Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-05-19
BUT ONE STANDARD IN LAW.

BUT ONE STANDARD IN LAW.
The respectable and L oral element o
Shenandoah. itself a moral city on tn,
outside at least, has been deeply moved
and shocked by an arrest made under
circumstances of which it is unneces.
sary to speak plainly in n family news.
paper. Three young men have beer
fined So each and a poor little lost CIR
of 16 sent to the reform school at Mitch
ellville. An editor and minister unite
| In pity for the girl and censure of those
standards of society that permit the
escape of the young men by payment OF
! a nominal fine while the girl suffers
penal imprisonment. The editor asks
But why send the girl to the reform
school and fine the men, equally guilty
with her, the pitiful sum of IS? Is
| there not something wrong with So
ciety, something wrong with our laws,
when a double standard of morality is
set up? Society lifts un its hands in
holy horror at some poor, fallen girl.
forgetting apparently that she fell be-
cause some man dragged her down
into the mire. Why rot the reform
schools and prisons for him as well as
for her?"
The minister bade the girl goodbye
at the train and received her promise to
live a better life. He gave her copy
Nof commentaries on the Sunday school
lessons of 1903 and advised her to keep
up her Bible studies. The minister
his religious publication:
There are plenty more in the country
that need our sympathies and prayers
about Shenandoah. If all secrets We're
made public, 1t might take a whole car
to take all the guilty parties to prison
Let him that is without; sin cast the
first stone at this poor girl. Let the
men and boys be treated in the same
way poor fallen girl is and such BUSH
ness will STOP"
A cursory study of the penal code of
Iowa Will convince both editor and
preacher that the vengeance each calls
for is within their reach. 1t simply re-
mains for them to take up the burden
of duty that each has unloaded in print
and lay the information preliminary to
oil 70
have richly earned imprisonment. The
good people of Shenandoah, shocked.
Mortified and burning with humanitari-
anism, have the opportunity offered by
the laws of the state to every citizen.
The young men, whose crime meets
such universal adherence in Shenan-
circulation. 1t is up to" the editor and
preacher quite as much as to any other
to take action toward their Indictment
Prayer and publication are each excel
lent in way. but twenty minutes with
the county attorney appsars much more
likely to bring immediate results. Let
1t is the way of the world to fall into
fits of horror over discovered derelic- |
ton. Somehow these things never seem
so utterly bad as when they are found |
out. The undercurrent Of deyiltry runs
lnnoticed until a freshet of immortality
brings flood. Every town, like Shen-
has its frail, foolish and I'M
cared for girls and gang of well-clad
criminals which pursues them. 1t is
matter of such common knowledge and |
ordinary observation as to go half un-
noticed and wholly neglected. The or
sanized effort in defense of these girls
like the preachers promise, in
praying for them. The girl who is at I
present furnishing the horrible example
las received more of the notice and |
Ter arrest than in all her short sixteen
ears of life beside. She has come
loser to the real human heart of de-
,ency by her crime than she might have
been able to do by an average life of
mere mediocre virtue. We wait too
ong. sympathy may salve but can
upon the character of this neglected lit
lie girl. Perhaps had 1.-THE of this act
lal feeling been given The girl earlier
Ter later need had beer less.
There have always been two separate
social standards for the sexes. There
always will be; but this social injustice
should not. and does not, obtain in law.
The social code is woman in judgment
before her own sex. The legal code is