There are those — and their number is legion — who hold — that, with few exceptions, modern young people, including those in the Church, are on the down grade. These critics compare the "good old days" with the unrestrained present and insist that today's youth has reached the lowest depths of immorality.
Students of history frown at these unqualified claims; for the past is often englamored because it lies at such distance that its faults, glossed over too readily, are not subject to intimate scrutiny. The very sins catalogued in the indictment of modern youth are often ironically the same misdemeanors for which the young people of the golden decades were reproved. It would be fatal to close a complacent eye on that amazing immorality which surrounds us on all sides; but it would be traitorous to refuse to enter the lists in behalf of the splendid army of young Christian warriors who have not bowed before the Baals of lust.
Besides, carping denunciation is a thin, futile device. Instead, our Christian youth needs constant encouragement. Within my own Church I know that young people are showing an increasingly intelligent interest in the study of the Bible. Missionary interest and personal work have never been so strong and systematic as now. Present charitable efforts are almost above comparison with the past. Many of our young men and young women are giving new evidence of a high-souled conviction.
Yet we are face to face with problems in our moral life which are far more forbidding than the worst of yesterday. The battalions of lust marshaled against the average young man or woman today are more insidious than ever before. The temptations which they meet on the road to happy marriage are more frequent and deceptive than those besetting previous generations.
The hazards of this swift-moving generation may well be typified by the automobile. This remarkable invention has emphasized moral problems which did not disturb the last century. In 1906, when the automotive industry was in its awkward infancy, the Hearst newspapers throughout the land featured an editorial under the title: "The Automobile will Make Us More Human." In this prophecy, the style of which bears the earmarks of Arthur Brisbane's earlier efforts, the horseless carriage is greeted as a humanizing element, and the claim is made that "with the advent of the automobile and the disappearance of horses . . . men . . . dealing with machinery will soon become more nearly human than they are at present."
That prediction now stands revealed in its own folly. The most critical issue provoked by the automobile is not the appalling list of those who are killed and maimed in motor accidents (during one decade six times as many Americans were killed in motor casualties as in all the battles of the World War, and fifty times as many injured). More serious is the ruthless slaughter of youthful morals. The machine provides a welcome exit from overcrowded or uncongenial homes, a complete escape from chaperonage, and too much privacy. Under our free and easy conventions the parked car presents a new menace, perhaps one of the greatest in the history of youth morals. While the new freedom has unquestionably brought many clean, frank, and commendable advances, it has also strengthened the regiments of ruin confronting youth in the conflict between the spirit and the flesh. The pointed appeal of the hour must be the same as St. Paul's earnest admonition to Timothy: "Flee . . . youthful lusts" (2 Tim. 2:22); but we must realize that a twentieth-century commentary on these words may reveal forces just as disastrous as the worst of those against which Timothy had to contend in the degeneracy of surrounding paganism.
Whatever else our age may lack, it has more leisure than any generation before us has enjoyed. The five-day week, consistently denounced until recent years, is widely adopted in American industrial life. Insistent voices demand a four-day week. Hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the land are grateful for a schedule of even three full working days. Repeatedly we hear of projects like that of H. G. Wells, who a few years ago proposed a twelve-day week with eight days of continuous labor and four of continuous holiday.
In addition, the length of the workday has been abbreviated from its total of twelve or fourteen hours. Organized labor has been victorious in its efforts to establish an eight-hour day. Yet this, too, is being cut to seven and six hours in the industrial emergency. And the end is not in sight. Max G. Winkel, labor economist, claims in the Federationist, the American Federation of Labor magazine, that the four-hour workday for all workers will soon be effected. According to exhibit charts prepared by labor leaders, there has been a reduction in the working week from eighty-four hours in 1840 to fifty hours in 1930 and a threefold increase in the amount of leisure during the same period. In the critical years since 1930 the working week has been still further reduced, frequently to forty hours — a drop of ten hours in fewer than ten years. We have realized at least a part of M. Ilin's prediction in the New Russia’s Primer, p. 16: "The more machines we have, the easier will be the work, the shorter will be the working-day, the lighter and happier will be the lives of all."
There is reason to question the thesis that the new leisure will produce more happiness. So apprehensive are public leaders and social strategists of the far-reaching problems provoked by our 10,000,000 unemployed and the universal reduction of working-hours that they have projected detailed programs for the absorption of spare time. A large literature on leisure activities has sprung up, testifying to wide research.
Unless constructively employed, however, this overflow of extra hours will not only kill time, but will also massacre morals. In a general way, we are told, most of American spare time is spent at the movies, at card tables, in an automobile, or before a radio. A New York University authority estimates that Americans spend 1,500,000 hours daily before the radio, that one eighth of our population attends the movies each day, and that unnumbered hours are wasted "in aimless puttering or in aimless reading." There are factors in this time distribution which may precipitate grave moral hazards. At the end of November, 1934, Government workers occupied with a check-up on the amusement business of our country reported that in 1933 people of the United States spent $519,497,000 on amusements. Seventy-eight percent of the total went for motion pictures. Slightly less than 11 per cent was paid for the radio. Restricting the field of inquiry to younger people, Leisure, the Columbia University's 1934 study on these new problems, reports recreational tendencies that consistently take young people away from their homes during their leisure. An investigation embracing the activities of 796 high-school students in Westchester County found that "in the overwhelming majority of these . . . cases some other place than home was the scene of the pleasant occasion reported. Only 5 per cent of the boys and 17 per cent of the girls had their 'best time' at home" (p. 112).
