Newspaper Page Text
Fi&ht-Lovinfc
Women a
Menace to
the Race ?
Psychology’s Lessons from the
Cruel Joy with Which Hun
dreds of Fashionable Women
Witnessed the Last Three
Brutal Pugilistic Encounters
Abroad
By Dr. Ham Huldriksen,
The Distinguished Swedish-Amerlcan Psychologist.
SPOILED daughters of society,
whoso tortured and Jaded
nerves are sllmulaled by the
sight of two human brutes beating
one another black nnd bloody, you
are a menace to our race!
Spoiled daughters of society, who
eomoine the cruelty loving InstlnctH
of the savage with an Inordinate love
of the costliest luxuries and display,
you are a peril to our womankind I
Three recent prise fights In Europe
have been made remarkable by the
attendance of a large number of
W'omrn of the aristocracy, many of
them young and attractive, wearing
jewels and modish evening dress.
They made a coarse and brutal con
test the excuse for u brilliant social
gathering.
The prixo fights thus distinguished
were those between the negro, .lack
Johnson, and Frank Moran, In l’arls:
between “Freddie” Weigh and
••Willie" Ritchey, in J.ondon, and be
tween "Gunboat" Smith and Georges
■Carpentler, also in London.
In this unblushing patronage of a
brutal spectacle by those who should
he the most gentle and refined ele
ment of society,, w« see not merely
a display of had taHto, but an omnia
takablo 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
fasclnstlon of cruel ami bloodthirsty
spectacles, the downfall of a civiliza
tion has been surely decreed. Thus
It waa In ancient Rome, Rabylon,
In Carthage, In Egypt, In Greece, In
Spain The psychologist who atudles
the news about the recent prizefights
la 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 so strong that there Is nec
essarily grave danger that the con
tag on of such social customs will
spread here.
Listen to a newspaper report of the
fight 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 do Rothschild, the
younger Duchess d'Utes, the Duchess
de Rohan, Countess MalhlSU do No
allies, the poetess Princess Morou
aieff, and Countess de Prounlers.
“Johnson’s white wife occupied a
prominent position, wearing many
diamonds.”
Before the fight, we nrn told, tho
loveliest women of the French aris
tocracy bearing names that have
been famous since the crusades felt
the rippling muscles of the colored
gladiator Johnson and thrilled with a
brutal Joy In the contemplation of hi*
colossal development
In a misplaced enthusiasm for the
triumph of the white race, the at
tractive Mrs. J* .> **.' *T r .of New
York, richly gowned, planted a kiss
full on the lips of the Pittsburgh
pugilist Frank Moran. During the
encounter the women became fran
tically excited nnd applauded wildly
whenever the fighting seemed vicious.
Similar scenes occurred at the tight
between Welsh and Ritchey In lxvn
don The Earl of Ixmsdale. a lead
lug English spotting nobleman, was
there, and with him was his wife,
one of the handsomest women in aw
ciety, and many other women of the
English aristocracy. Tall, fair-hatred
maids and matrons, who should have
been attending to their duties in the
stately homes of England, sat by the
ringside nnd cheered the fighters.
Among them, too.l regret to say, wad
g prominent Anglican clergyman, tho
Rev. Michael Vernon Handler, led
tfyere 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 Carpentler
and the American "Gunboat” Smith
It was a mitigating circumstance of
this affair (tint reason triumphed
over hruie force. Carpentler’s course
in wresting a victory from ills
stronger and more brutal opponent,
"Gunboat” Smith, by taking a tech
nical advantage of tho rules, was in
a degree a triumph for the mind of
mam
We can best, appreciate the ulti
mate tendency of these demoralizing
pugilistic carnivals by referring to
the gladiatorial contests of ancient
Rome. That power bore a close re
semblance to modern England since
Rome wan merely the metropolis of
u vast empire Inhabited 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 tho Colosseum to witness
tlie great gladiatorial festivals hold
Roman Women Petting the Murderous Victor of a Gladiatorial Contest. A Scene Which Psychologists
Find Has 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 men
and with wild beasts. Hundreds of
men wore killed In a day. while the
Roman beauties applauded with
(renzy.
When one gladiator had another
helpless at his feet, he appealed to
he Roman women In the front seata
to settle the fate of the fallen one.
