The Catholic bulletin., 1918-12-07
DOMAIN OF TEMPERANCE
LIE OF THE WILD OATS.

Should youth be exposed to de-
bauchery to strengthen it? Most en-
phatically, no! If youth were pro-
tected from wild oats influences until
it's judgment was mature there would
not be so many brands to be plucked
from the burning. For the benefit of
those who accept the wild oats" con-
ception of the male ideal, here are a
few pictures that are only too famil-
lar:
Picture /. A certain health resort
the sinkhole into which large part
OF immortality, crime and diesase of
America is dumped-there are a hun
dred thousand visitors annually. Of
these, a large proportion go there to
harvest their wild oats" crop. He
who visits one of the government
"rale holes can best appreciate the
harvest of the wild oats"
Picture 2. A hospital. Here is a
group of locomotor ataxics; there is a
group of deformed children; yonder. a.
girl in her teens is nursing a child who
will never know it's father. More
wild oats"
Picture 8. An asylum. Here is a
case of general paresis; there a mel
ancholiac; in the next room maniac
can be heard shrieking. "Wild oats"
a-plenty.
Picture 4. A police court, full of
drunks, criminals and buns. wild
oats" again.
Picture 5. A jail. Here are wild
oats" of the striped, short-haired va
riety in abundance.
Picture 6. A founding asylum full
of children cursed by society before
they were born. Poor little wild
oats" ..s
Picture Z. A doctors office, full of
anxious men and still more anxious
women, who do not gossip much about
their ailments, even among their in
Inmates, save where the women are
told by the doctor a pretty little fairy
tale for home use. wild oats"
growing in the dark. ........
Picture s. Another. Around the
reception" room sits a collection of
poor female creatures, many of whom
were originally sacrificed in aiding
youth to sow its wild oats" These
women are now getting poetic re-
venge, as the doctor knows.
Picture 9. A beautiful girl is found
dead in the river one fine morning.
What is she doing there? Washing
the wild oats" out of her life.
Picture 10. A pistol shot rings out
in a gambling hell-a man falls dead.
The gun was loaded with wild oats"
Picture II. A defaulting bank CASH
ier fees to Mexico; he is looking for
market for his wild oats"
Picture II. A series of deserted
babies are found in the snow. Who
planted them there? Sewers of wild
OATS"
Picture 13. A wife, surrounded by
her cold and hungry children, is sit
ting weeping-eating her heart out.
The husband and father is on a
drunk, he has whipped her, is in. Jail,
or has deserted her ''Wild OATS
make broken hearts; they are poor
food for babies; they do not buy coal,
nor cover nakedness.
We doctors know the wild oats
crop under numerous terms. Crime,
inebriety, syphilis, paresis, locomotor
ataxia and gonorrhea are chief among
them. What the consultation room
does not tell us the operating table
does.
The Lie of the Wild Oats is based
upon the misapplication of the theory
of separate standard for men and
women. The young man may SOW his
wild oats, but the young woman must
not Wherever immortality, vice, dis
ease, crime, drunkenness and insanity
most thrive, there, if we dig down to
the very root of these evils, we find
wild oats" the thickest
The manned gray-beards who
learned the wild oats lie from soci-
ety's primer are usually wiling to con-
fess that the wild oats" of yester-
| day are watered with the tears of to.
| day. The vicious roots of the wild
oats' of youth often lie deep in the
| ashes of manhood's and womanhood' S
| despair. The crop is garnered with
the sickle of regret and threshed with
the fail of disease and pain.