(discusses present-day sex arrangements, as they affect the future generation.)
our first task is to consider how people actually behave in the matter of sex—as distinguished from the way they pretend to behave. the first and most necessary step in the cure of any disease is a correct diagnosis, and in this case we have not merely to make the diagnosis, but to prove it; because the most conspicuous fact about our present sex-arrangements is a mass of organized concealment. not merely do teachers and preachers for the most part suppress all mention of these subjects; but the defenders of our present economic disorder are accustomed to acclaim the private property régime as the only basis of family life. so long as people hold such an idea, there is no use trying to teach them anything on the subject. there is no use talking to them about monogamous love, because all they understand is hypocrisy. in this chapter, therefore, we shall proceed to hold up the mirror in front of capitalist morality.
i pause and consider: where shall i begin? at the top of society, or at the bottom? with the city or the country? with the old or the young? i think you care most of all about your boys and girls, so i am going to tell you what is happening to the youth of america in these days of triumphant reaction.
i have a son, about whom naturally i think a great deal; just now he is a student at one of our state universities, and he wrote me the other day: "i went to a dance, and believe me, father, if you knew what these modern dances mean, you would write something about them." i know what they mean. they have come to us straight from the brothels of the argentine, among the vilest haunts of vice in the world. others have come from the jungle, where they were natural. the poor creature of the jungle has his sex-desire and nothing else; he is not troubled with brains, he does not have a complicated social organism to build up and protect, consequently he does not need what are called "morals." but we civilized people need morals, and we are losing them, and our society is disintegrating, going back to the howling and fighting and cannibalism of the jungle.
prof. william james, america's greatest psychologist, tells us that going through the motions appropriate to an emotion automatically causes that emotion to be felt. if you watch an actor preparing to rush on the stage in an emotional scene, you will see him walking about, clenching his fists, stamping his feet, making ferocious faces, "working himself up." and now, what do you think is going on in the minds of young men and women, while with their bodies they are going through procedures which are nothing and can be nothing but imitations of sexual contact?
the parents, it appears, are ignorant and unsophisticated, and have left it for the children to find out what these dances mean. in rhode island, one of our oldest states, is brown college, chosen by new england's aristocracy for the education of its sons; and these boys go to social affairs in the best homes in providence, and they call them "petting-parties." and here is what they write in their college paper:
"the modern social bud drinks, not too much, often, but enough. she smokes unguardedly, swears considerably, and tells 'dirty' stories. all in all, she is a most frivolous, passionate, sensation-seeking little thing."
this statement, published in a college paper, causes a scandal, and a newspaper reporter goes to interview the college boy who edits the paper, and this boy talks. he tells how he met a lovely girl at a dance, and his heart was thrilled with the rapture of young love. "frankly, between you and me, i was pretty smitten with this particular little lady. felt about her, don't you know, like a real guy feels about the girl he could imagine himself married to. thought she was too nice to touch, almost; you know the grave sort of love affair a man always has once in a lifetime. well, we walked a bit, and i guess i didn't say much, for a while. i felt plenty—respectfully—just the same. and as we turned the corner of one of the buildings here, she grasped my hand. hers was trembling. 'love and let love is my motto, dearie,' said this seraph of my dreams; 'come, we're losing a lot of time getting started.' that girl thought i was dead slow. she didn't know that just then i imagined the great love of my life was just entering the door. it was cruel the way she got down from the pedestal i had built for her."
suppose i should ask you to name the influence that is having most to do with shaping the thoughts of young america—what would you answer? undoubtedly, the moving pictures. it is from the "movies" that your children learn what life is; if i can show you that a certain thing is in the "movies," you can surely not deny that it is passing every day and night into the hearts and minds of millions of our boys and girls. take a vote among the girls, what would they consider the most delightful destiny in life; surely nine out of ten would answer, to become a screen star, and pose before a world of admirers, and be paid a million dollars a year. make a test and see; and put that fact together with the one i have already stated, that in order to get an important job in the "movies," a girl must regularly and as a matter of course part with her virtue.
you will be told, no doubt, that this is a slanderous statement, so let me give you a little evidence. i happened within the past year to be in the private office of a well known moving picture producer, a man who is married, and takes care to tell you that he loves his wife. he was producing a play, the heroine of which was supposed to be a daughter of puritan new england. to play this part he had engaged a chaste girl, and as a result was in the midst of a queer trouble, which he poured out to me. his "leading man" had refused to act with this girl, insisting that no girl could act a part of love unless she had had passionate experience; no such thing had ever been heard of in moving pictures before. likewise, the director agreed that no girl who is chaste could act for the screen, and the producer asked my advice about it. mr. william allen white, of kansas, was present in the office, and authorizes me to state that he substantiates this anecdote. we both advised the producer to stand by the girl, and he did so; and the picture went out, and proved to be what in trade parlance is termed a "frost"; that is to say, your children didn't care for it, and it cost the producer something like a hundred thousand dollars to make this attempt to defy the conventions of the moving picture world.
