Watertown leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1909-1911, 1911-09-01
THE GIRLS ON THE STREETS.

The Milwaukee Free Press on
Tuesday published the following
editorial, which should be read by
every person interested in the well
fare of young womanhood:
A former Milwaukee newspaper
writer noted for his acute powers
of observation returned to the city
the other day after an absence of
about five years.
He was asked what changes In
the city's face struck him most for
chilly. He replied without hesita-
ton: The number of young, gid
dily-dressed and painted girls on
the streets-especially at night. /"
There can be no doubt that our
visitor is right. There has been
an astonishing increase in this type
of girlhood on Milwaukee's streets.
Not only are there more girls
many little better than children
parading Grand avenue after night
fall, but their dress, their faces
and their manners have taken on
demi-mondaine cast comparatively
rare in this city some years ago.
What has taken place here in
this respect, has also taken place
in other large and growing cities.
Only the other day, we observed a
similar report from a Minneapolis
paper with regard to that city.
We agree with that journal that
there is no more menacing symp-
tom to be found in modern city
life, that it presents a problem
more important than almost any
other with which a city has to deal.
1t is a problem, moreover, whose
solution must be looked for in vari-
Gus and complicated directions.
Fundamentally, there is some
thing radically wrong in the homes
of the people. A vital change has
taken place there within the past
few decades. 1t is not SO long ago
that no fairly competent parent
would have permitted a young
daughter to dress, to say nothing
of spending the money on dress,
after the manner that is common
today; no mother worthy of the
name would have let Der child
roam the streets at will painted and
bedizened as so many do today.
Much of the trouble has come
with the increasing entrance of
young girls into the commercial
employment. With ahas come
increasing independence of the
home. At first girls only worked
because they had to-, and their
earnings went into the family treas
ury. Today many work because
they want more money for clothing
and fnery.
Downtown life at its best is de-
moralizing for the young, untutor-
ed woman in her teens. She is
placed in a position of response
bility which neither training, age
nor experience has prepared her
to meet. In the very years when
her character should be formed,
she is subjected to the impress of
influences, which, if they do not
corrupt her, at least are apt to give
her an unsound and artificial con-
ception of living.
The home, not meeting her de-
sires and having lost or never had
a hold, she finds the stimulus she
Graves on the street.
OF course, there are many work
ing girls of strong native charac-
ter or potent home influence, who
survive the ordeal, nor is trouble
confined to girls of this class. The
schoolgirl is found on the street
with her working sister. The infec-
ton is confined to no class, the
cause is not special one. Far,
far worse than the life downtown
to the working girl, is the loafing
life on the street for any girl at
night. Here is where the real harm
is done, a harm to which her dress,
her department is too often a pre-
disposing cause.
The problem is big one, a
problem implicit in the character
OF the modern home, of modern ed
ucation, of moral and religious
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