Volume 17 , Issue 2

1915, Loveless Marriages Are Decried by Taft

A hundred years, 17 January 1915,Sunday, The Morning Star, out of Washington, D.C., had this front page headline story "Loveless Marriages Are Decried By Taft." Former President Taft lauds practical training to make women independent.

New York, January 16 -- Practical training gives girls independence and precludes the necessity for marriage without love, said former president Taft in an address at the annual meeting of the Hebrew Technical School for Girls.

Former President Taft said in 1915, "According to your report,2,700 girls have been graduated from this school, and I am glad to see that only 260 got married. Now I am not opposed to matrimony, but I am one who believes that there are thousands of women who have made the world sweeter, purer and better, and who did not marry. The trouble is that many women have to marry, not because they love the man of their choice, but because it is a custom."

"The only way to avoid that condition is for a girl to become independent by learning a useful trade. Then when a man who is a scrub asks her to marry she can say: 'I can do better, as I am independent.' In this way she can make no mistake."

Taft Decries Literacy Test

Strong disapproval of the literacy test in the immigration bill was expressed by the speaker, who asserted that the illiterate immigrant did not expect to make his living by his wits, and that men who came here with that purpose were no desirable addition to the population. The unlettered alien, he stated, usually tried to give his children an education, and the children made loyal citizens of this country.

The speaker in 1915 also added, "It wouldn't hurt some of our fathers in this country to emulate the example set by these immigrants, who strive to succeed and give their children advantages which they did not enjoy themselves."
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