The
Omaha Sunday Bee Magazine Pag
r iht-Lovin&
Women a
Menace' to
the Roe?
Psychology's Lessons from the
Cruel Joy with Which Hun
dreds of Fashionable Women
Witnessed the Last Three
Brutal Pugilistic Encounters.
Abroad
By Dr. Hans Huldriksen,
The Distinguished Swedish-American Psychologist.
SPOILED daughters of society,
whose tortured and Jaded
nerves are stimulated by the
sight of two human brutes beating
one another black and bloody, you
r a menace to our race!
Spoiled daughters of society, who
combine the .cruelty-loving instincts
of the savage'with an Inordinate love
of the costliest luxuries and display,
rou are a peril to our womankind!
Three recent prize fights in Europe
have been made remarkable by the
attendance of a large number of
women of the aristocracy, many of
them young and attractive, wearing
jewels and modish evening dreBs.
They made a coarse and brutal con
test the excuse for a brilliant social
gathering.
The prize fights thus distinguished
were those between thennegro; 'jack
Johnson, and Frank Moran, in Paris ;
between "Freddie' Welsh and
"Willie" RItchey, in London, and be
tween "Gunboat". Smith and Georges
Carpentier, also in London.
In this unblushing patronage of a
brutal spectacle by those who should
be the most gentle and refined ele
ment of society,, we see not merely
a display of bad taste, but an unmis
takable Indication of social corrup-
tion, a warning that an upheaval Is
coming in the communities where
such degraded taste prevails. When
ever In history the women of the up
per classes have succumbed to the
fascination of cruel and bloodthirsty
spectacles, the downfall of a civiliza
tion has been surely decreed. Thus
It was in ancient Rome, la Babylon,
In Carthage, inEgypt, in Greece, in
Spain. The psychologist who studies
the news about the recent prizefights
is forced to conclude that France and
England are doomed to pass through
an upheaval like those which befell
the earlier civilizations.
We In America are closely affected
by these occurrences, for a consider
able number of American women
were among those who witnessed the
prizefights. Moreover, the tendency
of our socially conspicuous class to
imitate the society of England and
France Is bo strong that there is nec
essarily grave danger that the con
tagion of such social customs will
spread here.
Listen to a newspaper report of the
Bght between the negro Jack Johnson
and Frank Moran in Paris:
"The singular spectacle was pre
sented of several hundred women in,
beautiful gowns applauding the two
pugilists as they struggled up and
down the ring, feinting and dodging
and punching each other.
"Among the women were those
that bore such great names in society
as Baroness Henri de Rothschild, the
younger Duchess d'Uzes, the Duchess
de Rohan, Countess Mathleu de No
allles, the poetess Princess Morou
left, and Countess de Proumiers.
"Johnson's white wife occupied a
prominent position, wearing many
diamonds."
Before the fight, we are told, the
loveliest women of the French aris
tocracy bearing names that have
been famous since the crusades felt
the rippling muecles of the colored
gladiator Johnson and thrilled with a
brutal Joy In the contemplation of his
colossal development.
In a misplaced enthusiasm for the
triumph of the white race, the at
tractive Mrs. !'.-.: V. "j?r i,ot New
York, richly gowned, planted a kiss
full on the Hps of the Pittsburgh
pugilist Frank Moran. During the
encounter the women became fran
tically excited and applauded wildly
whenever the fighting seemed vicious.
Similar scenes occurred at the fight
between Welsh and Ritchey in Lon
ten. The Earl of LonsdJe, a lead
ing English sporting nobleman, was
there, and with him was bis wife,
one of the handsomest women in so
ciety, and many other women of the
English aristocracy. Tall, fair-haired
maids and matrons, who should have
been attending to their duties in the
statelj homes of England, sat by the
ringside and cheered the fighters.
Among them, too.l regret to say. was
a prominent Anglican clergyman, tha
Rev. Michael Vernon Baudier, led
there by the fallacious Idea that the
love of fighting would develop man
liness In his parishioners.
Similar scenes were repeated at
the contest in London between the
French pugilist Georges Carpentier
and the American "Gunboat" Smith.
It was a mitigating circumstance of
this affair that reason triumphed
over brute force. Carpentier's course
in wresting a victory from his
stronger and more brutal opponent,
"Gunboat" Smith, by taking a tech
nical advantage of the rules, was in
a degree a triumph for the mind of
man.