Well may we ask whether the number of extra hours afforded by the increase of unemployment and the reduction of the working schedule will be wisely invested by our young people or heedlessly squandered on trivialities and dangerous activities. Remember, the approach of temptation is never easier than in unoccupied moments. The appeals of attractive sin can linger longer in the vacuum of leisure than in the full program of a busy life. It is the idle hour that Satan preempts for private sins, the vacant moments that he usurps for his anti-purity program.
How disastrously leisure may influence family life is portrayed with clear-cut lines in the marital histories of the idle rich. If the actual causes for Reno divorces (not the fictitious, collusive reasons advanced in mockery of justice) could be tabulated, it would be found that the sins of unfaithfulness flourish with unusual force in the empty lives of men and women who refuse life's serious obligations. Again, a most treacherous element in many modem marriages is the want of occupation on the part of many young wives. They regard children as cumbersome, and household duties as degrading, irksome. They are overtaken by the ennui that soon surrounds them in the monotony of an efficiency apartment. With time heavy on their hands, they often find it an easy step from domestic loafing to serious complications. No wonder that the Bible protests, in words of modem ring, against women who "learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not." (1 Tim. 5:13.)
However, the same consequences of undirected time reappear in unmarried lives and in careers that are not handicapped by wealth. The conquests of immorality are not gained during busy working-hours, in the eager flurries of industry; the pull of dawdling pleasures is strongest between the schedules of our daily duties. Then it is, in these tedious, lackadaisical hours, that the borderline literature makes its well-timed appeal. The salacious motion picture is never more attractive than in this maudlin inactivity, the invitation to join in some dangerous pastimes never so alluring as during the unoccupied hours.
It follows, then, that the achieving life must have a program for this new leisure which can save the gold-dust of time. While hours as well as dollars must be budgeted, every schedule of youthful activity must leave full allowance for recreation, social pleasures, amusements. This is an integral part in the makeup of all normal young people. Young men and young women who seclude themselves and shun healthy pastimes are usually not characterized by any superior chastity. There are exceptions of course, but as a rule the practical experiences of life leads us to question the virtues of the abnormal. So concerned is the Church about providing clean, healthy outlets for recreation that, although this is not an essential part of its work, it offers many facilities for the social life. Those who maintain associations with their fellow-Christians and enjoy happy hours in the clean environment of Christian homes will know why the preacher of the Old Testament exhorts: "Rejoice, 0 young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth." (Eccl. 11:9.)
A well-planned life will also provide for sports and physical exercise. These temples of the living God we call our bodies must be kept in constant repair, and those who take time for vigorous, robust play in the open air know that physical practice, always in moderation, may often help to strengthen not only the body, but indirectly also the character. Hiking and running, swimming and riding, skating and skiing, tennis and golf, baseball and basketball, — these and the many other forms of organized outdoor and indoor play act as safety-valves and consume some of the excess energy which, if not released in this way, may burst other bounds of restraint. While the Romans exaggerated, ruling that a healthy mind is found only in a healthy body, this principle belongs in every youthful program of purity.
The assets of leisure also offer generous cultural opportunities. In this land of more than 10,000 libraries we have books by the millions that can entertain, inform, and elevate. All these can be had for the asking. In our unequaled system of adult education thousands of evening schools and correspondence courses present the open door to mental improvement. With these loftier heights beckoning, who can be content with the lower levels of cheap, slapstick entertainment?
No time budget would be complete without an ample allowance for church-work. These are critical years of transition, in which the nation is being catapulted into a new age. The danger is imminent that the Church will fail to meet its responsibility unless it is reinforced by the full vigor of its membership. In no aspect of our lives is the Biblical promise so clearly illustrated: "He which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully" (2 Cor. 9:16) as in the personal blessings that accompany our efforts in behalf of the Kingdom. Young people who take an active part in the congregational life, who, mission-minded, find time to speak to others concerning their hope and faith, who courageously visit the unchurched and invite them to attend church — these alert disciples who help to carry out the programs of applied Christianity by visiting the poor, the suffering, the imprisoned, not only experience the joy of being "coworkers with God," but unconsciously build up a moral reserve. All who testify for Christ work side by side with their Lord. In the hour of trial and temptation He will stand by their side, and the consciousness of His abiding presence will be a divine deterrent from sin.
In many slaughterhouses an old bull is employed in the notorious capacity which has earned for him the name "the Hypocrite." Whenever a shipment of steers arrives, he stands at the foot of the runway, with two or three pieces of hay protruding from the comer of his mouth. The new arrivals, raw from the prairies, approach him; and as he shuffles along indifferently toward the door of the slaughterhouse, the other steers, sensing the leadership of this sophisticated bovine, follow him until they finally reach the killing pens. But when the gates of these pens are closed, the old "Hypocrite" is never found among those present. He has simply lost himself in the crowd and returned to the safety zone to await the arrival of other country cousins, who through similar perfidy are introduced to the beginning of their end. In East St. Louis an old goat, appropriately named "Judas," decoyed 260,000 sheep into the hands of the killers in a single year. The newspapers recorded the death of an old ram in Chicago which in ten years of, similar activity had led more than 7,000,000 sheep to their slaughter.
