Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1903-09-01
Is RUNNING SOCIETY.
Whitelaw Reid Declares Divorce Is
Working Dreadful Havoc.
Tells the Girls of vassar College
That the Educated Woman Can Do
Much to Check the Present
Tendency Towards Evil.

The alarming social conditions
brought about by the numerous di-
vorces in society, and the great good
which can be done by the influence Of
the college women were discussed
by Whitelaw Reid in the annual adj
dress before the Phi Beta Kappa So
ciety of Vassar college. In the
course of his address, Mr.. Reid said:
Outside the immediate and ines
Unable effect on the family, the con-
sentative power of educated women
naturally will show its influence on
social life.
"They surely will help to check its
degradation. They certainly will COR
rect the prevalent vicious conception
of its real scope. From this degrad-
ing conception comes the constant
craze for newspaper publicity and
every other form of publicity.
IF the conduct of the so-called in
aer circles of society has sometimes
seemed to justify this brazen uproar
at their gates, so much greater the
demand for the conservative influ-
ence and the real refinement that
come from the higher training Of
the superior woman.
"When higher ideals do return, the
powerful influence of educated wom-
en- surely will array, as never before,
the best of their sex in compact, re-
sistless phalanx against social evil,
alarming, degrading, or demoralizing,
which steadily has become almost too
common to provoke surprise-the
transformation of marriage from a
sacrament of God into a thoughtless
and headlong business or social ar
rangement to be dissolved almost at
pleasure. Six hundred and fifty-four
thousand persons divorced in this
country in the last 20 years! Such
is the deplorable record on which
Roman Catholic and Protestant
clergy are already appealing for a
union of all moral agencies to re-
sist this downward rush of the null
titude.
Perhaps the influence may throw
down the powerfully intrenched cita-
dels-those of evils that come from
the ill-judged excuses of the best of
people. 1t may possibly infuse mod
Grafton into our new and admirable
devotion to athletics, and rescue us
from those yagaries of sport run mad
that have made the football teacher
more important in our universities
than the professor of chemistry or
of philosophy, and the record of the
cinder track the essential thing, rath-
er than the baccalaureate degree.
Harder task yet, it may restore
sanity to our charity run mad, may
teach us the infinite harm that Turks
in our lazy way of Kidding ourselves
from each casual beggar with a care
less quarter, instead of a careful in
quiry, and may even after tim,
stop the premium we put upon crime
and crankiness when we build palace.
| for our lunatics and our criminals
and sustain them in these establish
| ments in comfort, and even luxury
far beyond the average of what thu
taxpayers who must meet the bill:
can afford for themselves.
"Under your guidance the moderate
conclusion may in fact be reached
that even for sweet charity's sake tn.
upright, Industrious New York farm
er. machinist or shopkeeper is mo-
bound to house and feed the cranl
and the criminal better than he ca,
the children of his 1oins and the wifi
of his bosom"