El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-10-16
SeIfshness Prompts Despair
as her wardrobe,
Wall OF an Outcast of Barbary Coast
Answered by n Reference to
Those She Has Cursed.
Winffrcd Black

n HE jumped into the bay, in despair,
out in San Francisco-one of the
- women who has been making her
living IN a Barbary Coast resort
They fished her out of the water
and brought her to-pOor thing!-and
when she could speak she had sad
story to tell
I have two children" said the wom-
an, "one 10 and one 12-bOth little
girls. 1 have been able to send them
both to good schools. keep them well
clothed and give them every comfort in
life.
why, sometimes could make IS and
SO an evening in the place where
worked-and now the reformers have
closed the Barbary Coast and L can't
make a dollar anywhere.
Il tried to get honest work, and one
woman offered me $40 a month to cook
and wash dishes. Why. L couldn't
even support myself on that
What are we women going to do?
What are my two little girls going
to do?
4 wish some of the reformers who
were so delighted when the Barbary
Coast was closed would tell me that"
San Easy Living"
My poor woman. I am not one Of the
reformers who closed Barbary Coast,
but 1 can tell you what you women
are going to door at least what you
women ought to do.
You ought to go to work, like any
other woman who has her living TO
make in this world and who wants to
make it honestly Who are you that
you should be exempt from the COM
mon lot? The woman who scrubs the
floor in an office building for half the
night, goes home. wet and bedra ggled,
tired and worn out-glad to get there in
time to make cheerful breakfast for
her children2
She has little girls. too. Didn't you
ever think of that2 Good little girls,
who love her and try to help her all
they can, and somehow she manages to
keep a clean Bingham for each OF
them for Sunday, and even sometimes
there is a fresh ribbon for their hair
when church time comes. She loves her
children just as much as you love
yours. and she'd like to give them the
comforts and fine clothes and shelter
at an expensive school-if she could
and stay honest
But she knows she can't do tt-and
stay honest
Choice of Honesty.
So she chooses TO be honest and do
the best she can.
When those children are grown up,
what sort of a mother do you suppose
they will wish they had had-those
honest, loving little girls?
A mother who bought them finery
with money shamefuIly earned, or
mother who kept her good name and
her honest heart, and sat up late and
rose early and washed and scrubbed
and cleaned and mended and schemed
and planned to bring up her daughters
with at least an honest name?
What are your little girls going to
do? Why, you poor. blind, foolish
woman. they are going to grow up
and be ashamed of youl That's what
they are going to do. and to wish that
you had died when they were born.
Prey of HarpieS.
Who were those boys who reeled
into that place, ashore from the near
est ship? I've seen them-hundreds of
them-in the Barbary Coast-perhaps
in the very place where you earned
your So and SO an evening. Nothing
but children themselves. most of them
open hearted, kindly. foolish, care
less children. And you took their
money away from them and helped
to make sodden brutes of them. and
laughed when one of them made more
of a fool of himself than usual over
some haggard harry of your close ac-
quaintance.
Whose boy do you suppose he was?
Did you ever think of her-that
other mother-praying somewhere for
her son. who will always be just her
little boy to her?
Why should she think so tenderly
of you? Are you the only one from
all the world that ought to walk in
gladness2