The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-01-01
Meaning of Fen1irlisr1
Movement Explained

into clothing. His toll brought forth
cereals but his stomach could receive
no nourishment from them until her
culinary skill had transfOrrped then.
into food. From his .oins sprang the
children but IL was for her to school
and shape them for the world She
could say to her husband. Il am as
essential to your welfare as you are 70
me. We must stand or fall together.
Our economic interests cannot divide
US. We are mutually DEPENDENT
But today, say the feminists. heO
different; All of the woman's former
functions have been taken away from
her by the tools that man has made.
He has built factories to prepare the
foods she once prepared. He has
erected mills wherein to make the
clothing her fingers once stitched to-
gether. He has even taken from her
the old function of healing diseases
and waiting on the sick His children
are educated in the public school and
everything he needs or wants can be
secured by him from some source in
the world Of manufacture or Of trade.
On what can she now depend since
her pristine functions are taken from
her? There is but one answer: on
mans earning power! II is this last
fact which to the feminist seems preg-
nant of the doom of woman's soul in
the world and which must be changed
il the status of womanhood 10 b -
kept equal to that of the male.
From this fact flows those dreadful
consequences which today have over
turned the moral health Of modern
society. For what is the first con-
sideration of the young woman al she
life! ID 1t not to secure q man who
win be able to support her?
Since her living must come from a
man she must perforce exercise her
wits to secure one and one who can
care for her as we'll as possible. But
with what bait shall she lure a man
to undertake the onerous duties OF
house-father? The answer is one.
say the feminists. that causes the
whole world of womanhood to hide
their faces behind the veil of sorrow.
She finds that the surest way is 20
exploit her sex attraction which is the
one unfailing means by which q wom-
an may draw a man to herself
Today, therefore. argue the femin-
lists, We witness this condition, that
women are everywhere driven to pa
rade their sex charms before men in
order to secure that support which
only a man can give her. And il is
merely the extravagances of that sex
exploitation which has eventuated in
many of the most shocking usages of
our times such as the sex dances, the
slit skirt, and other indecent costumes
and all the other usages of the genera
/ ton which cause moralists to draw
I back with dire forebodings and prop
hets to declare, as Alfred Russell Wal
lace declared, that this is the most
vicious age, all things considered, that
/ has ever dawned in the history of
man.
Because of the exaggeration of the
place OF sex, woman, who creates and
sustains the theatre, demands that the
drama keep sex to the fore. Because
| 1t is she who reads fiction. books are
growing more and more risque. Be-
cause of this false base on which So
cial life has been placed and the I'M
due sex strain therefrom resulting.
men and women tend more and more
: frequently to fall into vice, g. thing
which accounts for the enormous in
crease in prostitution and illegitimacy.
| And most of all IT is because man
must produce for two, and because
one of these demands free reign for
/ the development Of her charms. that
race suicide develops. Man refuses
the burdens of familyhood because
/ he is already driven to the limit of
his endurance to produce for q wife
that does not produce for herself.
| Thus it is that feminists land il
must be remembered that l give their
views and not my own) are inter
J preting the signs of the time. Those
social evils which threaten to wreck
! the structure of society are by them
! traced to the one fact, WOMAN IS
| ECONOMICALLY DEPENDENT.
From which argument they deduce
the logical conclusion that the one
wSy of saving society is to restore
to woman her economic independence.
But what all this will mean can only
be treated in an ensuing article.