The day book. [volume], May 09, 1914, LAST EDITION, Image 7

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
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THE BABY MUST PAY FOR SINS OF PARENTS
OPIONON OF DOCTORS WHO SELL IT
r BY JANE WHITAKER
The tiniest thing with a face made
-up of almost indistinguishable fea
tures; a little bump in the center that
will some day be a real nose; a little
opening from which feeble cries now
issue, but which will some day be an
adorable rosebud mouth just made
for kisses; eyelids wrinkled, up over
eyes that may be blue or gray or
brown; not a sign of a hair on its very
red head but yes, there is a down
like the fluff on the breast of a yel- I
low cmcken.
Hands so fragile that you fear to
touch them lest you bruise them;
two knees with a little speck of flesh
dented out of each so that the spots
form dimples; ten tiny toes.
Ah, yes, you have guessed it is a
baby, arid if you are a woman, a real
woman, you have unconsciously ex
tended your arms, and you have felt
an ache of longing in your heart even
if you have some babies of your own
to love.
But you mustn't feel that way
about this baby, for, whisper! It's
mother wasn't married to its father
and so, though it has the same im
pressionable little soul that other per
fectly respectable babies have, and
though it is just as helpless, and
though it is just as soft and as warm
and as alluring, nobody really cares
what will become of it.
I know nobody cares, for its moth
er relinquished it at the hour of its
birth and the baby's cowardly
father never bothered looking at it
at all and he never will own it, and
the doctor who permitted the unmar
ried mother to bring the child into
the world in his hospital is going to
sell the baby.
Maybe he will sell it when it is only
twelve hours old; some of them do.
Oh, I know you wouldn't take a kit
ten away from its mother cat at that
age, or a puppy from its mother dog,
but then babies of mothers who are
not married are different. The doc
tors will tell you so.
And the doctor doesn't care Who
buys the baby. Nor why they buy
the baby nor what they will do with
the baby.
What does it matter? Isn't It an,
illegitimate child and haven't we de
clared that the Children must suffer
for the sins of the fathers?
You see it is so easy to make the
baby suffer. It cannot battle back.
It just has to endure. And by tHe
time it isn't a baby any more it has
grown used to enduring and it ac
cepts our treatment as a part of the
unkind world into which it came from
somewhere out of space, where it
must have been happier than it ever
will be here.
Of course the baby hasn't anything
to do with the sins of its parents, and
maybe life "had been so queer for the
parents that they really couldn't be
held responsible either.
But the parents have been in the
world long enough to know that hu
man beings who pretend to believe
that the only Judge is God, really
take all the perogatives of judglug
upon themselves, and the parents
have been in the world long enough
to know just what human judges do
to punish those who do not abide by
their laws.
And the parents haye been in the,
world long enough to learn cupidity
in avoiding consequences. f
And so the father never comes for
ward, and the mother tears apart
from herself that little helpless thing
she brought into the world and she
signs a release that says she must
never see it again, and the baby be-
gins to pay for the sins and the cu
pidity of the parents, but most for
the judgment we have dared to pass
upon them.
Oh, it will suffer very much when
it is a baby, but it won't suffer sa
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