The Tabor independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1913-19??, 1913-03-27
SINGLE STANDARD or
MORALS CRYING NEED
IN FIGHT WITH VICE
Men Must Realize Enormity of
Y. Dragging Down Women,
Experts Declare.

washington. March 25.-The whip
ping post for white slave tra1flckers
and seducers of women, a tax upon
bachelorhood, more careful training OF
children, and abolition Of JOY rides and
rag time dancing were advocated as
remedies for the social evil at a hear
ing here conducted by the Illinois
senatorial vice commission, which came
TO Washington primarily to interes:
President Wilson In a nationwide cru
SADIE. '1
The commission secured h promise
of President Wilson to consider their
request for him to call a conference OF
commissions from various state to
study the social problem, the confer
.ence to be held in Washington az soon
as practicable. Congressman Robert
Hill, of Illinois, agreed upon request
of the committee, to introduce in con-
gress a bill creating a commission to
ooh into vice conditions in h Dis
trict Of Columbia.
At the hearing, attended by many
prominent women and men interested
In social welfare work, the low wage
question, as a cause of girls going
wrong, was discussed, several Of the
witnesses decrying the idea, insisting
NAA~N A~~NN - VAN
force had much more to do with the
downfall OF women. Men, too, were
blamed as primarily responsible for the
degradation Of girls. ,
Witnesses who declared that low
wages were not responsible for social
vice, admitted, however, on being ques-
toned by Lieutenant Governor O'Hara,
head Of the commission, that higher
wages for working girls would better
equip them to resist evil and all recon-
mended that a minimum wage lay for
girls would be a benefit.
Eight dollars a week as q minimum
wage for women IA the generally &C
cepted sum estimated by the witnesses,
Mrs. Harvey w. Wiley, wife of the for
mel chief of the bureau of chemistry,
being one who proposed that sum as
a minimum living wage for girls.
Mrs. Wiley advocated sex hygiene
instruction OF the young as one of the
basic remedies for the social evil, urged
m police for cities, and enfran-
chisement Of women
Give us the franchise" she said,
and we will raise the age of con-
sent so that 12-year-old girls cannot
nave their bodies given aWav."
Mrs. Wiley and other witnesses also
declared that employers of underpaid
girls and women had not the moral
right to give money to charities out
of the earnings Of their enterprises un-
til they first had increased the wages
OF their employees.
DR.. w. c. Woodward, health officer
OF the District Of Columbia, urged the
encouragement OF early marriage
among young men as one of the rem
edies for the social evil and he placed
the responsibility for the downfall Of
80 per cent of the women, directly at
the door Of the men, rather than in the
counting room OF the department store
or factory He anornVnd n 0II10naftnn'
by Senator Beall, of Illinois. of laws
placing a tax upon b~achelorhood, a
graduated tax between the ages of "a
and AZ, providing that all men. over 80
years Of age should pay an annual tax
of 800 as long as they remained I'M
married.
DR.. Woodward presented some aston
ishing statistics, among them that so
per cent Of the men, as shown in nos
pital records OF patients received for
all causes, were diseased, and that 10
per cent were afflicted with loathe-
some diseases.
Unlawful places" said DR.. Wood
ward, are the morasses from which
these diseases come. State education
is the best means for Graduating these
places
DR.. Woodward gave statistics show
ing that 10 per cent Of all the recorded
births in the District of Columbia last
rear were illegitimate, the mothers be-
ing between 13 and 20 years of age in
the majority of cases.
Robert Barrett, speaking for his
mother, Kate Waller Barrett, head of
the Florence Crittenden home for girls
throughout the country, ook vigorous
issue with the commission on the mat
ter of low ages as a cause Of vice as
did also Mrs. Adolph A. Kahn. of Wash
ington.
Mr.. Barrett said that the Florence
Crittenden homes had cared for more
than 10000 hayward girls throughout
the country and information from these
girls showed that low wages was the
least of the causes Of immortality.
we believe 1t Is not right nor fair
to say" Mr.. Barrett declared, that a
low wage is the real reason for vice.
There are more society girls; girls from
good homes, with fathers and mothers
BILE to provide for them amply, who
have fallen into vice and become in
mates of the Florence C~rittenden homes
than wage earning girls. Very few
who come to our homes blame low
wages for their downfall"
.'