The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1913-06-04
BY HAMLIN GARLAND.


Enterprise Association
The second and most vitally
concerned party i'm this question
of Jegitimizing the children born
out of wedlock is the woman, the
unwed girl-mOther of the child
say girl, because the records
show that by far the larger NUM-
Der of these natural" children
are born of mothers under II
years of age.
Corruption begins i'm a major
ity of cases with the seduction of
the maiden at the very time when
in passing from child to woman,
her judgment is least clear, her
powers of resistance to passion at
their weakest and her idealiZing
vision most intense.
Just at the moment when she
needs chivalrous protection, often
before she Is fourteen years of
age, she is the quarry and the
possible victim of vicious men.
They dog her steps to school, they
entice her to the theater and
where opportunity offers they alb
duct and enslave her. Further
more, she is in constant danger
of contamination by her school
mates, sometimes by the very
boys who, in their turn, have
been corrupted by their vulgar,
thoughtless or evil-minded elders.
Let us be honest and quite
frank about this. Woman to
these men is merely a thing, a
female brute, without a soul, a
toy whose fate is of no more ac-
count than that of cat or mon
Key, and the fact that all the dis
grace and all the pain and most
of the moral decay which result
from mans bestial selfishness are
written at the last analysis upon
the faces of women and generally
on the faces of child-mothers,
does not seem to trouble the ma
jority of those who make the
laws.
We who ask for justice do not
deny a share of physical desire
to woman. Every normal female
inclines toward the male by force
of an inexorable law, and union
is to the maiden a much more
wonderful and far-reaching event
than any man can really imagine,
for she Is the matrix of the race,
as we'll as its inescapable martyr.
Before she realizes the character
of the overpowering hunger of
her blood, before she has time to
acquire knowledge of what love
really means, her time of tempta-
tion is upon her, and she al too
frequently becomes the victim,
not merely of her own inherited
tendencies, but of the lawless lust
of an irresponsible man and en-
ters upon months of weariness
and pain, burdened, outlawed and
despairing.
This, claim, is monstrous;y
unjust. For the mans part IN
this serious transaction neither
wea1ens nor incapacitates him
for daily business or other pleas
ure.
In fact, our present system of
that which the heroic resisting
power of young girls (or defective
children) forces upon the con-
quering sex.
We do not say that men shall
not have full Joy of love. We rec.
ognize the value of that Joy, but
we say they shall be compelled
to pay in full for their pleasure,
not with a few dollars, not by
means of gown or a chain of
jewels, but by bearing the full re-
sponsibility of their deeds.
All the pain and sorrow and
shame which follows seduction
should not fall upon the woman,
and this accountability (Which we
shall demand of them) will be
made clear to the libertine when
he is assured that every child of
i. his begetting shall have legal
claim upon his name and fortune.
The gay irresponsibility of the
philanderer will darken with
thought once he knows that his
action conveys to the mother of
his child the rights of a wife and
to her offspring the name and
dover of an heir.
Their lives are piteously short
and for the most part full Of dis
ease and pain. The vice report
declares that the average length
of the career of an outcast wom-
an Is less than ten years. From
the dark haunts into which mans
laws have forced these streams CT
tragic creatures, issues physiCal
corruption which finds its way in