Arizona republican., 1904-12-12
Roosevelt Answers kiplIng.


 of the striking passages ir the message delivered by President Roosevelt to congress a week ago was this reference to wife beaters:
 There are certain offenders, whose criminality takes the shape of brutal ity and cruelty toward the weak, who need special type of punishment. The wife beater, for example, is inadequate ly punished by Imprisonment, for i'm prisonment may often mean nothing to him, while it may cause hunger and want to the wife and children who have been the victims of his brutal ity. Probably some form of corporal punishment would be the most ade- quate way of meeting this kind of crime"
 And the grim suggestion with which he closed the paragraph is recalled by perusaI of James Creelman's story of dinner at Washington, several years ago. at which MT, Roosevelt and Rudyard Kipling were present. Fol lowing is the story as Creelman writes 1t in the New York World.
 'In a stinging criticism of our social life an English writer sneers at the voluntary prostration of the American man before the American woman as an affectation which has unbalanced the normal relations of society setting man in a position of undeserved in feriority.
 'The critic also denounces the in- stincts and tendencies of a civilization which more or less condones in prac- tice, if not in principle, the horrors of the lynch law.
 That matter came up at a luncheon in Washington when Theodore Roose- welt and Rudyard Kipling were pres ent. The guests were encoura ging MT. Kipling to talk about America. At first the Englishman was inclined to be shy, but gradually he warmed up, and the senators and representatives listened to his opinions with close at tention. MT. Roosevelt seemed to be particularly interested.
 Presently MT. Kipling became quite frank in his criticism. He appreciated the progress of Americans in many directions, but how was the apathy. if not complaisance, of the national mind toward \ lynching to be ex- plained?
 MT. Roosevelt attempted to break into the conversation at this point. coI tAO POCI Aei4SSu HIS hOlCe anu hGDL on. As the guest of honor he had the right of way. So for the moment the American contented himself with hard-set jaw and an ominous showing of teeth. Again and again he tried 10 meet the brutaIly candid opinions ut tered by Mir. Kipling. but each time he was baffied by the stolid persistence of the speaker.
 At last the Englishmar came to the climax of his criticism. Whatever Americans might have achieved, one thing was reasonably oertain-no na- tion which habitually tolerated the killing of men without trial could claim to be highly civilized.
 MT. Kipling paused. That was a mistake.
 Mir Roosevelt turned upon him with flashing eyes.
 That's right, MT. Kipling,' he ex- claimed. I agree with you. It is a national fault, national shame. Each nation has it's fault. You have your fault and we have ours. We kill men
 He hesitated. Mir. Kipling smiled and nodded. The other guests watch ed the two square-ja -jawed men,
 and you beat women.'
 'The smile left the Establishments face and the subject was dropped"
 MT. Creelman concludes his story by drawing some conclusions in favor of divorce as a preventive of wife-beat- ing:
 Within the past week one of the clergymen opposed to the pres ent movement in the Protestant Episcopal church to check aduIterous divorce by refusing to remarry divorc- cd persons has privately expressed his belief that if serious obstacles are pIac- cd in the way of divorce the crime of Wife-beating will become as common in the United States as it is in Eng land.
 He points to the fact that a large percentage of the TOO. 900 divorces grant ed within d few years in this coun- try were the result of incompatibiIity of temper and brutality. But for the easy means of relief afforded by the courts many of these 100000 wives would have been tied helplessly to loveiess and brutal husbands, and in the natural course of events wife-bear- ing would have become prevalent. The strictness of the English divorce law is cited as an explanation of the ire quency of wife-beating in England"
 
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