The Semi-weekly leader., 1919-10-25
PERTINENT AND WISE WORDS ARE ADDRESSED
WOMEN BY ONE OF THEM
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is what we hear Honey man, I
sigh for you; with my lips to yours
l could die for YOU"
We look and find that her music
cabinet is filled with more of the
same kind. We go to the picture
show and there we hear them again,
or others just as bad. On every side
is virtue assailed.
Some time back the country was
very much interested in the investi-
cation being carried on in all the
large cities of the conditions lead
ing to the downfall of such a large
percentage of working girls, and af-
ter an exhaustive search for the
causes for this condition, they gave
to the world as result of this in
vestigation the fact of an inadequate
living wage being paid as the main
cause.
Immediately the women's clubs
throughout the country took the mat
ter in hand and began working to-
ward the establishment of a mini
mum wage law as a remedy.
So far, so good This undoubted-
ly is step forward, but is this all
that is needed to alleviate the exist
ing conditions.
Suppose our working girls are paid
a wage that leaves small margin
for amusements. How are the "a
musements that are open to her on
the small amount that she has to ex-
pend on them going to affect her
morals?
Having thoroughly examined these
| amusements and tabled them dan
gerous to the mind and morals, we
stop and consider the reason for
their being.
No enterprise can prosper with
out the support and approval of its
patrons and this being so, we ask
if the taste of the American people
has become so vitiated as to require
these vulgar and obscene plays, books
and songs.
1t is an acknowledged fact that
the people of New York City have
passively accepted this class of "a
musement, if we can call it by such a
name, until their moral perceptions
have become calloused to the extent
that they accept without murmur,
theatricaI productions that have
nothing to recommend them save
their appeal to what is lowest in hu-
man nature.
A certain company recently re-
fused to appear in New York City
on account of the questionable plays
that were appearing upon the boards
of her theatres. 1t is evidently a
case Of having vice with them so
long that they have endured, pitied
and at last embraced.
If this wave of vice is not checked,
what is now true of New York City
will likewise be true of the whole
nation.
And now, we ask, what is the So
luton to this problem; what are we
as mothers going to do about 1t?
For argue the question as much as
| you please and try to place the re-
sponsibility elsewhere as much as
you please, and will still insist that
the solution lies with the mothers
of the country.
It is up to them to exercise a cen
sorship over these productions, to rise
with one accord and to say that such
things shall not be.
Women have stood behind nearly
every movement for civic betterment
in which the home is either directly
: or indirectly concerned that has been
inaugurated in the past eight or ten
. years.
J She is the sentinel in the watch
} tower, the power behind the throne
To her is due the credit of the Pure
Food Law Passed in 1905. She is
the potential factor in the legisla-
J tion of tomorrow.
Silence on her part is tacit ac-
: ceptance of conditions which, if al
lowed to continue, will destroy the
} moral fibre of the nation and under
mine the purity of the home. The
time has come when we MUST take
cognizance of these facts. 1t is we'll
to stop and consider whittier we
|; are drifting before our social bark
is wrecked on the shoals of licen-
tiousness and our daughters are be-
come high priestesses at the altar OF
J free love.