Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
Part of an afternoon was devoted to a discussion led by Dr. Rosalie
Slaughter Morton (N. Y.), delegated representative of Prince Morrow
and the American Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis. In an
eloquent address she described the terrible devastation, especially
among women and children, from diseases which until lately had been
concealed and never mentioned. She attributed these conditions partly
to the fact that boys and girls were left in ignorance and this was
often because the mothers were ignorant. The chief cause of the wide
prevalence of these diseases was the double standard of morals, the
belief that a chaste life for a man is incompatible with health and
that the consequences of immorality end with themselves and will not
be transmitted. She urged women to unite in the demand for a higher
standard of morals among men. Mrs. Gilman spoke strongly on the
necessity for more vigorous measures for a quarantine of the infected
and health certificates for every marriage and she laid a large share
of the cause of immorality at the door of the economic dependence of
women. Mrs. Florence Kelley, executive secretary of the National
Consumers' League, whose life was being spent in improving the
economic position of women, said: "How are we dealing with this
monstrous evil? Are we going to wait patiently and rear a whole
generation of children and grandchildren and trust to their gradual
increase in strength of character?" She told of the mothers who bring
up children in the best and wisest manner but the environment outside
the home, which they have no power to shape, nullifies all their
teaching. "That is a very slow way of dealing with a cancer," she
said. "Women have tried for forty years to get the power to have the
laws enforced and that is our greatest need today." A principal
feature of this important discussion was the strong, analytical
address of the Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer, in the course of which she
said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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