Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1913-03-06
Poverty &SOCia| Evil
Women Crushed BY System. Mrs. E.
M. Roberts Addresses Socialist
Club, Outlining Causes Of Degra-
dalton as Economic.

Poverty, that invisible force that
drives the daughters of the poor to
lives of shame, which robs them Of
the power of moral resistance and
prepares them as victims for the vul-
lures greed who camp on their trail,
J is the greatest cause of the white
| slave traffic, declared Mrs. E. M. Rob
erts, in a bitter arraignment of the
white slave traffic before the Social
list Club in Springfield recently. Fac
ing this running sore on the social
body, tracing its cancerous roots into
the remotest recesses of our body
polite, she stated, one stands stag
gered and bewildered in contempla-
ton OF the colossal task of abolish
ing it. Finding a congenial environ
ment in our present industrial system,
this vicious reptile has crept into our
very midst. Silently, as in the dark
night, it has stolen into the very
heart of society. It has nailed itself
up in the downy vest Of profit and it
subsists on the poverty of the poor.
1t has stung the breast that feds the
newborn and over the cradle its fork
ed tongue has whispered death. AS
the unfolding petals of rose are
withered by the viper's breath, SO is
the fountain head of human life itself
shriveled with disease syphilis,
blindness and deformity.
Quoting from Reginald Wright
Kaufman she said: let the patrons
come from where you will, the VIC
tins OF this damnable curse come into
poverty-the white slaves are recruit
ed from the homes of the poor. There
VI sI0EIoA ueWoM O0O'OOO'6 4noQB 9Ig
America and the average wage of
thes women is Sc week. Is it pos
sible for working girl to live or
even exist in large city for less
than So week? Do you begin to see
why the ranks of white slavery are
always filled? We may enact laws, we
may appoint commissions, we may
handling Of the problem, but the
problem will remain just as long as
the public conscience is dead to the
issue or is Indifferent to its solution.
We must make good citizens and to
do that we must look forward. Good
citizenship means good conditions.
Good citizens mean socially conscious
women and men. To have socially
conscious men and women, we must
have sound education today.
profit, that alluring, maddening
monster; profit, that unearned incre-
ment, that something for nothing,
which destroys the souls of men, in
duces them to all manner of wrong
doing, that murders our sympathies
and causes US to delight in pillage
and plumber, is the root of this damn
ing, soul-wrecking evil. Remember
that we have 100000 men who are
workers in the United States today
who are too poorly paid to marry. Re
member that we have 100000 chill
dren under IL years Of age at work
and that the average wage per child
is only $15t a year. Remember that
we have about 100000 women at
work and that the average wage is
only $500 year. and remeber that
the cost Of a decent living is $416 a
year.
Remember all this and you will
surely perceive that the only thing
that will check prostitution is the
only thing that win check poverty.
Poverty and profit are inevitably
bound up with the capitalist system.
The white slave traffic is only one Of
its numerous social diseases Social
ism offers the only remedy. The man
who votes for the capitalist system
votes to maintain the white slave
traffic and all the other social ills
which grow out Of poverty on the one
hand and the insane love Of profit on
the other. Let rs work to abolish this
evil with a. resolution that knows no
fear seeks no faFors and allows no