The San Francisco call. [volume], September 05, 1913, Page 3, Image 3

About The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

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Mary Austin Says White Slave Trials Mark Dawn of New Era for Women
NOTED AUTHOR DECLARES
THAT FEDERAL LAWS
WILL PROTECT INNOCENT
Mary Austin
r MMORALITY between men and women is
• not wholly determined by the fact that
money changes hands over it. This is the
real meaning - of the judge's reading of the fed
eral law under which Diggs and Caminetti are
indicted.
The law expressly forbids the taking of
women from one state to another for "immoral
purposes."
The defense undertook to show that mak
ing money on the transaction is the only thing
that constitutes statutory immorality. The
reading of the court, which puts the relation
of the four parties in the case, even with the
avowed objective of marriage, in the same category, is more
significant than at first appears.
TWO JURIES WATCHING TRIALS
Yesterday in the wide courtroom the old attitude and the
new faced each other in the two juries before which the case was
tried—the jury impaneled by law. and that other jury, the audi
ence, watching with puzzled, or eager, or half understanding eyes.
For a moment I was disappointed to see no women on the first,
the official jury; for it seemed to me a problem in which women
should be pre-eminently interested. Rut at a second glance I saw
that there was no occasion for women to subject themselves to the
nausea of soul to which many features of the case give rise.
For these were men conspicuously able, as a federal jury should
be. to judge widely and by other than the most obvious evidence.
JURY OF EFFICIENT MEN
They had the look of men efficient in their own affairs and
Mary Austin'
"Specialists in Street-Wear Clothes for Women."
EXPOSITION
OF FALL
FASHIONS
Continues
tomorrow n v
-SATURDAY— i^iw
MEANWHILE: in the midst of this r«^jj^|W
visual feast of superb finery comes
that crucial question "Which suit r
will you buy for ever}' day, hard T
wearjng, good appearing street AzfirJK
wear?" — the backbone of your
wardrobe!—it must be good style, ft/ //fj \ ■
'perfectly tailored, and built entirely If/M \ B
out of the very best of materials. lIA M U
OUR
"ENGLISH bmSM
king's wlHlfk
SERGE" tpj
Woven in England, modeled f^^^Wilf 1 ! <fe
and tailored in the United •*> J'jl.^"• ', 4§|
States, specially for us (and ~V W
for you) will more than ful- - '$$0% |||% '4 1
fill your utmost expectations ) jl I
and requirements. . i, ■ X 1
Our Guarantee j i //|
£flcn sui7 nas iTie copyrighted la- ™ I *Sj§J
tei ancz trademark, "ENGLISH
KING'S SERGE." Any without OVJ
fhis /aocZ are imitations. We will re- | © vJ
p/ace or refund money on any suit \ flu © jfl
f/ia< Joes no/ come up /o our guar- j |U\ Jft
an tee.
This Suit can be had only at Roos '
Bros., sole authorized agents
It can be had in both navy and
black ma U slzes from 16 misses' to v jj
48 ladies'.
INVITATION
We cordially invite you and your friends to at
tend our evening Fashion Display (Live Models —
Music—Souvenirs) tomorrow, September 6th, from
8:30 to 10 p. m.
SOLE A<»E\TS /"3kV SOLE AOEXTS
"MARK CROSS" v3PS v|P# "BI'RBKRHV"
*t niruwnnwiin in
•THE HOt SE OF ( Ot RTKSV"
* Market at Stockton
THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1913.
Society Should Stand by
Woman Raising Family
(From Mary Austin* Article ta Yesterday's Call.>
The service that women perform in bearing and
rearing children is the very greatest that can be
asked of them. A woman who undertakes to raise
a family will find that she must give about 20 years
to it.
During that time she has a right to expect
society to stand by and see that the security of her
married life is not disturbed by any trivial or un
worthy occasion.
Noted
leader of
woman's
clubs
approves
position
taken by
Mary Austin
most likely to realize the lack of moral efficiency in others. They
knew the one thing which every person making up his mind on
this case needs to know—its relation to the interests which society
finds it most worth while to preserve.