We find evidence of parallel tragedy in the friendships of young people. John Graham, Chicago packer, wrote to his son at Harvard: "I never saw a dozen boys together where there was not an old hypocrite steer among them." There is indeed a morbid fascination in evil when it is embodied in attractive and friendly persons; and it is to the treachery of these false friendships that some young people today must ascribe part of their surrender to impurity.
Many young men and women have formed friendships which have not only ruined their reputations but have also weakened their ideals and reduced their capacity for happy marriage. The Bible tells us: "Evil communications corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33), and experience assures us that our attitudes are often shaped by the influence of those with whom we associate.
The daughters in our last-century families stayed at home and led a secluded, intimately supervised existence, into which few but carefully selected friends entered. Today the struggle to maintain the family and a new conception of woman's place in the world about us have cooperated to draw our young women into mercantile or industrial employment, where the ancient wall of reserve is broken down. Complicated problems have arisen for girls who work in offices and factories. How often does it not happen that a splendid 'Christian girl, earning her living and supporting her family, is thrown together with fellow-workers, department heads, executives, and officials who have no principles of decency in their lives and no fear of God in their hearts! And how often have not friendships arisen from this association that have poisoned hearts, stifled consciences, and condemned the noble memories of Church and home!
Or take the young men who have pledged themselves to their Savior and then have gone out to the highways of the world. In a hundred different contacts they make the acquaintance of many congenial associates with attractive appearances, persuasive words, enticing plans; and before long the same young men once moved by an ardent appreciation of their Church begin to neglect their parents and their home and run to ruin amid the flattery of companions who pat them on their shoulder at every step they take away from their Church. Criminal experts who have analyzed the causes chat lead young people to lawlessness have repeatedly stated that evil associations are powerful factors in the promotion of criminality.
It will be strengthening for us to recall the frustrated assault on the morals of a young Hebrew slave that occurred four thousand years ago in ancient Egypt, Joseph's absolute rejection of evil as he fled from the invitation of lust. While it was no usual, everyday allurement into which that young man was intrigued by the scheming adulteress, his challenging answer "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God" (Gen. 39:9) demonstrates the only effective way of counteracting temptations offered by close contacts.
Among the many species of trees characteristic of Florida is the strangling fig, related to the commercial fig, the rubber tree, and the Oriental banyan. Its growth starts in a precarious manner when its seed is dropped among the limbs of a tree. As it germinates, it sends its roots downward; and as these roots branch and enlarge, the tree that sheltered the first seed is slowly strangled. Eventually all traces of it disappear. The influences of some social sets are often not dissimilar. Because coaxing companions have all too frequently lured young people into situations where the requirements of purity and clean living have been contemptuously disregarded, it should be a matter of serious concern to ask introspectively, "Are my friends helping me?" and to plead for the courage to resist all hostility masquerading under the guise of intimate acquaintance.
The obvious antiseptic against that poison is the cultivation of true and tried friends. Damon and Pythias may live only in the pages of mythology, but the warm-hearted fellowship between David and Jonathan can be perpetuated into the reality of our modem lives through the Spirit of Him who called us His friends. Kipling exclaims: "Thank God for a trusty chum!" If you gain the friendship of one whom you can respect and admire, a confidant whose attitudes and actions will stimulate and uplift and lead you along the pleasant and profitable paths of life, you have a treasure for which, in truth, you should fervently thank your God.
In a single week two letters, one from a young man and the other from a young woman, came to my desk from different parts of the country. With varied detail and background, both letters dealt with essentially the same problem—the moral standards of business, the ethics of the modem office. Both communications were frank in deploring certain tendencies which, they inferred, were by no means exceptional.
The one letter from a Pittsburgh young man, who states:
"I have worked for three large corporations, and the conditions have been the same in all," asks: '"Why do not the executives of our large corporations show better examples of living to their employees? At present I am employed in a large plant which has a get-together meeting once a month, the general superintendent and superintendents of different departments and employees attending. Generally the meeting is addressed by one or several executives. I was present at one of these meetings and was shocked at the language and profanity of the vilest type. In spite of this the speaker was profusely applauded, and after the speech drinking and gambling were the high spots.
"At another plant the superintendent was looking for a young man to take charge of a group of young men, and the first question he asked was, 'Can you swear?' and the young man immediately demonstrated his ability to use vile language. He got the job.
"I am closely associated in office work with both Protestants and Catholics, and they continually speak of gambling and use profane language, following the example of their superiors. I try to dissuade them, but they laugh it off.
"These plants make extensive drives on safety and are covered with posters cautioning employees against danger, but they disregard the more important safety of the soul."
The young woman's letter states: "I work in a large office, where there are six girls and eighteen salesmen. Having been reared in a refined, Christian home and actively connected with the work of the young people of our church for a half dozen years, I had little contact with the seamy side of life before I was employed in a big business office.
"Even though the personnel knows that the chief dismisses his employees when he hears of their being involved in any immoral relationships, almost every salesman in our office (and most of them are married) asks me to go on questionable 'dates,' to hotels for a private dinner, etc. They know it is my policy always to reject their proposals, and I have never accepted; but what can a girl do? I am the sole support of my widowed mother.
"Topics of a very personal concern which would embarrass me to mention are broached with too much freedom and to the annoyance of any well bred person.
"I don't make overtures to men, yet it seems that I have more than my share of worries because of improper suggestions, which certainly have no place in life, much less in a business office. My friends in other large offices tell me of similar distressing conditions.