We can best appreciate the ulti
mate tendency of these demoralizing
pugilistic carnivals by referring to
the gladiatorial contests of ancient
Rome." That j6wer bore a close re
semblance to modern England since
Rome was merely the metropolis of
a vast empire lnhabtted largely by
savage and dependent races. In the
later days of the Roman empire,
when It was tottering to its fall, the
women of the leading Roman families
thronged the Colosseum to witness
the great gladiatorial festivals held
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aoman vomen Petting the Murderous Victor of a Gladiatorial Contest. A Scene Which Psychologists
Find lias Its Parallel in the Caresses Women of Fashion Showered Upon the Actors in the Recent
' Prize Fights Whose Meaning Is Asserted to Be Degeneration.
there. There men fought with mett
and with wild beasts. Hundreds of
men were killed In a day, while the
Roman beauties applauded with
frenzy.
When one gladiator had another
helpless at his feet, he appealed to
'.he Roman women in the front seats
to settle the fate of the fallen one.
If the loser had not fought with suf
ficient savageness, the women turned
their thumbs viciously down and the
victor cut the throat of his fallen op
ponent. Just as the French women exam
ined the muscles of the prizefighters
the other day in Paris, the Roman
women inspected the leading gladi
ators before they went to the slaugh
ter and examined their physical con
dition closely. An ancient Roman
writer tells us that however brutal
and ugly gladiators were, there were
always women ready to adore them
and to consider them as beautiful as
Adonla.
At Pompeii, which was a Summer
resort of the Romans, there is a
scribbling cn the wall preserved to
day which speaks of one of the glad-
lators as "the sigh of tne girls" (bus
pirla puellarum). Evidently an Inor
dinate and unwholesome interest of
the Roman women in gladiators.
. , brutes recruitde. from. . the criminal
classes and from the savages of
every known country, was an Im
portant factor In the downfall of
Rome. The Roman matron, who was
absorbed by the demoralizing Joys of
the Colosseum, would not take up
the arduous duties of raising a fam
ily to fight the battles of Rome and
to preserve Its Intellectual suprem
acy. Why does the love of brutal spec
tacles by women foreshadow the
downfall of a society? It is a re
version to savagery without the
courage and the Impulses that led
the original savage to struggle up
wards. Savages love exhibitions of
brute strength and ferocity, war
dances and barbarous display of all
kinds. Unlike the over-civlltzed men
and women who go to prizefights,
they re all eager to risk their own
lives and bodies in contests of feroc
ity and endurance. Civilization Is
imply a process of replacing the
savage rule of brute force by the
rule of reason. Everj prizefight Is a
display of savagery worne than
any war dance or scalp hunt of the
real savages. It is an undoing of the
good that has been done.
In nearly every human being there
is a lingering love of cruelty, or, at
least, cruelty exercises a certain fas
cination for him. The suppression of
this primal Instinct la the great work
of civilized morality. Many a man
of refinement feels a curiosity to
witness a scene of cruelty which he
would be ashamed to acknowledge.
Copyright, 1114, br
That he feels such shame proves the
force of civilization and morality.
The instinct of cruelty Is derived
from the stage of evolution when
man killed and hunted his food with
his own hands. When -woman be
comes dominated by the instinct of
cruelty, it shows a far more com
plete moral degeneration and rever
sal of the processes of civilization
than when man exhibits that trait.
Havelock Ellis, the foremost Eng
lish authority on sex characteristics,
tells us that while women are lest
often criminals, their crimes are
more often marked by cruelty than
those of men. "It must be said," re
marks Ellis, "that besides this ele
ment of cruelty in women, we have
the element of compassion, which Is
founded on the maternal instinct"
In other words, woman first devel
oped her compassion while diHCbarg
Ing ber most elementary duty of
caring for ber young and while con
templating its appealing helpless
nejs. The sentiment of. compassion
In women must, therefore, be as
primitive as the instinct of cruelty
in man. Woman also has cruelty,
for men and women were not so
greatly differentiated in the first
stage of human ex:stence, and she
shared his fierce brutal struggles for
food, but in the best type of womaa
the cruelty Instinct Is more com
pletely suppressed than In man.
Thus we see that the English or
French duchess who apilauds a
prizefight displays the instincts of
the lowest form of savage life. But
for her descendants there will be no
struggling upwards towards the
heights of humanity and civilization.
