p. 11 | Demoralizing Songs and Reading by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 17, 1914

Demoralizing Songs and Reading

By Editor

We are glad to see the crusade which is being carried on in some quarters against a certain class of popular songs which are now being sung even in some respectable homes. The Waterloo (Iowa) Times-Tribune sounds this timely warning:—

These songs which are now being sung in the theaters and which the young people are taking up and thinking cute and pleasurable, absolutely are so rotten that they create a stench to the very heavens. How any person with a pure mind can enjoy the lasciviousness of these songs is hard for moral people to comprehend.

Almost every one desires the newspaper to keep its columns clean; and sensational news is printed only in its mildest form. This paper has no desire to be sensational. It only wishes to carry the cleanest news, but a great many people who would not allow a yellow journal in their homes today are allowing songs to be sung that if they were published in a newspaper, would burn the center of the pages.

Immorality has always existed and always will exist, but certainly the average home demands that there be cleanliness within its environments. Thrust out the uncleanliness which is making its way into your home; throw out the lascivious songs, make a bonfire of them; turn your attention to the immorality of these things, and if other people want to practice them, let them practice them away from your home where they cannot corrupt it.

Similarly the Lutheran of June 25, 1914, decries the demoralizing reading which for the most part fills many of the newspapers of the present day:—

Recently a reader took one of Chicago’s cleanest daily papers and deducting the space given to important news, editorials, business, music, and art, the following amount of space was left for the exploitation of things people could well afford to be ignorant of:—

INCHES

Stories of crime............... 53 Homicides and brutal conflicts........ 40 Police items........ 35 Moving picture and theatrical write-ups.................... 204 Society, dress, and beauty gossip...... 186 Sporting news........ 213 Roman Catholics in politics........ 43 Tobacco and liquor ads............ 20 Total.............................. 794

As stated by the Lutheran, it is no wonder that when such stuff is read with such great avidity in the homes of the people, their tastes and ideals become depraved and vulgar. “That is why there is a plethora of sensual ideas and a famine of spiritual ideals.”