"The other day, in reply to my refusal, a salesman said, 'You can't make me believe you are as virtuous as all that. Girls like that faded out with the last generation!' I told him that I knew fifty of my friends, single young women, who are Christians and who believe in living their religion as much as I do. He told me it was too beautiful to imagine, — and yet he and his kind have. the nerve to make the same disgusting proposals over and over again. What in the world should a girl do? I've tried to get another. job but cannot find one, and my mother and I need my income of eighty dollars a month."
The obvious solution to the problems contained in these letters would be the escape from these distasteful and dangerous surroundings offered by other positions. But work is not plentiful today, with millions unemployed, and for most of our readers a struggle for livelihood is real and earnest. To give up a position blindly and without another source of income might seem to provoke a major calamity. And because it is sometimes impossible to avoid that extreme, it will be well to call attention to some basic principles.
First of all give your work your undivided attention, your best thought, your full energy. Every normal and reliable concern appreciates good work and will hesitate to lose the services of employees who, having intelligence and initiative, apply themselves faithfully to their tasks.
Be pleasant, courteous to the office personnel, but keep relations impersonal and on a business basis! If you tend strictly to your work, you will usually find that your attitudes are respected.
Stop all approaches to familiarity at the outset! Do not let complications develop, thinking that you can correct them later on! Resist the beginnings!
Never make appointments with strangers, casual business acquaintances, and others whose family and connections are unknown to you! The salesman who invites you for an evening's entertainment may be a married man.
Watch yourself particularly at office parties and resist every questionable proposal! We are told by business men that these business-social functions, particularly in connection with holidays and anniversaries, often degenerate into drinking bouts, arid many a girl who detests liquor takes her share just to avoid being classed as a prude.
Never hesitate to acknowledge your church-membership or your devotion to your Savior! Christ's admonition "Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven" holds for offices, stores, factories, shops. Once it is known that you take your religion seriously, you will usually find at least a silent respect. It is said of Evangeline Booth that no matter where she went among the lowest and most depraved of men, her Salvation Army uniform and her service to Christ which it represented brought her respect and protection. Similar consideration will be extended to you if you show the same loyalty to Christ.
Don't listen to profanity, blasphemy, or questionable stories without protest. When the name of God is misused, the Church attacked, the Bible ridiculed, decency flaunted, it will take an unusually corrupt mind to continue against your expressed disapproval. But if your protest is unheeded, you must speak with firmness and finality. You cannot remain quiet while the holy "name which is above every name" is abused. Your silence gives not only consent but also endorsement to filthy language and stories. You certainly would not listen to scurrilous insults against your father. How, then, can you sit by, lips sealed, when your heavenly Father is reviled?
If your reasonable requests are not heeded (and a fanatical or emotional attitude will help but little) and your work constantly imposes moral hazards, leads you into daily temptation, no other course remains than to seek new employment. We confidently believe that our heavenly Counselor will guide you with particular blessing because of this decision. Often those who have incurred temporary loss through their loyalty to Christ have been led to far greater material gains.
A new purity problem has been accentuated since the repeal of national prohibition. Those who believe that the rescinding of the Eighteenth Amendment will solve the liquor problem are optimists of first rank. For while prohibition had its evils and helped create a spirit of corruption and contempt for the law, the new era will not be a golden age of innocence. Young people who day after ' day are affronted with towering displays of whisky and gin, wine and champagne, creme de menthe and exotic liqueur, will not remain untouched by these allurements. With liquor flowing in streams and cocktails dispensed in cafeterias, those who cannot visualize dangers must be short sighted idealists, unconscious of the increase in post-repeal drunkenness.
No big business in the United States has grown with the same remarkable strides that the liquor industry has shown since the repeal of prohibition. Today we have about 500,000 outlets for the sale of alcoholic beverages that are under license and Government protection. In other words, we have one tavern, restaurant, or cocktail bar for approximately every 260 inhabitants of the nation! In some communities the ratio reveals two taverns to every church, four times as many taverns as commercial places of amusement. During 1935 the 30,000,000 families in our country averaged an outlay of $91.61 for liquor, a figure much larger than the average family's contribution to the kingdom of God. Nor have we reached the saturation point. In a lavish advertising campaign the young people who grew up in an era of prohibition are being attracted to the "smooth swallow" and the "mellow taste." The mode of the day has instituted the cocktail hour and the cocktail party. The screen mirrors the drinking scenes that crowd into society life. As the pendulum swings back from the mistaken rigidity of prohibition, it oscillates toward another extreme, an increasing disregard of the requirements imposed by the strict demands of temperance. We now have more drinking than ever before.
Our newspapers abound in head-lines like this: "Arrests for 'drunken driving' in the city of Washington, D. C., during 1935 broke all records for the 17 to 22 year-old group." The increase of drunkenness among motorists of Minnesota is creating "an appalling situation" in the opinion of Gil Carmichael, director of the Minnesota State Drivers' Bureau. Behind many of the gruesome accidents that clutter the weekend issues of our newspapers and bring sudden death, crippled lives, and destroyed hopes is the bleary eye, the befuddled mind, the unsteady hand of a drunken driver.
Youthful health has also been assailed by overindulgence in alcoholics. A statement of the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company declares that "indulgence in alcohol shows an increase of 149 per cent as a cause of uninsurability among men and women under thirty. . . . For all ages the increase in rejections involving alcoholic excesses is 25 per cent since the pre-repeal days of 1931—1932."
