The Modern Dance and Morals.
By Editor
The National Association of Hosiery and Underwear Manufacturers recently had a meeting, and one of their speakers affirmed that the modern dance among the laboring girls is doing more to demoralize them than the much talked of low wages. He affirmed furthermore that the laboring girls are drawn into this dancing craze through their wealthier and more influential sisters. He said: “The girls feel free to practise what their richer sisters practise at the gathering places of the elect. The investigations do not touch the society rich who set these bad examples.” Without much question, this speaker gave the foregoing utterances in order to shield his associates in that line of manufacture, which employs many women, from the odium of paying them such low wages. The girls and women who labor should have a proper wage from the large amounts that they enable the manufacturer to earn; but that question being settled in a right way, the fact still remains that there is a great deal of truth to his statement that the modern dance which is pervading society is doubtless doing its full share in the demoralization of women. In seeking to make reforms that would correct these evils, we must not content ourselves with pointing out one cause only, but we should seek for all of the causes. The women should receive proper wages, and we should do everything in our power to instruct people in regard to the demoralization of the modern dance, to say nothing of much of the modern forms of dress, and everything else that is tending to produce these vices. If men and women would recognize the enormity of these evils, and what they signify, they might raise a voice of protest against them that would have some effect. But when the majority of mankind are stupefied by the dream that regardless of all this evil the world is getting better and better, what can we hope for in the way of reforms? There are only a very few, comparatively, that are aroused to the real dangers that are threatening the world. It would be well for our religious periodicals, and every other publication, for that matter, that can be led to join in the good work, together with the ministers in every pulpit, to denounce continuously the miserable cartoons and jokes that are making light of the marriage relation. We have called attention several times to the pernicious work of the cartoons that are found in so many of the great daily papers which are making a joke of the infidelity of husbands and wives. These cartoons and jokes are educating young men and women to believe that there is nothing very serious in breaking the matrimonial vows. It is a sorry comment on the condition of the public mind that there should be so much of a demand for such things.