Los Angeles herald., 1910-08-29

women everywhere, for never In our
nations history have we faced issues
fraught with more vital Importance
than those of the labor problem and
liquor traffic. The great strikes of
workingmen, and the antagonispns they
arouse, must be adjusted, not In courts
of law, but at the ballot box. Labor
can gain nothing any other way when
our highest tribunals are controlled by
unscrupulous combines of capitalists;
with vile men placed in many public
ofhces; with courts and grand juries
| shielding the wrongdoer; with jails for
the man who steals bread and acouit-
tai for the man who steals millions;
with government 1egalizing, protecting.
25O00O saloons, sending from $4,000 to
l0OO0O souls into drunkard's graves
yearly, and governmental sanction To
ship-loads of liquor sent to foreign
lands; with traffic in girls which
, would disgrace any country or people:
| with thousands of the young manhood
ing straight for the gambling den
the brothel, and the saloon, from which
they graduate to fill jails, prisons and
| 1nebriate asylums.
Mr. Roosevelt has had much to say
about race suicide and the tendency
OF women to avoid motherhood: but
ne never explains why this condition
exists. In France the birth rate last
year was smaller than ever before and
the nation is getting alarmed and
Legislation invoked to compel men to
marry, and rewards offered for large
FAMILIES. 1t is said that women love
ease, and the pleasures of society. and
fashionable dress to such an extent
that they shirk the responsibilities of
bearing children. This may be true
Of some women but it is not all in
a ROO
women refuse to become mothers. They
are getting tired of rearing sons to
recruit the great armies and nayies
OF the world, whose sole purpose is
wholesale murder. They are tired of
spending years in the care of sons only
to see them go down into the Dit of
destruction through the open doors Of
saloons. Their hearts are breaking
in the thought of giving birth to
daughters who may recruit the army of
unfortunate girls in the service of what
men are pleased to term a necessary
evil. Many Of them know that the
wolf of want and hunger is lurking
near their door and an extra mouth
to feed is regarded as a calamity.
Every baby born means a closer econ
omy, a little more scrimping and saw
ing, and an extra burden for the over
worked mother and poorly paid labor
ing father Everywhere are laws In
force for the protection of property.
The birds are protected. The fish are
protected; game laws are enforced:
humane societies exercise sort of
police guardianship over work horses
and mules, and no driver is allowed to
beat them but in the privacy of
homes the tender bodies of children are
often subjected to cruel Whippings and
no one interferes unless death Is likely
to result. Drunken fathers may beat
their helpless little ones and drive the
mother out in the night and storm and
receive only reprimand, few days in
Jail, or slight fine; while an honest
hungry man who may ask for bread is
sent to the chain gang. No wonder
women fear to bear children when their
future is dark with uncertainty and
dread.
The biographer of our beloved and
lamented leader, the late Frances Will
lard, says the following: ITO Miss
Willard politics was part of her re-
ligion, for she believed the govern
ment of the country to be an integral
part of the service demanded by God
from every loyal soul. 1t was incon-
ceivable to her mind that women should
forever occupy the position of ambu-
lance nurses in life's great army with
out pauSing to ask why the sick and
the wounded were strewn around them,
and what was the real question at
issue in dealing with the evils of the
legalized liquor traffic" Just before
her transition. and when she knew the
end had come she gave to the world
her immortal Confession of Faith"
the closing words being these: "To me
there are but five words in the lam
guage: God, Duty, Love, Humanity
and Immortality"