The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-09-11
IMPORTANCE OF GOOD SOCIETY nEWS'|
Thoughts Inspired BY the Report that Beulah Bnford
Is to do Society" for the Hearst Papers.
Newspapers Are Too Careless.
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.
From New York emanates the in.
|teresting information that Reulah Bin
ford, of the Beattie case. is going ito
write society news" for the Hearst
papers.
And the comic god Of things. at this
moment. stuck his head out of the
crack of the curtain and grinned iron
ically at the audience.
For this unfortunate young woman.
there can be nothing but commisera-
ton. She never had a fair chance to
make full entry into the game OF
life. Besides, as has often been said
before, the woman always gets. the
worst of it whichever the way the
pendulum swings. In the, event, in
instance of the acquittal of Beattie, he
would, after time, have been re-
seived by his own social class.
But suppose the young woman in
the case should have desired to RE-
form" as the world puts It, Although,
Just what reform may mean, who
can say! But if she had, would any
O0OS nave given uSI a Soiotal wei>
come? OF course not. And whose
fault would that have been. Her own
sex chiefly.
All these things are old as the world.
Everybody knows them.
The most immoral phase of the
whole affair was the marriage of Beat
tie. 1t was family affair."" and all
arranged" She was a trifle older
than he. not especially attractive and
he didn't care anything about her.
1t was encouraged and manipulated
to break off his relation with the 9TH
er young woman. And it didn't work.
Such things never do. The springs Of
sex attraction lie deep. You can't
manufacture something with a mar
riage license and by convention.
So the dead woman was offered up
as sacrifice.
'"rhe confusion of marriage with
morality has done more to destroy the
conscience of the human race than
any other single error, says Bernard
Shaw.
Much better would it have been
to either let the man have married the
woman, or lived with her without ben
eft of clergy, than to have brought
about the social condition that result
ed in death, killings, murder disgrace
and general horror.
And how far has society advanced
when we still demand IAN eye for an
eye. tooth for a TOOTH Capital pun
ishment is legal murder. The man
may have murdered the woman. The
state actually murders the man. And
yet it is acclaimed from platforms and
dispensation."
This presumes the following of the
teachings of Christ.
And Christ certainly never said, ''if
a man murder his wife, strangle him
with a rope He said something
that sounded like "go and sin no
the passions of men, says the moral
list. True enough. But this can never
be accomplished by one set of men
sitting on judgment on another set.
Nor by hanging and electrocuting and
locking up for life.
ASSASSINATION on the scaffold is
the worst form of assassination, be-
cause there 1t is invested with the ap-
prevail of society. 1t is the deed
that teaches, not the name we give it.
and capital punishment are
not opposites that cancel one another,
but similars that breed their kind"
says Shaw again.
But to return to Beulah Binford in
The role of society reporter or $50
ciety editor as the smaller metropol-
ses have it. Aside from the fact OF
her unpleasant conspicuity at present,
what possible qualifications could she
have for the writing of society news"
'or the Hearst or any other papers?
Although it might be that she would
be as much SO, for that matter, as
lot of people who essay to collect
through the medium of the
local paper.
Anybody can be society reporter
you know. All you have to do is to
walk into an office and apply for the
|ob''
The truth is that really capable SO
,iety reporter is about as scarce as the
'abled dodo. Will Irwin in his series
If articles in Golfers on the history
If the American newspaper, comments
upon the undue importance given this
phase of newspaper work and the ban
Atty and general absurdity of its re
suits.
False value, wrong perspective and
distorted fact follow in the wake of
he average society page. Look care
ully over the exchanges and nothing
s funnier than the social stuff served