i will tell you another story. i have a friend, a prominent man in los angeles, who was appealed to by a young lady who wished to act in the "movies." my friend introduced this young lady to a very prominent screen actor, who in turn introduced her to one of the biggest producers in america, one of the men whose "million dollar feature pictures" are regularly exploited. the producer examined the young lady's figure, and told her that she would "do"; he added, quite casually, and as a matter of course, that she would be expected to "pay the price." the young lady took exception to this proposition, and gave up the chance. she told my friend about it, and he, being a man of the world, accustomed to dealing with the foibles of his fellowmen, wrote a note to the actor, explaining that inasmuch as this young lady had been socially introduced to him, and by him socially introduced to the manager, she should not have been expected to "pay the price." to this the actor answered that my friend was correct, and he would see the manager about it. the manager conceded the point, and the young lady got her chance in the "movies" and made good without "paying the price." this story tells you all you need to know about the difference in sex ethics that society applies to the "lady" and to the daughter of the common people.
you know, of course, what is the stock theme of all moving pictures—the virtuous daughter of the people, who resists all temptations, and is finally rescued from her would-be seducer by the strong and sturdy arm of a male doll. could one ask a more perfect illustration of capitalist hypocrisy than the fact that the girl who plays this role is required to pay with her virtue for the privilege of playing it! and if you know anything about young girls, you can watch her playing it on the screen, and see from her every gesture that what i am telling you is true. my wife knows young girls, and i took her, the other day, to see a moving picture. she said: "i have solved a problem. when i come home on the street-cars, it happens that i ride with a lot of young girls from the high school. i have been watching them, and i couldn't imagine what was the matter with them. all simple, girlish straightforwardness is gone out of them; they are making eyes, in the strangest manner—and at nobody; just practicing, apparently. they wear yearning facial expressions; when they start to walk, they do not walk, but writhe and wiggle. i thought there must be some nervous eye and lip disease got abroad in the school. but now, when i go to a moving picture, i discover what it means. they are imitating the 'stars' on the screen!"
in these pictures, you know, there are "ingenues," young girls engaged in making a happy ending to the story by capturing a rich lover; and then there are "vamps," engaged in seducing young men, or breaking up some happy home. in old-style melodrama it was possible to tell the "ingenue" from the "vamps"; the former would trip lightly, and glance coyly out of the corners of her eyes, while the "vamp" moved with slow, languished writhing, blinking heavy-lidded, sinister eyes. but now-a-days the "vamps" have learned to pose as "ingenues," and the "ingenues" are as vicious as the "vamps"; they both make the same glances, and culminate in the same sensual swoon. it is all sex, and nothing else—except revolvers and fighting, and wild rushing about.
and then, too, there are the musical comedies, made wholly out of sex, being known as "girl shows," or more frankly still, "leg shows." a row of half naked women, prancing and gyrating on the stage, and in front of them rows of bald-headed old men, gazing at them greedily; also college boys, or boys too imbecile to get through college, sending in their cards with boxes of costly flowers. you will be shocked as you read my plain statements of fact, but if you are the average american, you will take your family to a musical show which has come straight from the brothels of paris, every allusion of which is obscene. i remember once being in a small town in the south, when one of these "road shows" arrived from new york, and i realized that this institution was simply a traveling house of ill fame; the whole male portion of the town was a-quiver with excitement, a mixture of lust and fear.
i live in southern california, one of many places in america where the idle rich gather for their diversion. the country is dotted with palatial hotels, and a golden flood of pleasure-seekers come in every winter. i have talked with some of the college boys in this part of the country, and also with teachers who try to save the boys; they report these "swell" hotels as hot-beds of vice, haunted by married women with automobiles, and nothing to do, who wish to go into the canyons for sexual riots. even elderly women, white-haired women, old enough to be your grandmother! i have had them pointed out to me in these hotels, their cheeks and lips covered with rouge, with pink silk tights on their calves, and nothing else almost up to their knees and nothing at all half way down their backs. these old women seek to prey on boys, wanting their youth, and being willing to lavish money upon them. they are preying on your boys—you prosperous business men, who have preached the gospel of "each for himself," and are proud of your skill to prey upon society. you heap up your fortunes, and call it success, and are secure and happy. you have made your children safe against want, you think; but how are you going to make them safe against the "vamps" who prey upon the overwhelming excitements of youth, and betray your sons before your very eyes—teaching them lust in their youth, so that love may never be born in their stunted hearts? all the haunts of "gilded vice" are thriving, and somebody's boy is paying the interest on the capital, to say nothing of paying the police.
