Young Men Need the Uplift of Strong Young Women—Young Women Should Refuse to Associate with Young Men Who Smoke and Drink—If They Did, It Would Rapidly Abate These Evils
By Mary Alice Hare Loper, M. S.
Wives and mothers of our country have long been taking an active part in the war against the monstrous evil of intemperance, but the young woman’s part in bringing to its close this prolonged tragedy has not yet received the support which it deserves.
It is the young women, perhaps more than any other one class of people, who have it in their power to check effectually the traffic in both liquor and tobacco, and at the same time raise the downtrodden standard of morality. Had young women always preached before marriage what they sought to have practiced after marriage, their “sermons” would have resulted in many converts to temperance among the flower of our nation, and the standard of physical endurance would be far superior to what it is to-day. Also much of the blight of ruined homes, untold misery, and premature death would have been avoided. But, alas! young women have looked on while young men have gone down, down the way of destruction, and have failed to raise the warning cry.
YOUNG MEN NEED THEIR HELP
There have been exceptions to this rule. All honor to these brave heroines in the mighty struggle for freedom from the curse of intemperance. Young men are in dire need of just such help as young women ought to give; for alcohol and cigarettes are robbing them mentally, morally, physically, and spiritually. Many a young woman who is temperate herself, tolerates on the part of her young men friends the occasional glass, the deadly cigarette, and the nauseating pipe, for fear they may become offended if she objects; but after marriage she is likely to experience heartbreaking realities suggestive of the familiar couplet —
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: It might have been.”
POISONOUS FOR MINORS, WHY NOT FOR ADULTS?
If an article is so deadly as to be prohibited by law from being sold to minors, surely it is not wholesome when one has reached his majority. Science and observation have proved beyond question the degenerating, disease-breeding effects of alcohol and tobacco. But while these deadly poisons are indulged in so generally by full-grown men, and cigarettes prey upon the boyhood of America, our almshouses, our jails, and our penitentiaries are teeming with poor unfortunates, many of whom attest to the truthfulness of the divine law of heredity, “Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.”
There is no reason why a young man should not lead just as pure a life as he expects the young woman to lead whose favor he seeks. Liquor and tobacco are just as harmful to the one as to the other. Whoever heard of a temperate young man associating with an intemperate young woman? I fancy I hear the echo, “Nobody.” Then why should a pure young woman associate with a young man who practices these health-impairing, soul-destroying habits? “O,” says one, “that is different; it is the universal custom.”
SHE WOULD NOT ENTER A SALOON
Young women who would consider it an everlasting disgrace to enter a saloon themselves, or to associate with other young women who would thus disgrace womanhood, should deem it a serious matter that their young men friends frequent these dens of evil. It is the right of every pure young woman to require purity on the part of her associates. If a young man thinks more of his intemperate habits than he does of her who kindly requests him to abandon them, far better leave him wedded to his evil habits than ever permit him in such a state of unworthiness to lead her to the marriage altar. It is infinitely better to follow the example of our lamented Frances Willard—never marry—than to become the heartbroken wife of a man who drinks, swears, and uses tobacco.
Usually that is most prized which is most difficult of attainment; and this is especially true in choosing a companion for life. When young women place a higher estimate upon virtuous young womanhood, young men will have greater respect for the true standard of moral uprightness. When young women cease to associate with intemperate young men, young men will cease to be the slaves to evil habits that they are to-day. Worthy young men are not slow to recognize intrinsic worth when they see it. Sensible young men are impressible, and may be easily influenced by the young women whose society they seek. But let this season of opportunity pass by unimproved, it need not be surprising if reformation never comes. The young woman who saves all her needed temperance advice until after the honeymoon, deliberately enters the spider’s web, and must abide the consequences.
SHOULD GIVE UP THE SALOON OR ELSE GOOD SOCIETY
As long as young men can participate in the revelry of the saloon and at the same time retain their wonted place in society, we need not wonder that the saloon still exists, and that “society” is not always a synonym for good morals. The silence of young women during the lengthened period of the liquor traffic, has proved a substantial help to the business; for “silence gives consent,” in spite of the poverty, wretchedness, tears, and entreaties of heartbroken wives, mothers, widows, and children all along the way. Annihilate intemperance, and you place reason upon the throne of human life.
Girls who indulge in after-theater drives and midnight suppers with the accompaniment of wines and cocktails, cannot afford to act such a questionable part in the great tragedy of intemperance. They pass by evils one by one, instead of rowing against the stream of wickedness, and thus they drift down, down into the mighty whirlpool of death. Young women who go hand in hand with young men in their downward career, are headed for the same destination as the young men.
Let young women elevate the social standard, which to-day trails in the dust, making prohibition mean to themselves not only refraining from intoxicants and cigarettes, but nonassociation with intemperate young men. Let them by persuading young men to abandon their evil habits, strike a telling blow to the saloon and tobacco, that these enemies of health and happiness may become as far as possible but a matter of history.