Biology proves that when a species
tb EUr Company. Great Britain KIghts P.eserv
. reverts to an earlier an lower form
It will become extinct. A degenerate
Is worthless.
The danger of the race from the
fight-loving duchesses Is that many
women will follow their example.
Our hope is that their kind will dis
appear and that the compassionate
refined, broad-minded women will be
the mothers of the future.
w
w - '
The Beautiful
Duchess de Ro
han Who Ap
plauded the
Fight Between
Jack Johnson and
FrarV Moran.
t -7
W7
V
Exclusive Society of
Traitors9 Descendants
T
HTO only known society In
the world of descendants of
traitors is In process of for
mation in Philadelphia, the Cradle
of Liberty. Prominent people of
Colonial lineage, whose ancestors
were Tories or sympathisers with
King George during the Revolution
ary War, are being urged to Join an
organization, as yet unnamed, which
will have for its object the glorifica
tion of so-rallied loyalists who were
found guilty of high treason against
the infunt American Republic. The
fact that their ancestors mixed
ground gloss In flour sold to Wash
ington's army at Oermsntown or re
fused to send provisions to bis starv
ing and freezing army at Valley
Forge does not detract from the en
thusiasm evinced by the organisers.
The Idea of the formation of the
society originated with the recent
discovery of an ancient document
known sstbt
Tory Black
list, publish
ed by the At
torney General
of Pennsylvania
after the war.
This list contains
the names of many
prominent men In
the affairs of Penn
sylvania In those days
men who frowned up
on the Continental Con
gress, who entertained
the British during their
occupation of Philadelphia,
ana wno osenly scoffed at
the Declaration of IndeDen-
dence. A movement was start
ed after the war to prosecute
them for treason, but it never re
sulted lu action. '
v -' ' . ? I I
"Both Memberf o9
Thii Club" The Fa
mous raintlof by
George Bellowi Be
viaed in the Light
of the Increasing At
tendance of French
and English Women
at Prise Fights.
Although the seat of the patriot
Government and the Cradle of Lib
erty, Philadelphia In Revolutionary
times wis still the hotbed of loyal
ism. The Quaker element, opposed
to war and violence, passively sup
ported the British crows and refused
Id to the struggling Continental
The fashionable element of what wu
then the loading city In the Colonies,
likewise was Tory. No eeason wu
ever so brilliant ca that ef the Win
ter of 1777-78, when the British
army occupied the city, while Wash
ington's tattered forces froze and
tarred at Valley Forge, a few tallee
way. ' The families whose descend
ants are still among the leader of
fashion In the city, royally entet
tat nod the redcoat Invaders.
It- la among these social leaders
that th society is being formed,
They are taking it seriously, too.
They see so Joke in the fact that
their organisation will be based on
list of men who were once threatened
with prosecution for a grave crime.
Eligibility to membership in the so
ciety, in fact, will be determined by
the blacklist issued by the Attorney
General.
A self-appointed committee of these
descendants is now engaged in a
canvaHS for other members, and In
the near future a meeting will be
held for the purpose of effecting a
permanent organization. This will
doubtless be accomplished la one of
the Quaker meeting bouses, the con
gregations of which contain many
descendants of men who are admitted
to have hindered the cause of in
dependence by their loyalty to the
English King.
Their object, they declare. Is t
preserve records of these men, their
ancestors, who were maligned by the
Continentals, and whom many per
sons despise to this day, and to per
petuate the Interests in common
formed by their ancestors under try
ing conditions when they believed
they were doing their duty by
God and man in supporting their
sovereign, King George of England,
and opposing wsr snd bloodshed with
all Its horrors. The present genera
tion of Americans in this age of pro
gresslveness, they declare, are more
apt to recognise the Justice of this.
The committee Is now delving Into
genealogical lore to ascertain. If poe
slble, Just who the descendants of
these loyalists are. They also will
advertise through historical societies
and magazines for persons eligible
for membership. There will be no
attempt, however, to secure a great
number of members, as the society
will retain a certain excluslvenesa in
order to afford proper prestige and
standing among other hereditary or
ganizations. Not much is expected
to be accomplished luring the Sum
mer months, but wAn the advent of
Fall the plans of the organization
wUl take definite shape.