Opposite them, in the seats they had stood in line for hours
to obtain, sat the people from whom, as a class, such offenses
come, the people who do not know. It was possible to find here
and there in the audience the type of mind drawn there by its
appetite for salacious details, as flies are drawn to carrion. But
to the most of them it was evident that the trial was a drama, a
problem play, treating of questions which might affect their own
lives, the answer to which they did not know.
And to this class, in spite of all the difference in culture and
opportunity, more and more it appears the defendants and the
two unfortunate young women belong. They do not know.
NONE OF PARTIES UNDERSTAND
They do not know that it is in the very nature of love rela
tions that are not regulated by some ideal of racial betterment to
turn out badly.
Such people see every affair between men and women as a
special case. So they imagine that there might be cases in which
it would be possible to violate the social code ami, in the phrase
of the day, "get away with it."
It is evident from the obvious and almost childish way in
which these four young people went about their affair that they
were not in possesion of this important item of general knowledge.
They thought they could get away with it. And the very natural
question arises, why did they not know that they couldn't, espe
cially since the change in our point of view is largely due to tins
certainty about the futility of furtive relations. It has become a
part of the social consciousness.
These people were all of good blood and respectable parentage.
They were all of ordinary intelligence or a little over it.
They had all the advantage of our system of public education.
In the case of the young men, their attainments and social
position admitted them to public office. One of them was becom
ing notable in his profession.
They had all achieved financial integrity; none of them is
accused of theft or cheating in money transactions.
IGNORANCE SHOWN IN IMPORTANT POINTS
And yet they appeared wholly ignorant on an important
point of human conduct. Some clinging to an ideal of virtue is
shown by the insistence of the young women that they would never
have surrendered without the promise of marriage. They had a
faint notion that this condoned their looseness, but they appeared
wdiolly lacking in any sense of the solidarity of women. They were
willing to affront all womanhood in themselves by their infringe
ment of the other women's claims.
Said one of the wives who testified, referring to the guilty
woman: "She came into my house and took my baby in her lap."
Resentment of the treachery implied sharpened her voice like
flame. A movement of response passed like a reflection on water
on the curiously inexpressive faces of her audience. They, of a
much lower social grade, felt it; why, then, could not the husband
of that wife feel it as a deterring influence?
WHY DO PEOPLE KNOW SO LITTLE?
It is important that we inquire why these people knew so little
of what constitutes sex morality. What is it in the air which
permits people to lie and cheat and do a thousand things in the
interest of a love relation which they would feel insulted to be
accused of doing in any other department of life?
We begin by asking ourselves if the trouble could possibly be
with our educational systems. What are we to think of a university
which could teach Maury I. Diggs more about architecture than
it began to teach him about being'a man?
By what extraordinary misapplication of schooling did Drew
Caminetti become fit to serve on a board of public control without
Mrs. A. P.
Black
reading
Call
article on
white slave
cases.
at the same time learning to control himself in the fulfillment of
his obligation as a husband and as a father?
SIMILARITY OF PERSONAL CHARACTERS
These were the questions that I asked myself, looking from
the accused to the audience, in all its evident second rateness, see
ing in this misadventure nothing much but an adventure which
had turned out badly, but deriving no certainty from it that a
similar affair would invariably result unhappily for themselves.
It seemed to me suddenly that the secret of that audience
being drawn there day after day lay in the fact that its members
and the defendants were, in respect to the matters under consider
ation, very much of a kind. They lacked the wider vision which
shows great laws governing the affairs of men. They were, on
the side of sex, morally inefficient.
Then I looked over at the official jury and wondered not so
much what they were going to do about this particular case as
what they might have to say about the conditions that gave rise
to it.
It occurred to me that, though the federal court probably rep
resents the best we know of law and justice, we had somehow
begun at the wrong end of the proceeding. We should have put
the jury on the stand and had them tell us how they have avoided
becoming delinquent.
There was nothing especially complicated about the process
by which the defendants wasted so much of valuable womanhood
without at the same time getting anything out of it for themselves.