many years ago i paid a call upon anthony comstock, head of the society for the prevention of vice. comstock was an old-style puritan, and many insist that he was likewise an old-style grafter. however that may be, he had a collection of the literature of pornography which would cause any man to hesitate in condemning his activities. there is a vast traffic in this kind of thing; it is sold by pack-peddlers all over the country, and it is sold in little shops in the neighborhood of public schools. you may be sure that in your school there are some boys who know where to get it, even though they will not tell what they know. i will describe just one piece that a school boy brought to me, a catalogue of obscene literature, for sale in spain, and to be ordered wholesale. you know how men with wares to sell will expend their imaginations and exhaust their vocabulary in describing to you the charms of each particular article for sale. here was a catalogue of one or two hundred pages, listing thousands of items, pictures, pamphlets and books, and various implements of vice, all set forth in that imitation ecstasy of department stores and seed catalogues: here was "something neat," here was a "fancy one," this one was "a peach," and that one was "a winner."
when i was a lad, i was tramping in the adirondack mountains and was picked up by an itinerant photographer. we rode all day together, and he became friendly, and showed me some obscene pictures. presently he discovered that he was dealing with a young moralist, and apparently it was the first time he had ever had that experience; he talked honestly, and we became friends on a different basis. this man had a wife and children at home, but he traveled all over the mountains, and was like the sailor with a girl in every port. also he was thoroughly familiar with all forms of unnatural vice, and took this also as a matter of course, and spread it on his journeys.
the other day i read a statement by a prominent physician in new york; he had been talking with a police captain, and had asked him to state what in his opinion was the most significant development in the social life of new york. the answer was, "the spread of male prostitution." here is a subject to which i have to admit my courage is unequal. i cannot repeat the jokes which i have heard young men tell about these matters, and about the attitude of the police to them. suffice it to say that these hideous forms of vice are now the commonplace of the under-world of all our great cities. the other day a friend of mine was talking with a prostitute who had left a high-class resort, where the price charged was ten dollars, and gone to live in a "fifty-cent house," frequented by sailors. she was asked the reason, and her explanation was, "the sailors are natural." dr. william j. robinson has written in his magazine an account of the haunts in berlin which are frequented by the victims of unnatural vice, there allowed to meet openly and to solicit. frank harris, in his "life of oscar wilde," tells how when that scandal was at its height, and further exposure threatened, swarms of the most prominent men in england suddenly discovered that it was advisable for them to travel on the continent. the great public schools of england are rotten with these practices; the younger boys learn them from the older ones, and are victims all the rest of their lives. and the corruption is creeping through our own social body—and you think that all you have to do is not to know about it!
my friend floyd dell, reading this manuscript, insists that this chapter and the one following are too severe. in case others should agree with him, i quote two newspaper items which appear while i am reading the proofs. the first is from an interview with h. gordon selfridge, the london merchant, telling his impressions of america. he tells about the "flappers," and then about the "shifters."
"the other is the newly exploited 'shifters.' the 'shifters' are an organization of mushroom growth among high school girls and boys which is spreading through the eastern states and winning converts among youngsters. it is described as the 'flapper ku klux,' and its emblem, if worn by a girl, according to high school teachers and children's society leaders who oppose it, to be nothing more nor less than an invitation to be kissed.
"to call it an organization even is exaggeration, for the 'shifters' are better described as a secret understanding without any responsible head.
"from being a seemingly harmless group whose emblem was originally a brass paper clip fastened in the coat lapel it has developed by rapid strides. manufacturers of emblems are coining money by the sale of hands, palm outstretched. the significance is take what you want or, as the motto of the order says, 'be a good fellow; get something for nothing.' one of the principles is to 'do' one's parents, referred to as 'they.'"
the second item is an associated press despatch:
"st. louis, march 10.—in reiterating his statement that a girls' and a boys' secret organization requiring that all applicants must have violated the moral code before admission was granted, existed in a local high school, victor j. miller, president of the board of police commissioners, tonight named the soldan high school as the one in which the alleged immoral conditions exist. the school is attended largely by children of the wealthy west end citizens.