One of the emphasized tragedies in recent years is that the drinking wife has become a major social problem. This is the authoritative opinion of Martin Nelson, secretary of the Keeley Institute at Dwight, Illinois, internationally known sanitarium which specializes in curing habitual drinkers. The growth in the number of women trying to rid themselves of this habit at Keeley. Institute has been twice as large proportionately as that of the men. Mr. Nelson asserts: "Prohibition transferred drinking from the bar room to the living room, and wives learned to drink. Repeal returned drinking to the barroom, and the wives followed their husbands there. Today public complacency about women drinking at bars is making the problem of the woman inebriate tragically serious." Seventy-four per cent of the patients at Keeley on January 1, 1939, were housewives.
While it is difficult to formulate a statement on the relation of alcohol and purity that will be regarded dispassionately (since the most objective utterances will be subjected to bitter attack, either by the dripping "wets" or the arid "drys"), even controversy must concede two fundamental facts. One of these foundation truths declares: The Bible in both the Old and New Testaments, far from outlawing alcoholics, permits the consumption of wine and strong drink, and this not only for medicinal purposes, but also for the food value, the refreshment, and the cheer which they offer. To contradict these Scriptural assertions, to declare them out of force in our twentieth-century civilization, as prohibition propagandists do, may ultimately weaken the authority of the entire Bible.
When the Scriptures say: "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts" (Prov.31:6) or: "Wine . . . maketh glad the heart of man" (Ps. 104:15) or once more: "Go thy way; eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart" (Eccl. 9:7), it declares itself in harmony with the testimony of impartial scientific investigators, who have classified the effect of alcohol on the emotions. In the comprehensive work entitled Alcohol and Men (edited by Haven Emerson of Columbia University, with associate editors from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the Rockefeller Institute, and with contributors from these schools as well as also from New York University, Stanford University, Cornell University, Carnegie Institute, Johns Hopkins Hospital, life insurance companies, State hygienic departments, — a group representative of the best, unbiased American thought), we read the following (p. 263; quoted with permission of the publishers. The Macmillan Company): "Alcohol . . . abolishes mental tension, disguises difficulties, changes the mood from a disagreeable, self-centered state to sociable friendliness. The peculiar charm of alcohol lies in the sense of careless well being and bodily and mental comfort which it creates." — In all this, as long as moderation prevails, there is nothing reprehensible according to the generous standards of the Bible.
As a second basic observation it may be said that the utterances of the Scriptures warn emphatically against the dangers lurking in alcoholic stimulants. Never before in debates on liquor have so many references been made to the wedding of Cana as in the eras of prohibition and repeal. Never before have the words of friendly advice which St. Paul offers Timothy, suggesting that he take a little wine for his stomach's sake, been given the overemphasis which recent years have brought. This argumentation becomes unfair when no attention is accorded the many passages which picture the dangers of hard liquor in sharp, unmistakable language. The Bible repeatedly shows the terrifying calamities skulking in the wake of intemperance, and emphatically warns against overindulgence. How else can we understand Solomon's questions and answers: "Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder" (Prov. 23:29-32).
When the sage of the Old Testament discusses the connection between liquor and lust, he says of the wine-bibber: "Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things" (Prov. 23:33). This is the ancient statement of a modern pathological truth. Dr. Walter R. Miles, professor of experimental psychology at Yale (I.e.), says: "The increase in the tendency to sex offenses which alcohol induces has been noted from time immemorial, and profane love has naturally been a prominent theme in the songs of Bacchus." He shows the close association between commercial vice and the bar and says that this "gives practical recognition of the psychological connection between inebriation and sex expression." He adds: "When alcohol is circulating freely in the nervous system, the censor, . . . whose responsibility it is to restrain or divert inappropriate sexual impulses, is off guard. Under these conditions stimuli that would ordinarily claim but little attention or be quickly put aside easily arouse emotion and emotional expression." And he concludes by submitting scientific claims to the effect that alcohol has a particularly weakening effect on the self-control of young women.
Subsequent investigation by Dr. Emerson, published in Alcohol, Its Effects on Man, provoked these statements (pp. 82 and 83): "The most successful artificial or drug excitant to sexual excess is alcohol. . . . Alcohol in moderate amounts suffices commonly to lower self-restraint and self-control in situations of sex temptation, so that exposure to the hazards of sexual diseases is undertaken thoughtlessly and without care of the consequences. . . . Sexual irresponsibility is a not uncommon result of the unrestricted use of alcohol .in mixed company."
John W. Churchman, in Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Vol. 7, p. 260, writes: "Alcohol paralyzes the inhibitions, renders the physical urges more obvious, disarms the critical faculty, breaks down reasonableness and prudence, blurs fineness of perception and taste, without necessarily creating the state socially recognized as intoxication. Alcohol is the best salesman and procurer known and is a constant and essential stock in trade for the promotion of prostitution."
