Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1893 — Principles of the A. P. A. [ARTICLE]

Principles of the A. P. A.

I There has been so much talk during the past two years in regard to the A. P. A», that the public will be interested in reading just what the aims of the order are. The following will show these aims jn full, and every person sTiould read them that ho may come to know that this organization is not such a terribly dangerous body as its enemies have claimed. The principles of the

order, as given authoritatively, are as follows a 1. The American Protective Association is organized for the purpose of purifying politics; i s a non-sectarian and non-partisan organization, composer] only of true Amerieaa cirizenß, without regard to nationality. 2. While we unite to protect our country and ite free institutions, we attack no man’s religion so long as he does not attempt to make it an element in political power. 3. Our aim is to preserve and maintain the government of the United States and ■ the principles of the Declaration of Independence as set forth by the founders, against the encroachments of all foreign influences. 4. We regard all religio-politi-eal organizations as the enemies ofciyil and religious liberties. 5. It is, in our opinion, unsafe and unwise to appoint or elect to civil or military offices in this country, men who owe supreme allegiance to any foreign king, potentate or eclesiastical power or who are sworn to obey such power. 6. We are in favor of maintaining one general, unsectarian free school system, and will oppose all attempts to supplant it by any sectarian institution. We are opposed to the use of public funds for any sectarian purpose. 7. We are in favor of changing our immigration laws in such manner as they will protectour citizen laborers from the influx of pauper and criminal labor, which through the instrumentality of European propogandist societies are rapidly supplanting our free and educated American citizens in every line of industry; but we do not oppose honest and educated immigrants who come for the purpose of becoming American citizens, and who will forswear allegiance to all foreign potentates or powers. 8. We are in favor of putting into office honest and true patriots who are qualified, and who owe allegiance only to the stars and stripes.

The Elkhart Review, in commenting upon the recent “slumming” expedition in Chicago, by some Ifidianapolis W. C. T. U. ladies, expresses a great deal of truth, in ’ the following observations: “The women who went ‘slumming’ in Chicago were told that most of the girls whom they found in dens of vice were forced there by the lack of employment. The tale may have convinced the women who questioned them but it. is not true of more than one-fifth of the girls who follow that life. Eight out of ten of them go into that vice from choice, resulting from circumstances that gradually develop in them the lower instincts until they dominate the higher. One cannot study the social life of a city like this and not see plainly the road that leads to the vice of great cities. Girls here are allowed to be in the companionship with boys whose training has often been among the vicious of the great city. The boys whom the women saw in Chicago houses of ill repute go out into the smaller cities with lessened respect for womanhood, and the young girl who meets them on the street after night, absorbs perhaps unconsciously but surely, a certain moral tone that in time will make her an easy victim. At home she is subject to the restraint of regard for what people will say, but let her get into a large city and soon the tendency to see what is to be seen will lead her to put herself into the way of temptations that human nature is generally too weak to resist. Not one girl in ten goes into that life without the stimulus of passion behind her, and her choice is made deliberately in most cases. It is none the less pitiable because

society is getting so lax that it seems to wink at these practices that end in such a choice. Parents are more at fault than children in the majority of cases. Girls who walk our streets in early evening and meet with the coarse young fellows who have been ‘slumming,’ are absorbing just the tendencies that will lead them where vice reigns and passion holds full sway. There are parents in this city who will yet see their daughters there unless they keep them in at night.” The Review is probably correct in its remarks. The ability to lie with glibness and facility is one of the most noted characteristics of the class of women whom the slumming' ladies interviewed on their expedition, and they were merely exercising their talents in that line when they made the W. C. T..U. ladies believe that want of employment was the chief cause

®f their fallen condition. There are few if any country towns which have not some representatives among this unfortunate class in the great cities, and in this respect Rensselaer is- no exception. Car. anyone recall l a single instance within their knowledge where want of employment has sent girls from country towns to abandoned lives in the-eities?