If the loser had not fought with euf
Ilcient 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 w ent to the slaugh
ter and examined their physical con
dition closely, ancient Roman
writer tells us that however brutal
nnd ugly gladiators were, there were
always women ready to adore them
and to consider them as beautiful as
Adonis
At Pompeii, which was a Summer
resort of the Romans, there is a
scribbling on the wall preserved to
day which speaks of one of the glad-
iators as "the sigh of tne girls” (sus
ptrla puellarum). Evidently an Inor
dinate and unwholesome Interest of
the Roman women In gladiators,
brutes recrultde from tho 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 docs 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 suvage to struggle up
wards. Savages love exhibitions of
brute strength and ferocity, war
dances and barbarous display of all
kinds. Fnllke the over-civilized men
and women who go to prizefights,
they are all eager to risk their own
lives and hodiea In contests of feroc
ity and endurance. Civilization ia
simply a process of replacing the
savage rule of brute force by the
rule of reason Every prizefight Is a
display of savagery worse than
any war dance or scalp hunt of the
real savages. It ia 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
ctnation for him. The suppression of
this primal Instinct Is the great work
of civilized morality. Many a man
of refinement feels a curiosity to
witness a scene of cruelty which he
would ba ashamed to acknowledge.
Copyright. 1»14, by the Star Company. Groat Britain Rights Reserved.
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 o(Mi* napdy. When woman be
comes* dominat'd hy the instinct of
cMioUv. 1 a far more com
plejJvqrjozpl dogigpjjaGpn and rever
sal of ihe iuw-eaßf'’s"“ot civilization
tbAlt when man- exhibits that trait.
Havelock Ellis, the foremost Eng
lish authority on sex characteristics,
tellß us that while women are Iq@s
often criminals, their crimes are
more often marked by cruelty than
those of men. "It must he 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 disebarg
Ing her most elementary duty of
caring for her young and while con
templating Its appealing helpless
ness. 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 la the first
stage of human existence, and she
shared hts fierce brutal struggles for
food, but In the best type of womsi
the cruelty instinct la more com
pletely suppressed than in man.
Thus we see that the English or
French duchesa who applauds 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
reverts to an earlier and lower fortni
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 wromen will be
the mothers of the future.
\
\ \\vHf
\ \\«a-
\W. - *
The Beautiful
Duchess de Ro
han Who Ap
plauded the
Fight Between
Jack Johnson and
Frank Moran.
y • W 1
m •. J ° J \ J/\
\c\ ■ / lr
Exclusive Society of
Traitors * Descendants
THE 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 sympathizers 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-called loyalists who were
found guilty of high treason against
the infant American Republic. The
fact that their ancestors mixed
ground glass in flour sold to Wash
ington's army at Germantown or re
fused to send provisions to his starv
ing and freezing army at Valley
Forge does not detract from the en
thusiasm evinced by the organizers.
The idea of the formation of the
society originated with the recent
discovery of an ancient document
' H
V ' wS<j j
HaF :
igjflr / /
HBr / /
/ / f ertown asths
m*» / / Tory Black.
W/f J Hat, publish
***'// / <*d by the At-
I / torney General
111 of Pennsylvania
U / after the war.
ijj|||jpy7 / This list contains
J the names of many
msMIl / prominent men In
IKy / the affairs of Penn
j mil / sylvan ia In those days
mrj/ ] —men who frowned up
’Sl/ I on the Continental Con-
W// J gress. who entertained
y7 I the British during their
7/ occupation of Philadelphia.
/ and who openly scoffed at
/ the Declaration of Indepen
' dence. A movement was start
ed after the war to prosecute
them for treason, but it never re
sulted in action.
“Both Member? of
This Club”—The Fae
mous Painting by
George Bellows Re
vised in the Light
of the Increasing At
tendance of French
and English Women
at Prise Fights.
%h
kih
mm
v Y fr
4pr ,
Although the seat of the patrlo,
Government and the Cradle of Lib
erty, Philadelphia in Revolutionary
times was still the hotbed of loyal
ism. The Quaker element, opposed
to war and violence, passively sup
ported the British crown and refused
aid to the struggling Continentals
The fashionable element of what was
then the leading city in the Colonies,
likewise was Tory. Mo season was
ever so brilliant as that of the Win
ter of 1777-78, when the British
army occupied the city, while Wash
angton's tattered forces froze and
starved at Valley Forge, a few miles
away. The families whose descend
ants are still among the leaders ol
fashion in the city, royally enter
tained the redcoat invaders.
It is among these social leaders
that the society is being formed.
They are taking it seriously, too.
They see no joke in the fact that
their organization will be based on a
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
canvass 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 in one of
she Quaker meeting houses, 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 to
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 war and bloodshed w(th
all its horrors. The present genera
tion of Americans in this age of pro
gressiveness. they declare, ure more
apt to recognize the justice of this
The committee is now delving into
genealogical lore to ascertain, if pos
sible. 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 exclusiveness In
order to afford proper prestige and
standing among other hereditary or
pnizations Not much is expected
to be accomplished during the Sum
mer months, but with the advent of
1m ? h i n ! of ,he organization
will take definite shape.