MOTHER BENEDICT'S APPEAL TO THE TWENTIETH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA. WOMAN'S PLEA FOR WOMAN. In behalf of the mothers of our State, we beg leave to address you as an honorable member of our Twentieth General Assembly, calling your attention to the rapid increase of prostitution, and to the vast number of houses of ill-fame kept open in all our cities, victimizing both our sons and daughters and not only bringing many to an untimely grave, but entailing on community disease that will inevitably go down to coming generations. This sad destruction and depravity had become such a burden to my heart as to lead me to pledge my life to the work of raising means of providing a home for the poor girls who were saying to me as I visited them in their awful abodes of vice: "We would gladly leave this life of shame if there was any refuge to which we could flee." This humane enterprise has been espoused by the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and has been so far successful that we have located and for the past year and a half sustained, in our capital city, the Benedict Home for the prodigal daughters of Iowa. To this friendly institution so many soon came for shelter as to necessitate the enlarging of our accomodations, which we anticipate will have to be done again and again ere there is room for all, who will come as the dwellers in the pits of darkness throughout the State learn of the new lift that opens up to those who come under the benign influence of the Home, which is as its name designates, a home of blessing. To gather up and shelter these poor wrecks of womanhood is all that we, the mothers of Iowa, can do by way of remedy for this great evil. Now, we appeal to the fathers, whom you will represent in our legislature, for provision for a class who will not come to us; some of these are so under the influence of strong drink that they have no power to escape, and there are others who boldly say: "We are in the business for the money there is in it, and it is our business and we are going to follow it. Men who pass as respectable visit us, and we are going to make as many new victims as we can. Which means that our boys are to be decoyed into these dens of soul and body thieves and there educated to the fiendish purpose of seducing our innocent daughters, and thus furnishing a successson of those fallen ones, who, though fallen, possess such power to destroy. Our petition presented to our last Legislature for a compulsory reformatory for those helpless and unwilling ones was so favorably entertained by the committee to whom it was referred as to elicit the following report: "Your joint committee on penitentiary at Fort Madison and at Anamosa, and reform school at Mitchellville, beg leave to report that they have had under consideration the numerous petitions presented to. this house by the W. C. T. U., and report that there is much merit in the matter presented in said petitions, and in the opinion of the committee the time has fully come when the civilization and Christianity of the age demand that a separate prison shall be provided where females convicted of crime can be confined separate and apart from the prison where male convicts are incarcerated, and in connection therewith a reformatory school should be provided, to the end that as much as possible reformation of females therein confined may be attained. The committee point with pride to a prison of said character in Indiana, and believe that the State of Iowa cannot do better than at the earliest possible day to provide a similar reformatory prison. Your committee regret the fact that the session is so far advanced as to preclude any steps being taken at this time that would attain this desirable object, and your committee confidently believe that at an early day the Legislature of the State of Iowa will take proper steps and enact a law establishing an institution or prison of the kind referred to, which shall harmonize with the light and advancement of the age." We also beg leave thus early in the session to call your attention to the necessity of so amending Sec. 4013 of the Code as to affix a greater penalty to the offense of keeping a house of ill-fame; and also to make prostitution a penal offense, so that poor victims of those haunts of vice may be committed to the reformatory for which we petition, and thus placed under circumstances the most favorable to their reformation; instead of fining and driving them from city to city, as is the provision and and custom of our municipal courts, which process only tends to deepen their depravity and to scatter broadcast the deadly evils which ever follow in their track. Submitted in behalf of the mothers of Iowa, LOVINA B. BENEDICT. The above plea made by our representative, Mrs. L. B. Benedict, has our entire and cordial endorsement. We prayerfully hope that it may receive your careful consideration and favorable action. J. ELLEN FOSTER, Supt. Legislative Dept. MARY J. ALDRICH, Pres. W. C. T. U. of Iowa. MRS. S. V. Maxfield, Cor. Sec❜y. APPEAL TO THE TWENTY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY The following appeal to the Twenty-Fourth General Assembly seems also worthy of