FEAR PROMPTED LAST ACTION
By their own account they began it because they felt no com
pulsion on them not to, and went on to the worst extremity because
they were afraid to face what they had stirred up. I called them
grafters yesterday—grafters in the precious stuff of humanity. On
that side of their natures they were of the stripe of the lovers of
"easy money."
Love, good honest love, has to be paid for by all sorts of
self-restraints and scrifices, and none of the four had paid.
But the worst feature about the tribunal at which they were
called on to settle the account with society was that there was no
evidence offered on two of the most important points—the cer
tainty that accounts of that kind always do have to be paid, and
the best way to go about it.
MANY WOMEN DID NOT UNDERSTAND
Just then everybody began to look interestedly at the clock,
and the spectators to slip away. We found them a few moments
later lined up outside where they could be sure of a seat for the
afternoon session. And it was as plain as ever from their faces
that there were women among them who still didn't know—at
least did not know it in a way to make it effective in their behavior
—that when an unmarried woman forms a liason with a married
man she has all the weight of organized society against her, and
men who still believed that they might offend in matters of sex
against all established codes and still get away with it.
We will have cases such as this until knowledge on these
points is a part of the social consciousness of every class.
"Providence Guided
Trial"-Miss George
MISS JULIA GKORUK, director of
the Civic trammel
"What Mary Austin has said is
good and to the point. It seems to
prove that we are reaching the days
when the double standard of moral
ity is to be a thing of the past.
"The points she has made should
be considered by every one.
"Whatever may be said of this trial
it has certainly been focuaed the
right way. Providence has certainly
directed It."
"Written Article Is
Fearless and Logical"
j MRS. NORMAN H. MARTIN
"The article written by Mary Austin
is absolutely fearless and logical. It
ts a faithful delineation of just wh»t
we are beginning to realise; an of
fense of this kind Is not a blow to
the unhappy victims only. It is a
wide offense against society.
"This is a life slse mirror which
Mrs. Austin held up before these two
men, and in it we, too, may see things
as they are if our vision la clear and
distinct"
CLUBWOMEN OF CITY
PRAISE AUSTIN STORY
Club women are unanimous in their
indorsement of the first of the series
of articles by Mary Austin, the well
known writer, on the Diggs-Cami
netti cases, which appeared in The
Call yesterday afternoon.
"She has tsruck the keynote of the
situation, with no uncertain hand,"
said one woman, prominent in the so
cial work of the city, "and with a
freedom from maudlin sentimentality
which makes it all the more convinc
ing."
Mrs. Austin's deductions from the
trials are giving to thousands of peo
ple a viewpoint which they have
never gained before, according to the
statements made by those discuss
ing it.
The opinions of some of the leading
women of San Francisco follow:
"Double Standard of
Morality Imperfect"
-MRS. A. !». BLACK, president of the
California elnb—"lt is decidedly the
tendency nowadays to consider the so
cial body rather than the individual.
There is likewise great progress
toward abolishing the double standard
of morality. I agree with Mrs. Austin
that this Is a notable example of just
these.
"Women are being placed more and
more on the same footing with men.
Citizenship was the greatest step
toward that, and it brings much more
with it.
"I think there is another motive
back of these movements, and that is
that they should be rather toward
reformation than expediency.
"The desire to raise the standard of
public morals shows improvement of
the moral atmosphere and points
toward even greater improvement.
Mrs. Austin has taken a great stand I
ln this matter and has shown a great j
moral to be drawn.
"It shows, I think, a tendency toward
better things that the white slave law
was enacted. That proves the upward
trend."
"Writer Strikes at |
Root of Question" j
GAIL I. A l (.H ! .1 \. woman attorney j
»f Denver and member of the
Colorado Stnte Board of Pardonni
"The article is very able and well
put. Mary Austin strikes at the real
meaning: and root of the whole ques
tion when she says that crimes of that
sort are afrainst society.
"Recotfnltton of that fact is due to
the growing acknowledgment that
women are valuable as citizens and j
I members of society.
"That they arc, in short, individuals
rather than the property of other in
dividuals.
