The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-05-07
PROBLEM IS YOUNG
Social Evil Is Only a Matter of
Ten Years.
Rabbi Coffee Talks Plainly of
Modern Scandal.
MARRY ONLY THE HEALTHFUL
Watch on Young Men Who
Court Daughters.
Children Will Be Taught ALI
Secrets of Sex.
MARRY ONLY THE HEALTHFUL

New York, May TT the Astors
were members of my synagogue or
the Schiffs or any other millionaires
and any part of their property was
being used for immoral purposes I
would make them either withdraw
their property from such use or
withdraw from my congregation"
This was the earnestly voiced re
mark of Rabbi Rudolph l. Coffee of
Pittsburg, in an address at the Temple
Emanuel TO a joint meeting of the
Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis
and the Eastern Council of Jewish
Women.
Rabbi Coffee reiterated his well
known sentiments in regard to the
eradication of the social evil and spoke
with unusual plainness on the topic,
despite the presence of several hun
dred of the most prominent Jewish
women of New York.
While the majority of his hearers
seemed to sustain Rabbi Coffee in his
plain manner of speaking, Rabbi
Hirsch of Chicago took issue with him
in respect of the teaching of children
the problems of sex.
THE rabbis of America declared
Rabbi Coffee, unjust take a brave and
positive stand on this great question
While the social evil is one of the old
est in the history of the race, 1t is
only about ten years old as a matter
of fact. That is to say that ten years
ago there was not a newspaper OF
magazine in the United States that
would dare publish anything dealing
directly with the social evil. Scan
dals? Yes. But the social evil as a
public problem to be publicly dis
cussed has gained existence of only ten
years.
1T has been only within the past
ten years" affirmed Rabbi Coffee,
that prostitution has not been looked
upon as a necessary evil. In ancient
days it was regarded as such by Rome,
Egypt and Greece, and in the latter
country the prostitute was honored
more than the housewife. This is in
Dictated by the fact that when PraXi-
teles wanted a subject for his statues
he did not select the wife of Pericles.
No. The woman he chose for this
great honor was the mistress of the
great Grecian statesman.
Prostitute Is Taxed.
Then, coming down to the middle
ages. we find the spirit of commercial
ization entering into the social evil.
The prostitute was taxed to help sup
port the church and now they are
taxed by individuals for the support
of individuals and these men, for of
course, it is men who levy these taxes
on the unfortunate women, contribute,
some of them, to the support of
churches and other respectable insti
tutionS.
1t was in this respect that Rabbi
Coffee declared the ministers of
Judaism must take a stand and re-
fuse to accept any money on which
there was the slightest faint.
In further laying down the rules of
conduct which should characterize the
rabbi, the speaker declared that the
former if he is conscientious, will re-
fuse to marry young persons unless
the prospective husband can show a
clean bill of health in the form of a
reliable doctors certificate.
Turning to the women in the audi
ence Rabbi Coffee exclaimed:
TT behooves you mothers in Israel
to see to it that your children are not
brought up in ignorance of the dire
evils resulting from immortality. 1t is
for you to put q period to the general
~ accepted proposition that money COW
ers a multitude of sins. A young man
calls on your daughter He is young
Mr. Money Bags. That is as far as you
inquire about him. He marries your
daughter and in few short months
her bloom of health is gone; she is
nut on the operating table, her life
destroyed, her life blighted forever l,
for one, refused to take any further
share in the performance of these I'M
holy weddings which bring blind and
deformed or imbecile children into the
world, filing it with pain and misery
Ministers Poorly Paid.
DR. Coffee made the charge that most
ministers were SO poorly paid that they
did not dare take an independent stand
and tell their congregations the actual
truth about life and the terrible con-
ditions which surround them. They
dare not tell what they know-the ap-
palling things which come within their
own experience in the course of their
ministerial duties.
Since this is the case said DR.. Cot
fee, 'it devolves upon you mothers in
Israel for the sake of your sons and
your daughters to sustain your rabbits
h.. ~s- fr.lIx
in their efforts to place the truth be-
fore the children so plainly that they
will avoid the pitfalls into which so
many thousands are falling every day
that we live
At the conclusion of Rabbi Coffea's
address there was a spirited discus
sion which was entered into by Rabbi
Hirsch, the foremost rabbi in America,
Miss Sadie American, president of the
eastern council of Jewish women, and
others.
Miss American took a positive stand
against teaching children the secrets
of sex. She declared that the subject
was a two edged sword and one of such
a psychological Importance that it
could not with safety be discussed with
a child. She was, however, in sympathy
with Rabbi Coffee in the insistence of
single moral standard for men and wo-
men and the ostraciZing of young men
who were known to be immoral.
Rabbi HirSch expressed the hope that
the Jews would soon return to the an
cient Jewish standards of purity and
chastity. He did not think, however,
that these standard had been broken
down by contact with American life,
to the extent that some suppose. He
was not in favor of introducing the
subjects to children of tender years,
but it was we'll to impress them with
the beauty of chastity and the necessity
of it as soon as they We're old enough
to understand it in it's proper relation
to life, but not while their young and