Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1917-02-01
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What Would You Do?

Vouiu 4SA Dos
North Platte, Neb., Jan. SOTO the
Editor of The Bee: In your paper !
noticed Judge Foster quoted in a
speech delivered before the Omaha
Philosophical society, in which he said
that fallen women lead life OF
Shame because they prefer 1t. and not
through necessity, or conditions or
environment. To say the least wish
to express my sentiments that / can
not figure out how Judge Foster can
draw such conclusions after being in
a position for long time where he
could observe and hear this class OF
women. I venture the statement that
you can interview 100 such women
and not one of them will tell you that
she is leading such a life through
choice.
wonder If Judge Foster noticed
how last Sunday 500 fallen women of
San Francisco gathered at the Metho-
dist church in that city where the pas
tor of that church had given out that
he was going to preach a sermon on
this topic, and, one of these women
acting as spokesman, said not single
one was leading that life through
choice, and asked the pastor what he
was going to do about it? Further
more she put many pointed questions
to this pastor until he was stumped as
to what to say.
1t is very likely true that when a
woman has gone through this kind Of
life until she gets so low down that
she is brought before a police Judge,
that she has become so soured and
discouraged that she is beyond the
possibility Of reform and would natur-
ally say that she would see 1t through.
But when that same fallen woman
was trundled on her mothers knee,
and later sat in the school room where
age did not grasp the social standards,
but all were on an equal, was she not
pure, was not the future as bright
and rosy to her and did not she build
air castles for the future like all the
restf
What would you do If you were a
poor laboring man with a family, with
one or more bright little girls just
budding into womanhood and you had
no money to give them an education,
and through necessity they had to go
to work in some family as domestic
or, at starvation wages, in some other
Iou Wouiu fADis ySNA
favorite daughter at her place of en-
ployment, be shown to the back door,
receive cold and cutting glance from
the lady who employs your daughter,
and be ushered into the kitchen where
you would find her with dishes piled
on the table, and all the dirty work
before her, while in the front room
merry voices could be heard coming
from young girls of equal age as your
lovely daughter, but who were dressed
up for the afternoon, going out for an
auto ride, to the theater at night. Sup
pose one came in the kitchen while
you was there, order your daughter
to have supper ready at such a time,
and by her every action show you that
your lovely daughter was only a
mental servant, fit only to be in the
kitchen. 49,
Your little girl don't like this, and
neither would any one else, but she
is powerless to help it. Either she has
to give up all her dreams and air
castles or break through the barrier
laid down for her, and how does she
do it? Some married man Or some
nice young fellow with an auto, see
ing her helplesness and noting her
beauty, sneaks around and asks her in
his smooth way to go riding with him.
have supper at some roadhouse, and
then God help this sweet little girl.
Your little girl likes to look nice and
be noticed just as much as the little
girl who has rich father; and are
there any good Samaritans in Omaha
and every other city looking these So
cial wolves up and trying to save the
little girl? If SO, you can count them
on your fingers. Can you solve her fu-
ture? She can't, and, be she ever SO
firm something must be done and, in
the end possibly she will be brought
up in the police court. But 1t will be
after she has run the race that they
all run. Again ask them how they
came to be so low, and ask you, how
can they tell you?s 1t is just like a
dream and the social stigma is now
such that the good intentioned social
reformer would not waste time on her
Oh, no, She is too bad! They might
ask her If she would reform and lead
a clean life II they would help her,
and what would that help consist of?
Nothing but a mental job in someone's
kitchen, and she has been through that
ordeal long ago.
There are many reformers with
noble intentions. l admire them. But
what is, is, and there you are. and
like the question that the woman in
San Francisco put to the pastor, what
are you going to do about it?"
Speak up. D. E. MORRILL,
Viewed From the Farm.