Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-27
Brutality for Humanity's Sake.

Advocates of whipping-post brutality Tor
wife-beaters pose as humane defenders or
the beaten wife. They would punish bru-
tally with brutality. They would cause
the community to brutalze itself on the
chance that by some miracle an individual
brute might thereby be made humane. On
the principle that like cures like they
hope to eradicate brutality by inhcting or
threatening to infiict brutality.
But are they humanely considerate or
the beaten wife? They would take a ruff
fan, whom they pronounce hopelessly In
corrigibe in brutality. and send him back
to live with his wife after every brutal
passion in him has been infiamed by the
inliction upon him of pain and shame at
the instance of his wife; and they promise
him repetition of the torture If his wife
complains of him again. The obvious tend
ency of this proceeding is not to make the
brute less brutal, but to cause him to
render it certain that no complaints OF
abuse come from his wife's mouth; and If
he suspects an intention to complain to
cause him to escape from the local Juris-
dction. often leaving his family perma-
nently dependent on the charitable public
The flashing of wife-beaters would thus
not so much check wife-beating as COM
to suffer worse brutalities In silence. 1t
would encourage wife-desertion and Wife
murder 1t would tend to render the abused
wife's last condition worse than the first.
If the lash will cure wife-beating it will
cure drunkenness; for cruelty toward wife
and children Is by universal evidence In
nearly every case a by-product of drunken
ness. The world has been for years longing
for and will hail with delight the discovery
of an effective remedy for alcoholism.
A man. knowing that liquor causes him to
become quarrelsome and dangerous and
may make him the murderer of his wife or
child and bring him TO the hangman's rope.
is yet unable to resist the temptation to
drink The thought that he becomes
potential murderer when he yields does not
suffice to drive out the drink devil from
control of him. But according to the whip
ping-post theory, if only the drunkard is
well dashed upon his bare back or threat
ened with the lash. he will cease to be a
drunkard or cease to be cruel in his drunk
enness.
Every one who has studied the drunkard
knows the absolute folly of suggesting the
lash cure for his disease. So far wife
beating Is attributable to drink (as it is in
nine cases out of ten), there is no remedy
for this cruelty and this brutality. which
does not touch its alcoholic cause.
The treatment of a case of wife-beating
by drunkard If handled along the lines
OF modern, civilized and Christian thought,
with sympathy for the wife and her protec
ton and that of the community as the prf-
mary motives of action, would never take
the shape of revival of any Old Testa-
ment punishment or middle-age penalty in
fiicting retaliatory torture but in order to
cure would seek and attack the sources of
the evil The community would for period
take charge of the cruel drunkard on the
theory that he was temporarily incapable
of caring for himself. 1t would put him
promptly at hard work, as hard work as
his physical condition would permit. This
labor would benefit him physically and
mentally 1t would be productive, fully
compensated labor. Compensation for it
would go, however, not TO him or to the
community or to a convict-labor contractor,
but to the family dependent upon him.
During the time the community had him
in charge he would be kept from liquor and
would lead a wholesome, healthful life
During his absence his family would re-
ceive his full earnings, and he would re-
turn to them at the least less of a brute
than before; whereas flashing would inten-
Sify his brutality. 1t would pay the COM
munity to give the keely cure to every
dangerous drunkard within its custody to
whom the cure seemed applicable. 1t would
pay the community to apply to such wards
every influence which might cause the man
cruel in drink TO abhor his cruelty and the
liquor which caused it; or which might
change the drunkards mind and heart,
strengthen his will, or bless him with hum
bic reliance for strength on Christian faith.
What feeble, weakened Christians we
are TO be so hopeless and despairing of the
reform and salvation of the man who beats
his wife when crazed with drink. How
dare we pronounce his offense to be the I'M
pardonable sin? How dare we condemn
him and cast him out as an irreclaimable
brute, incapable of betterment. incapable of
being further brutaliZed. even by the brutal
lash? Such action, of course. is not in the
spirit of Christ, but of the system which He
displaced. with its harsh, arrogant and I'M
relenting judgments. and its cruel and bar
barous retaliatory penalties.
David B. Hill will scarcely take the
Ill