"In one little point I do disagree
with her and that is when she sug
gests that the law tinder which these
men are tried does not cover this case
technically. I think it does—even
technically.
"The law does not Bay anything
about white slavery. It says for 'im
moral purposes.' The term white
slavery is only the popular way of
expressing It. They were undoubtedly
taken for Immoral purposes.
"The men confessed that they did
not intend to make it permanent.
"There Is one point I should like to
brinK out and make the public realize.
If they had gone to Angeles in
stead of Reno it would not have been
a crime.
' This proves that the United States
i laws are ahead of those of California.
"It affords a standard for the laws
'of this state and others to conform
\to and they will, too.
! "In my work as a member of the
: board of pardons, I have come in close
! touch with such crimes against so
. ciety as these and realize what it
! means."
# * *
[Law Misapplied,
Says Mrs. Gerberding
MRS. ELIZABETH GERBERDINO—
"Mary Austin is quite ritfht. The dif
ference in the attitude now and ten
years ai;n is due to the fact that the
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world has advanced so materially dur
ing that time.
"It is an altered viewpoint of the
world at large, rather than of the in
dividual that makes for this result.
"1 am sorry, however, that ttread
men were indicted under the white
slave law, as it is a misapplication of
] that law. I am very much interested
in white slavery and I think it tends
to weaken that act. These mon were
not planning for anything. They were
regardless of the future and of the
future of others and so were deeply
deserving of punishment.
"I rejoice that the world has so
advanced that we will not stand for
this sort of conduct.
"We are awakening when we insist
upon the calling to account of such
men. They are simply the victims of
the ages. They are no worse than
millions of others but their crime
came at a psychical crisis. I believe
most heartily in the single standard
of morality for men and women and
everything along the line of such
progress pleases me greatly."
* * *
Mrs. Crawford Sees
New Angle in Story
MRS. JAMBS C. CRAWFORD, rtee
prealdent of the California clubs
"It Is splendid. Mary Austin comes
at it from 1 a different point of view,
certainly, and one that had probably
not occurred to many of us.
"She Is so lucid, though, that ahe
makes you accept her Idea, and what
Is more, makes you feel that you can
not have any other,
"It doe,s seem to me that men must
be made* to think of these thlnga dif
ferently and to accept their responsi
bilities. They undertake them when
they marry. Why should they then
be permitted to fly off at a tangent In
that any more than ln any other con
tract they undertake? Such breaches
would never be allowed in the bual
ness world without punishment.
"Why, Just because they find some
thing else more agreeable for the mo
ment, should they be allowed to shift
their duties or evade. Let ua have
something of responsibility for re
sponsibility's sake.
"Mrs. Austin has certainly got at
the very gist of the matter."
Ir|. ■ ♦ ' 4f
Mothers of Country
Demand Protection
MRS. IDA FINXEY MAOKRILLE »f
the (lvle (eaten "I think that it is
a very fine article. I like the thought
that it embodies, and particularly in
regard to women.
"It Is a very fine mission to be a
mother and they should be pro
tected.
'Then, too, I like the fact that Mrs.
Austin does not consider the matter
in a personal way, but from the gen
eral standpoint of the offense against
society. There is in her article no
personal condemnation of the two
men. »Such occurrences as these must
be considered solely for the effect on
society and as laxness of morals.
"I feel tremendously sorry, in a
personal way, for all the people in
volved ln this Dlggs-Camlnettl mat
ter. But what comes home to me
particularly, after my several months
of Investigation of police courts for
the Civic Center, Is that the women
pay so much more for their trans
gressions than do the men. These
four women in the eases under dis
cussion will suffer more than the
men. even if the latter go to prison.
"This is. however, a step ln the
rifrht direction, 1 am glad to say.
"The significant point to me is the
awakening of public opinion by this
trial —and, ln fact, by all such trials."
» * ♦ .
Article Very Fair,
Mrs. Sperry's Opinion
MRS. M4RY SIMPSON SPERRY—
"I think Mary Austin has stated the
case beautifully. I agree with her
entirely and think her article waa
very fair.
"I am sure ahe has said everything
there is to say in the case.''