a place on these pages: To the Honorable Twenty-Fourth General Assembly of the State of Iowa: For forty years I have been deeply interested in the unfortunate of my own sex, and for the past twelve years have given myself to the labor of providing stepping stones by which the sin-sick prostitute might return to honorable womanhood, and a Christian shelter, for the young seduced girl in the hour of her great extremity that she might not be forced to seek shelter among those who are not only hopelessly down themselves, but who proffered her shelter with a view to adding her as one more recruit to the army of prostitution, already hundreds of thousands strong in our nation. The records of the Nineteenth and Twentieth General Assemblies show that petitions were presented and bills introduced with a view not only to a more stringent law in regard to the prostitute or prostitution of either sex, but a compulsory reformatory for women criminals under the care of women whose lives give evidence that their lives are filled with a measure of that love which drew the Son of God from heaven to earth to lay out his life for the redemption of the world. The Twentieth General Assembly so nobly responded to our appeal for more stringent law that in the House there were but two dissenting voices to the placing on our statutes the sections that make prostitution a penitentiary offense. While I labored in private and in public more than two years and lobbied through two Legislatures for this law, I did not design that any woman convicted of prostitution should ever be sent to the penitentiary where male prisoners are incarcerated. Being a woman, I have studied woman as she came from the hand of her Creator, the last finishing touch and the crowning excellence of His creation. And, reckoning from the standpoint of science or theology, a more refined being than man, arguing to my understanding, that no matter how low she has fallen she is a woman still, and in order to reform her she must be surrounded by circumstances suited to her reformation. History, too, proves that women do not reform in our penitentiaries where male prisoners are incarcerated. On the contrary, we have multiplied evidences of reformation where suitable reformatories have been provided to which they have voluntarily fled or have been consigned by law. While we have in Iowa all the law necessary to convict this class of criminals we have, as yet, no place suitable for them. Neither is there any shelter to which the sin-sick prostitute can flee, save only as the door of the Retreat, under the management of "Mother Benedict,” in Decorah, stands open to them. While she had any influence over the Benedict Home in Des Moines, they were admitted there with wonderful success as to their reformation, as we have many living witnesses, now leading honorable lives who were taken in at the door of that Home in the most hopeless and loathsome condition. As they gave themselves up to the reformatory influences of the Home, they were healed both mentally and physically and went out "clothed in their right mind." Now, in behalf of the mothers of Iowa, I appeal to you, the honorable fathers to whom is intrusted, during this Legislative session at least, the welfare of our State, praying that you aid us in our care of those seduced and erring girls by liberal appropriations both for the benefit of the Home in Des Moines and the Retreat in Decorah. The Retreat, all unaided by the State, has cared for many who were refused admittance at the door of the Home. But having well-nigh measured up my three score years and ten, I am no longer able to labor as in the past, when, from the proceeds of the lecture field, the Home in Des Moines was brought into existence and for a time sustained and to which source, and individual donations, the Retreat in Decorah owes much of its support, while over two hundred have been cared for who are a part of our commonwealth and are to effect it either for good or for evil. Of this number, we rejoice to state, there are but very few over whom we entertain fears for their future. But, on the contrary, we look for stronger and nobler womanhood from what they have suffered. With the presentation of these facts, we come to you with confidence that you will aid us in this work, and that you will legislate favorably to a compulsory department either on the grounds and in connection with the Benedict Home in Des Moines, or located in some other part of the State. Respectfully submitted to you in behalf of the mothers of Iowa. The following, printed and pasted on the back of the photographs of Mrs. Benedict sold for the benefit of the Home, will be remembered as a pleasant souvenir of those early days in the work: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, At the Annual Meeting of the W. C. T. U. of Iowa, -HELD AT CLINTON, IOWA, OCTOBER, 1879, with burdened heart and eloquent lips, revealing a God-given love and faith, MRS. L. B. BENEDICT came pleading, that through that organization she God blessed her work, gave her access to the hearts THE BENEDICT HOME. As the name implies, it has proved a "house of blessing" to those who have there sought shelter, help and Christian counsel. |