Equally decisive testimony comes to us from the other side of the Atlantic. In the report of the Royal Commission to Investigate the Drink Problem a section entitled "A Review of the Effects of Alcohol on Man" (London, 1931) gives this official verdict (p. 119): "Alcohol certainly reduces sexual self-control and makes continence more difficult, and at the same time it weakens judgment, so that the dangers of promiscuity are ignored. It would be difficult to overestimate the influence of alcohol in morals or its role in the spread of venereal disease. Its disturbing effect on the sex instinct is obvious, apart from any question of gross immorality; it is seen in the region of thought and of imagination. When it was the custom for men to drink much wine at dinner parties, the ladies were expected to retire early from the table." Consequently the danger of marriage with a husband addicted to alcohol must not be minimized. Dr. Edward A. Strecker and Dr. Francis T. Chambers, in Alcohol, One Man's Meat (p. 108), warn pointedly: "Women who marry inebriate lovers with the objective of reforming them usually fail conspicuously." (Quoted with the publishers' permission.)
These official statements of recognized medical authorities, as far as I know, have never been successfully contested. In innumerable instances it has been the surreptitious flask, the treacherous background of the roadhouse, the highway tavern, and the cocktail parties that paved the way to the sacrifice of purity.
The conclusion, then, suggests itself that the immoderate indulgence in alcoholics has been one of the most formidable factors in establishing a reign of easy morals among a certain class of young people. Much depends upon the personal realization of this fact by our Christian youth. With the new privileges accorded by both the law of God and the law of man, the ideal of temperance remains unchanged. Repeal should not imply any necessity or advisability of departing from a policy of strict sobriety. I feel personally that the young man or young woman who, without fanaticism and with the proper understanding of the Biblical attitude on this question, decides to adopt a standard of strict abstinence will not sacrifice anything essential to life's happiness. For those who may be disturbed by their own inability to stop at the proper time there is but one rule: "Hands off alcohol!" While the Church dare not drop to the extremes of bigotry which would take a glass of beer away from the working-man or shudder with sanctimonious disdain at the mention of wine, it must never lull itself into any coma of unconcern which neglects to exalt temperance and to warn its youth against the seduction that lurks in strong drink. Even Plato (Laws, 2:9) urged that wine should be illegal for all young people until they were seventeen; for he insisted that "without such a law there would be the imminent danger that our youth would fall victims to degeneracy." The Apostle's caution: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess" (Eph. 5:18) should not be restricted in its application to actual intoxication. Dr. T. B. Hyslop, in the Encyclopedia Medica (sub "General Paralysis"), declares: "Intemperance does not necessarily mean only obvious and palpable drunkenness. From the very moment in which alcohol has disturbed the healthy exercise of the mental faculties or has impaired the moral sense by unduly exciting the animal passions, . . . from that moment there has been guilt of intemperance."
When another recent heiress-royalty wedding went wrong, the bride, who deserted her titled husband five days after the ceremony, explained her hasty acceptance of his proposal (after only two weeks' acquaintance) with the alibi: "We had been dining, and I had taken wine. I am not used to it." Even when husband and wife are "used to it," alcoholics will often produce similarly disruptive consequences. We should heed well the words of that eminent authority Dr. Howard A. Kelly of Johns Hopkins University, who testifies (The Alcoholic Problem in Every-day Life, Senate Document 5,566, p. 123): "As a citizen ... I observe that alcohol has destroyed 'the happiness and the lives of relatives, friends, and acquaintances. . . . I have seen that it robs the home of peace; it puts a barrier between husband and wife and kills all true parental tenderness, throwing the children back into the world for that moral training a father and a mother are alone fitted by nature to give. It is at the bottom of most crime, domestic infelicity, poverty, seductions."
What alcohol can do to young lives is graphically illustrated by the drunken episodes in the life of Alexander the Great, often neglected by modern readers. At the age of twenty-six Alexander had held uncontested sway of all Western Asia. With vast wealth and undisputed power and no more worlds left to conquer, he gave himself up to a life of sadistic debauch. In his drunken orgies he put some of his most trusted officers to death. One of his biographers gives this picture of his bacchanalian carousals and his ignoble end: "Alexander not only indulged in vice himself but also encouraged others to follow his evil example. He would offer prizes at his banquets to those who could drink the most, thus causing forty deaths at one of his entertainments. . . . On one occasion he had spent a whole night in drinking and carousing, and then some of the guests proposed that they should begin a second banquet instead of retiring. Alexander, half intoxicated, agreed. There were twenty present at this new feast. Alexander, to show them how much he was able to drink, pledged each one separately and then all together. There was a very large cup, called the bowl of Hercules, which he now called for, and having filled it to the brim, he drank it off and again filled the huge bowl and again drank the entire contents. His strength soon failed him, and he sank to the floor. They bore him away to his apartment. A violent fever soon followed this terrible debauch, which his physicians tried in vain to allay. At last, finding he must die, he drew his signet ring from his finger; this was the token that he felt that all was over. He handed this ring to one of his friends, saying, 'When I am gone, take my body to the temple of Jupiter Ammon and inter it there.'" So Alexander, the ruler of Asia Minor, died at thirty-two.
One of the most persistent assaults on the ideals of morality and marriage is captained by the immoral dance. Ask one hundred earnest evangelical clergymen for their opinion on the suggestive dance, and one hundred pastoral voices will unite in branding it as a most insidious opposition to their best efforts. If you think this type of clergymen biased or out of touch with modern trends, ask a group of experienced social workers for their verdict, and again many will agree that no single factor has led more girls to ruin than the temptations of the public dance hall. Interview girls segregated in institutions of correction; ask them what has contributed to their delinquency, and with telltale frequency the dance hall and the occurrences subsequent to the sensual dance will figure decisively in their answers.
