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Show CURES AM) Til 10 Y. W. C. A. t The mission of the Young Woman's Christian t association is pretty clearly outlined In the fol lowing letter sent out this week by the association: associa-tion: A girl comos to Salt Lake and works In the household house-hold of a physician. The physician, seeking a eure for the morphine habit. Induces the maid to submit sub-mit to his experiments. She acquires the habit, the cure falls and the girl finds herself homeless and shunned. A girl of 16 is induced by a tratellng man to leave her home and come to Salt Lake to be married. mar-ried. He refuses to make her h a wife and she is , too proud to return to parents and friends. ' , Although losing her voice as the result of I' chronic Irritation of ho throat caused by work In in industrial plant, a young girl risks the disability rather than leave the only work she knows. Unable to earn the simplest necessities by pod- dling a cpllar support, a girl from Idnho finds her self shelterless and starving on the streets. Weak rnd despondent, she decides that death is preferable prefer-able to dishonor and prepares "to end It all." iou know the logical and probable outcome of each of these situations. The results you foresee 1 would almost have been lnevtiable but for the ex- l istenco here of the Young Women's Christian as- , relation. With this organization as a factor, what happened? The victim of the drug habit was In- fl tioduced by a physician to whom she applied for I a treatment to the Y. W. C. A. Treatment, rest, I' nursing and encouragement cured her. The child I I " who found the promise of marriage a falsehood, f remembering a former visit to the Y. W. C. A. with her mother, applied for counsel and was persuaded 1o return home. Another position was found for the girl with the weak throat and her voice was saved. The girl canvasser, guided by an Impulse she could not explain, wandered into the Y. W. C. A. to see "what it was for." A few words of sympathy brought a confession of her dreadful purpose. All of which brings to mind the case of Lenora Merrill. She wasn't a drug fiend, didn't run away with a traveling man, had no trouble with her her voice and wasn't starving on the streets. She did, however, have the misfortune to reside in Boston. Bos-ton. Desirour of joining classes In physical culture, cul-ture, she applied for membership in the Cam bridge branch of the' Young Women's Christian t,et that Christian association. A check accompanied accom-panied the application. Later the application was turned down and tht check returned. Miss Merrill Mer-rill had confessed to the almighty sin of being a Mormon. She was refused membership on that recount, and, according to the letter of the secretary, secre-tary, solely on that account. The Y. W. C. A. Is a national institution founded upon a general theory of helpfulness and uplift. It Is the melting pot of all creeds, where the eligibility eligi-bility of a member is supposed to depend more upon the moral fibre of the applicant than upon her religious belief. Nineteen hundred years of Christian enlightenment finds us still on the bleachers regarding such, affairs as the Merrill case. We don't pretend to know how Infinitely paln-lul paln-lul Is that disease known as "Mormonlsm;" nor do we happen to possess the finer sensibilities which would lejul us to appreciate the dreadful disadvantages that accrue from membership in the Mormon church, but we are quite sure that the Y. W. C. A., In Boston and all over the nation, would serve a much higher purpose by training its energy upon the salvation of Mormon girls, curing them of their religious belief, and letting the drug fiends, the girls that run away with traveling men, the girls with throat trouble and the girls starving in the streets take care of them? e'v ". The accompanying letter umply demonstrates that helping those in the 1 itter class Is a snap: now let the Y. W. C. A. show what it really can do. |