Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1913-07-11
EDITORIAL RESUME
OF A BIG SUBJECT
what Makes Girls Go Wrong?"
Discussed by Robert Mongom-
cry in Puyallup Tribune.

Right at time when this subject
is receiving so much attention and is
being investigated and reported on in
various sections of the country by
fare organizations, the following edi-
toral in last weeks Puyallup Valley
Tribune from the pen of Robert Mont
gomery on What Makes Girls Go
Wrong?" gives an interesting discus
sion of the question and also brings
out some points that have been over
looked or lightly passed over in the
more or less official Investigations:
What makes girls go wrong? That
is the question which is forced on the
minds of the American people by the
revelations of the white slave traffic
and by the inquiries into vice and the
conditions of woman's labor. We have
long lodged the question. as we dodge
all disagreeable questions. but now We
are called upon so imperatively for an
answer that we can evade no longer.
We must face the question and answer
it. There is danger that in seeking the
answer one cause will assume such ex.
aggerated Importance in our estima,
ton that other causes will be shut
from our mental view.
1--WE are now living in time when
Is comparable to that of the restoration
of Charles III in England-a time of
reaction from reign of enforced SIM
plicity of life. The youth of the ma
ton has rebelled against the restraints
and deprivations of country life and,
as one contemporary expresses 1t, has
focked to the cities to have a good
time Though thep arents often ac-
company their children in their mi
grafton, they find the young generation
less amenable to control. The reins Of
parental discipline have been slacken
ed. Many parents drop them alto
gether, permitting children to go their
own way. Formerly mother did moi
allow girl to go out in the evening
unless she knew where and with whom
the girl was going. This is no longer
true in an increasing number of fam
lilies.
Having arrived in the city, the girl
secures employment in store, Office or
factory, where she meets other girls.
talking of their good clothes, of their
fellows of dances, theater and other
amusements. She wishes to do as 9th
ers do. When a young man offers his
escort, she accepts and he gives her a
good time She little thinks that she
may pay for that good time in her
own degradation, perhaps in years OF
the vilest slavery, which will end in
shameless death.
"She sees other girls better dressed
than herself, she overhears soothing re-
marks about her own plain clothes anC
the desire for good clothes begins to
beat against the stern limitations OF
her meager earnings. She learns that
expense-though in the end how dear
ly at their own!-she hears chance re.
marks about the price that is really
paid and at first is revolted. But she
rightly or wrongly forms the impress
sion that it is a common thing, that
nobody thinks anything of it and she
c1y NJ do uyh
should not ~ She is passed over by
the popular young men because a fel.
low can't have any fun with her. The
friction between her earnings and her
desires daily becomes more grinding
and at last she yields. 1t is the first
step which costs. That once taken, the
descent which ends in the brothel is
easy.
Had that girl been blessed with
mother who combined the kindness
and sympathy of friend with the
strictness of parent, she might have
been saved. Such a mother would
have kept a watchful care over her,
would have insisted on the companion
of the good times spending an evening
at home with the girl, that maternal
intuition might judge of his character
and of the wisdom of the association.
Such mother would have sought to
find innocent amusements for her
daughter, to throw her into the society
of girls and young men who would
rather live simply on what they could
honorably earn than make a splash
on the borderland between the world
and the half-world. Such mother
would teach her girl that the respect
of man is worth infinitely more 10
her than all the pleasures and good
clothes he can buy her; that purity
will procure love that lasts through
life, while fatal complaisance wins on
Nv a passing passion which quickly