Now, all this may sound bigoted and puritanical in this day of Terpsichore's rule in gilded pomp and lavish circumstance, when her devotees do honor to her in dance-palaces that recall the luxury of the Trianon or mimic the rococo of the most lavish Louis. It may appear futile to raise a dissonant voice; yet the fear of futility should never be a deterrent. The masses have committed many mob mistakes.
In surveying the dangerous influences of the modern dance, it should be admitted, as scientific observers have conceded, that dancing is a stimulus to certain physical impulses. The Medical Review of Reviews, which cannot be impugned on the charge of bias, declares: "There can scarcely be any doubt that dancing came about as an adjunct to sexual stimulation. As such it existed, undisguised among primitive peoples of antiquity. It still retains this original purpose among us today, but it is not avowed as such openly." Dr. A. H. Bigelow finds this consequence of dancing: "Sex stimulation may be consciously recognized by normal men, but probably is not identified as other than general excitement by most women."
Professional dancers, whose opinion is particularly noteworthy, have assailed the sensual dance on this score in outspoken criticism. Irene Castle, as quoted by the Associated Press, declares: "I'm horrified at the manner of dancing, not alone in New York but in the Central West. It is simply unspeakable. It is a shame and disgrace that police have to be retained by hotels to supervise dancing; yet that is what is being done nightly in New York." Dancing-master William P. Rivers says: "The modern dances are nothing but public petting parties." Raymond Duncan told the readers of the Detroit Times: "Modern dances are merely sensual exhibitions, devoid of taste. Many people no longer dance for the joy of dancing. They dance because it is an excuse for hugging each other in public."
Visitors from foreign parts stand aghast at the liberties licensed by some of our dances. Maude Taylor Sarvis, in the Christian Century (October 31, 1931), submits a quotation from a letter by a Chinese student who had just come to America to study: "Last night I went to first American dance. I got very great shock. In China, as you know, all students very much admire Western methods of courtship and free mingling of young people, so they can choose their own mates without interference of parents or middleman. But as I watched the young men and young ladies tightly hugging in one another's arms and moving about the room to distracting music playing loudly, I must feel very strongly that the psychology produced could not be in the least suitable for the state of mind in which to choose a life companion. For the first time I felt our Chinese method of arranging marriages is superior to American one."
It is not a delectable commentary on the American dance which our newspapers bring in these dispatches:
"Moscow: The American dances were forbidden today by the Soviet Supreme Council for Physical Education as unfit for Russia's proletariat youth. Dr. Semashko, commissar of health, denounced the dances as 'indecent products of the fat American bourgeoisie.'"
"Tokyo: American dances have aroused the local police. These dances are now barred in all except licensed dance halls, and in the latter none of the American steps are allowed after ten o'clock. The police claimed the dances tended to be immoral."
This suggestiveness of the dance, so protruding that self-respecting Reds and Confucianists have mentally thrown up their hands in horror, is nowhere more evident than in the shocking influence of the dance-hall, whether this be of the garish, blatant type or the select club with its private, restricted clientele. Particularly obnoxious are the roadhouses just outside the city limits. A United States Children's Bureau Bulletin after an investigation of dance-halls in twenty-five States calls these resorts "our greatest menace" and describes the dangers that lurk there, where everything prohibited in the city runs its unrestricted course. This does not exonerate the larger halls governed by municipal regulations, of course. A graphic picture of the moral hazards found in these breeding-places of impurity is presented in the Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Committee of Fourteen, New York City, published on July 19, 1931. After showing that commercialized vice is "now greater in volume and more brazenly open" than formerly, the bulk of the survey, which predicts that conditions will get worse before they improve, deals with the chain dance-halls operated by a syndicate. The report claims: "This chain is rumored to have the protection of certain license inspectors and other employees of that department, certain plain-clothes policemen and -women, and a city magistrate. The magistrate was rumored to have an indirect financial interest. He has a consistent record of discharging defendants in dance-hall cases prosecuted by the police." Under this corruption these halls are described in the report as "acute moral hazards." "Dancing of the most lascivious type is permitted. There seems to be no supervision at all. What happens after liquor has flowed freely, as it regularly does?" There is no question as to the occurrences in the taxi dance hall or at the hostess dances, which doubtless approach the lowest level in the degeneration of the dance.
Listen to Bascom Johnson and Paul M. Kinsie, protesting in the Journal of Social Hygiene (December, 1933, p. 485): "Twenty or more years ago dance halls were reputed to be 'recruiting grounds' for prostitution. The personal histories of many prostitutes testify to the demoralizing influences which were at work in these places.... Shortly after the war a new type of dance hall was developed, which offered greater financial returns to operators. Unfortunately it likewise created a condition much more difficult to control and exceedingly more hazardous to the young people who sought a recreational outlet. The new type of dance hall became known as the 'taxi dance' or 'dime jig' and gained almost instant popularity. Such places are aptly called taxi-dance halls because, instead of a general admission fee, ten cents is charged for each dance with the so-called instructresses or hostesses, who are provided by the management and work on a percentage basis.
"Since 1927 city after city has been invaded by taxi-dance halls. In the majority lewd, indecent, and sex-stimulating forms of dancing are the main attraction. At first a younger element made up the bulk of the patronage, but gradually older men were attracted and frequented these resorts in large numbers.
