
three are adequate.
iect worthy of their efforts in Kidding
our statutes of It's lax and immo oral
divorce law. 1 earnestly wish that a
crusade in this direction would pc
started Immediately, and that the seed
would SOW in your minds today would
bear fruit at the time of the next ses-
sion of our legislature. l have heard
you here this afternoon discuss the I'M
seating Of Apostle Reed Snoot, the
Mormon senator from Utah, and I
could not help think that the only diff
| ference between Smoot and some OF the
men who do not openly profess or prac-
| tice polygamy is that they drive their
wives tandem while the Mormon
drives his abreast l agree with you
that Smoot should be kicked out of the
senate but there is really no moral
difference between the Mormon who
time and the Gentle who marrieS and
divorces as many in rapid succession.
1t might be said here, just by way
of parentheszs, that the federation had
never suggested anything so unlady-
like as to kick Smoot out of the senate
SO the form of the doctors endorsement
of their position in this matter must
be taken fguratively.
Passing from the consideration Of
what William Dean Howells calls the
ssimperfectly homogeneous condition
of modern society, DR.. Mcfarland
urged upon his hearers a movement for
a club house for women and girls of
the poorer classes The new railroad
/ Y NJ. C. A building will provide for
many men and boys, but he called the
attention of the federation to the fact
that there is nothing of the sort in To-
peka for women and girls He credits
much Of the sin and crime among wo-
men to the fact that they are brought
up in homes which provide no comforts