The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1913-03-27
SINGLE STANDARD OF
MORALS CRYING NEED
IN FIGHT WITH VICE
Men Must Realize Enormity Of
Dragging Down Women,
Experts Declare.

Washington, March 25.-The whip
ping post for white slave traitickers
and seducers of women, a tax upon
bachelorhood. more careful training OF
children, and abolition OF Joy rides and
rag time dancing were advocated as
remedies for the social evil at a hear
Ing mere conducted by the Illinois
senatorial vice commission, which came
to Washington primarily to interes.
President Wilson in a nationwide Cruz
SADIE.
The commission secured the promise
of President Wilson to consider their
request for him to cal. a conference of
governors and representatives of vice
study the social problem, the confer
ence to be held in Washington as soon
as practicable. Congressman Robert
Hill. of Illinois, agreed upon request
of the committee, to introduce n con-
gress a bill creating q commission to
look into vice conditions in the Dis
trict of Columbia.
AT the hearing, attended by many
prominent women n men interested
in social welfare work, h low wage
question, as q cause of girls going
wrong, was discussed, several OF the
witnesses decrying the idea. Insisting
that lack of education and resisting
force had much more to do with the
downfall of women Men, too, were
blamed as primarily responsible for the
degradation of girls.
Witnesses who declared that low
wages We're not responsible for social
vice, admitted. however, on being ques-
toned by Lieutenant Governor O'Hara,
head of the commission, that higher
wages for working girls would better
equip them to resist evil n all recon-
mended that a minimum wage law for
girls would be a benefit.
Eight dollars a week az a minimum
wage for women was the generally ac-
cepted sum estimated by the witnesses,
Mrs. Harvey w. Wiley, Wife of the for
mer chief of the bureau of chemistry,
being one who proposed that sun as
a minimum living wage for girls.
Mrs. Wiley advocated sex hygiene
instruction of the young as one OF the
basic remedies for the social evil, urged
women police for cities, and enfran-
chisement Of women.
"Give us the franchise she said,
ana we Will raise the age of con-
sent SO h a 1~2-year-old girls cannot
have their bodies given away"
Mrs. Wiley n other witnesses also
declared that employers of underpaid
girls and women had not the moral
right to give money to charities out
OF the earnings Of their enterprises I'M
til they first had increased the wages
of their employees.
49, W. NsEf anu, lltdil1 olIlCGT
of the District of Columbia, urged the
encouragement of early marriage
among young men as one of the rem
edies for h social evil and he placed
the responsibility for the downfall of
80 per cent OF the women. directly at
the door of the men. rather than in the
counting room Of the department store
or factory. He approved a suggestion
by Senator Beall, of Illinois,, of laws
placing a tax upon ba~chclorhood, q
tax TIVE the ages Of "a
and AZ, providing that all men over 80
years of age should pay an annual tax
Of 500 as long as they remained I'M
married.
DR.. Woodward presented some aston
lshing statistics, among them that so
per cent OF the men, as shown in hos
pital records of patients received for
all causes, were diseased. and that 10
per cent were afflicted with loathe-
some diseases.
Unlawful Places said DIR. Wood
ward, are the from which
these diseases come. State education
is the best means for Graduating these
places
DR.. Woodward gave statistics show
ing that 10 per cent Of all the recorded
births in the District of Columbia last
year were il1egitimate, the mothers be-
ing between 10 and 20 years of age in
| the majority of cases.
Robert Barrett, speaking for his
mother, Kate Waller Barrett, head of
the Florence C~rittenden home for girls
throughout the country. tool vigorous
issue with the commission on the mat
ter of low wages as a cause of vice as
did also Mrs. Adolph A. Kahn. Of Wash
ington.
Mr.. Barrett said that the Florence
Crittenden homes had cared for more
| than 10000 Maynard girls throughout
the country and information from these
girls showed that low wage was the
least of the causes of immortality.
I'VE believe it is not right nor fair
to say" Mr.. Barrett declared. that a
low wage is the real reason for vice.
There are more society girls; girls from
good homes, with fathers and mothers
able to provide for them amply, who
have fallen into vice and become In
mates of the Florence Crittenden homes
than wage earning girls. Very few
who come to our homes blame low
L VIC faI. THAR dnurnf 70 LII -,