"The tremendous profits in this form of so-called recreation can be realized when it is known that the proprietor of a taxi dance hall in a Middle Western city was said to have made a net profit of $400,000 in eight months. A friend of his opened a similar resort in a near-by city, said to be financed on a 'shoe-string,' and paid off all indebtedness inside a month. He was described as 'now sitting pretty.' The hostesses likewise profit, although they receive only five cents per dance from the management, and the majority of them are said to have earned from $75 to $100 per week. Naturally, lucrative employment of this kind attracted many young girls, especially during the early part of the depression period, and a large number of them were found to be small-town girls, who had migrated from home to the big cities in search of employment. . . . The effect in most cases upon both hostesses and patrons cannot help but be demoralizing and degrading. Some of these places are known to be recruiting-grounds for procurers."
Some may contend that the cheap dancing-halls come under the condemnation which the more refined and fashionable amusement place escapes. But listen to Mrs. Nina C. Van Winkle, Washington, D. C., police matron and president of the International Association of Police women: "Visit a roof garden or cabaret. There you will see boys and girls drinking and dancing in a way to arouse thoroughly all the sexual impulses. By the time the dance is over many of the girls as well as the boys are drunk. Then you see them in their automobiles, driving out into the country, where there will be no interruption to anything they may do."
If the circle is drawn more closely and the protest is raised that at least the more selected dance socials are innocent, then hear Mrs. Henrietta Hunt, superintendent of the Springfield, Illinois, Redemption Home: "Dancing drags down more girls than anything else. Fully half of those who came to us last year went wrong at the public-school dances right here at Springfield. I believe it is high time some one was coming out against such evil."
Clara J. Jones, field worker for the North Dakota House of Mercy, declares that "75 to 90 per cent of those who have slipped over the edge and slid into the pitfall of sex sin and entered unmarried motherhood at the North Dakota House of Mercy tell one story — the dance." In her recorded experiences, entitled "Shall We Dance?" she submits the following case material from her files, each an actual statement, of course under an assumed name:
Lucy: "My mother used to warn me; but we think of our mothers as old-fashioned. I smoked to be sociable, and the reason I drank I cannot say. I started to dance at sixteen and used to dance almost all Saturday night. ... If I only hadn't gone into that company in my small home town, I am sure things would have been different. I am the only one in the family who has gone astray, and it is going to be hard to face it all. I am glad now that my mother is old-fashioned."
Teckia: "I think the biggest reason for fallen men and women is the dance. Most of them go wrong at the dance. I have been called a 'stick in the mud' many times for not smoking and drinking, but I danced, and that had much to do with my downfall."
Jane: "I met the father of my illegitimate child at a dancing and drinking party, I am ashamed to say. I used to say that a nice dance, well chaperoned, was all right, but I have changed my mind."
Nancy: "I resent any familiarity on the part of a stranger; but when I dance with some one I like, the feelings come. The modern wild dances are more likely to do so than the old-fashioned ones, except the waltz. Jazz just stirs me up so I am ready for almost anything; but the soft, dreamy, gliding waltz affects me the most."
Susie: "There is too much drinking being done, especially at smalltown dances, and there is an atmosphere of looseness and the I-don't-care attitude. It will affect the dancers on the ride home and when parking in the yard, if not before.... It takes so little at times to let yourself slide into sin."
Now, many will readily grant that the dance-hall is a public menace and that the suggestive dance under all circumstances deserves censure. They will say, however, that the statements of fallen girls present only a very lurid side of a situation in which others have had entirely different reactions. These rescue-home inmates, it may be asserted, are of the type which would have succumbed to other temptations in different forms. For, we are told, to the pure all things are pure; and Christians may be trusted to dance without the danger of suggestiveness.
Young people earnestly and repeatedly assure us that they have danced without these thoughts; and we have been so impressed with their sincerity that we are not willing to dismiss their words with the summary dictum that they are either abnormal or untruthful. Yet, even if a young woman may dance for the sheer joy of the rhythm, this pastime, innocent perhaps for her, may have an altogether different appeal to her dancing companion. Nor can the element of offense always be ignored. While I would not assert that clean and unobjectionable dancing is impossible, I believe that the postures, the seductive appeal of modern dance music, the surroundings, of many dances, make every dance a danger. Young people who know the repeated warnings of Scripture will hear their Savior's voice raised in this warning that condemns even sinful glances and carnal desires: "I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt. 5:28). Impressed by their own weaknesses, they should above all be open and honest with themselves and face squarely the moral dangers which few intelligent advocates of the dance will deny. They should ask themselves whether their prayer "Lead us not into temptation" can be spoken with the hope of a divine answer when they deliberately lead themselves into the most dangerous of modern amusements, where concessions to unholy desires are repeatedly demanded.
The dance causes the Church much heartache How readily and happily the Church offers every clean and thrilling pleasure to its young people! How unhesitatingly it would give this debated pastime to it. young people if it were just plain exhilarating fun! Because Christ has put the souls of His children on the con. science of the Church, and because the line of demarcation that separates the Christless world from the Christ-blessed Church must be conspicuously drawn, the Church cannot escape its divinely imposed duty. Even though modern churches throw open their parlors for dances (disappointing though they usually are); even though it is true that "more than a million . . . were estimated m 1931 to be studying, more or less seriously, ballroom dancing (quotation in Leisure, p. 298); even though the White House issues appeals for more dancing centers, the Church's voice of friendly warning dare not be silenced.