Los Angeles herald., 1906-12-16
WOMAN DECLARES
WHITE SLAVERY WORSE
THAN CHILD MARRIAGES

In regard to Mrs. Merritt's state
ment in last Sunday Herald as to the
deplorable condition of women in India,
1t seems to me, with all due respect
for the good work she advocates, that
there may be a great deal of mistaken
zeal, in trying to thrust upon people
a help that may not be wanted OF
| needed or that we have not fully ex-
tended to those of our ow1 race and
land.
l am an American and Christian.
Missionaries are needed, but needed
here more than anywhere else, because
first we must make our light so shine
that all the world may turn outward
Let us first lift our Nan Pattersons,
Evelyn Thaws and others Of the gilded
sin community ere we go eorth with
bleeding hearts to save the Hindoo
woman from fate that we know little
or nothing of.
Jesus Christ preached among the
Jews, his own people, not the Romans
We may not ave The child-wife in our
midst, but we have the sweat shop in
QUESTION and the rag shop and the
canning factories and buttonhole and
spool shops, where thousands of our
little ones from to IL years of age are
burying their babyhood end childhood
their morals and their future daily
including Sundays, from a. m. til 10
p. m.
White Slave Trade
We may not have>the Hindoo child
widow, but we ha ,-le white slave
trade with its unspeakable Eorrors star
ing us bold-eyed in the face to our
shame There may be no Zenana for
our women, but we have a great army
of girls and women walking the streets
from gaslight till dawn, preferring to
sin that they may eat, rather than
Starve.
Let us teach these our own first
what Christ's coming on earth means.
l have seen much of the slums of the
east side of New York, the west side
of Chicago, also of Boston, Phiadel-
phia and many other cities of America,
east and west, and let me tell you,
reader, 1t was not the oriental of these
parts that brought the blush of shame
to my cheek. 1t was the white woman,
the girl of our own race, crushed be-
meath the wheels of the modern Jug
gernaut, that awoke a horror unspeak-
able. Here among our own let us
carry our bleeding hearts, no, our
courageous hearts, and work with these
and for these, until our pests of degra-
dation are wiped away and our child.
slaves are lifted out Of bondage, our
white slave -ade abolished and our
women freed.
The orientals are across the sea,
strangers who seem to need not, GER
tainly do not want us, If the missionary
reports are true.
Asks Difficult Question
The past year has shown to the
western world that the orient cannot
be built entirely upon an evil and cruel
basis, else why the many heroic, merci-
full and religious attributes that the
late Japanese war has brought forth
Somewhere they must have a founda-
tion not wholly flimsy and unstable.
1t is the custom Of orientals to marry
young. Yet look at the product of
these child mothers. Look at the sons.
strong, Virile and clever. Certainly
such fruit could not spring from the
corrupted stems the missionaries would
have us think.
Women prove what a civilization is,
the mothers do, the mothers who build
the nation. Well, the nation that pro-
duces scenes Fuch as those which have
turned all eyes away from Christian
Russia to heather Japan In admira-
tion and wonder, bids pretty fair to
having a high womanhood, hence a
high civilization. Yet we have heard
right along and are still hearing just
such walls about the degraded posi-
ton OF the japanese women as are now
rending the air about the Hindoo
women. The Indian potentate the
gaekwar OF Baroda, on leaving our
shores few months ago after a short
scjourn here, said you have nothing
TO give US save a few ph. steal
pleasures which we care little about"
Have we anything TO give these peo-
pie? Have we lifted ourselves to
heights whence we can eall them after