The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-05-17
The Age of Consent.
(Atlanta CONSTITUTIONS

there is strong organized agitation TO
increase 1t to twenty years.
1t is not often that the droll creator OF
"Innocents Abroad" essays the serious
role OF defender of principle, but read
ers of the verbal excoriation in question
will admit that the genial humorist was
never more interesting and never so adj
mirable. This simple, manly, logical, elo-
quent plea for greater safeguards of law
around girlhood and young womanhood is
a greater crown of honor upon the abund-
ant white hair of this veteran author than
any literary production of his facile pen.
He writes from his heart of hearts, as a
father of daughters should feel
There is undoubtedly no legalized in
fanny to compare with the age of con-
sent laws of many States of the Union
and particularly of those of some of the
Southern States, where the honor of the
sex is the proverbial care of manhood
chivalry. Mr.. Clemmons drives home to
every conscience the enormity of the crime
against virtue and shows in scathing ar
raignment the moral culpability of the
State in the matter of fixing consent
limit, nominal or otherwise. There is not
he declares, a law on any statute book
which says that if you consent to the
robbery of your family, to the burning of
your fathers house, to the starvation of
your mother or to let an assassin cut
your own throat, your consent implies Il
mere improperly uncognizable to legal
procedure. And yet that is exactly what
the law says with reference to the con-
sent of an irresponsible, confding, over
persuaded young girl to an act that in
its effects upon her body, soul and life
is infinitely worse than were she parti-
cepts criminis to robbery, arson, murder
or any high crime.
Why then, asks Mark Twain-and his
reasoning rings true and sternly against
this shame-faced immemorial Wong
why then make exception in the case of
the perpetrator of this one crime, which
is more bitter, more cruel, more nfa-
nous, more shameful. more insupportable,
more far-reaching, more diffusiye in its
crushing effects" than all of the other
crimes in the criminal catalogue COM
bined? Who can gainsay or resist such
logic and eloquence as this?
1.-The law is stern with the assassin,
but gentle with the seducer stern with
the murder of the body, but gentle
with the murder Of all than can make
life, worth the iving-honor, sef-respect,
the esteem of friends, the adoring wor-
ship of the sacred home circle, father,
mother and the cradle mates of the earlier
and innocent years. You may drag down
into the mud and into enduring misery
and shame the trusting and ignorant
young flower of this household and crush
the heart of every creature that loves it
and lives in the light of its presence; you
may murder the spirit and eonsign to
living death and intolerable wretchedness
all these-and il in certain cases you
can prove consent, the law will not deal
unkindly with you
There is sarcasm and irony in the fierce
with which this fun-lover
turned preacher lays the scourge of
righteous INDICATION upon the law
givers of the land We fancy that in de-
nouncing the same infamy potentially
Tolstoi would employ much the same
language and reasoning, though less eff
fectively Mark Twain does not run to
adjectives and sentimental generalities.
He writes like a judge reviewing the evI-
dence. The crime is defined and the guilt
crime be legally recognized at its true
gravity and the punishment made TO fit
it. He ridicules the miserable, coward
ly pretext and condonement of consent"
Consent, he argues. must
imply previous persuasion, and in the
persuasion the crime originates. The final
tragedy OF chastity is the bitter after
math This position can never be con
troverted by all the Blackstones of juris-
prudence.
Mark Twain raises no point on the
score of consent limit. He denounces
the whole principle and practice of con-
sent legislation. averring that such laws
beg the whole question and make truce
with a-moral abomination, heinously
in the sight of God. He ad-
vocates the abolition of the consent idea
in law and adequate punishment for this
crime against womanhood, regardless OF
the victims years. He says:
''There being no age at which the law
places the lives of a family in the hands
of any member of it to throw away at
his Misunderstanding his own life-I sire
no sound reason why the law should rot
be consistent-consistent wise-and
abolish the age limit in the case. of the
other and greater crime
AS punishment, Mr. Clemmons suggests
two years solitary confinement or five
years at hard labor. To the man who
has a conscience the greater punishment
for the interpretive hours of such
criminal would be torture. But the trou
BILE with most Lotharios, amateur and
veterans, is they are not burdened with
moral compunctions.
Mark Twain concludes with casual
news item which recalls the terrible pic
ture of Goethe's Marguerite on her straw
pallet in prison raving incoherently about
Henry There never was more pa
thetic, human picture of the depths of
sin and misery than this one, and young
women all over this broad land are daily
placed in peril of becoming the central
figure in such social tragedy, if, hap
PLY, it does not become a legal one
Men who can commit such a crime lightly
have never truly appreciated Faust.
The crusade Mark Twain has enlisted
in will have the hopes and prayers OF
the American fireside He is not fantlcal
or radical He views this unspedkable
crime sanely and judicially. 1t were well
if public sentiment reused to the truth as
he sees it.