The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-03-02
BAD FOR AMERICAN GIRLS.

EWinifred Black in New York JournaI.l
Miss Lillian Bell, of Chicago, declares
that the American girl is driving art
out of the country.
when Boston rejects one of the mas
terpieces because it is nude; when a
to picture in its pages a woman in decol-
lete gown circulates 100000 copies a
month; when Anthony Comstock can
pronounce against a picture and carry
enough public opinion with him to force
its removal from an art gallery; when
the people of great, = educational coun-
try IKE ours says; We will have
nothing on our walls or bookshelves
that our daughters can not look at or
read in the presence of young men,
then, I say, it is time to lock up your
daughters and Jail your young men and
drive your authors to Europe
1.-THE greatest American novel, The
Scarlet Letter. is tabooed and driven
from the shelves of many a good Ameri-
can family"
Why, Miss Bell, I am surprised at
you!
Where have you been at during this
last year or two?
In Paris?
You are all wrong about the Boston
business. The Bacchante was rejected,
not because she was nude, but because
she was as inappropriate for the adorn-
ment of an educational institution for
American boys and girls as a statue of
Uncle Sam, tall hat, starry waistcoat
Greek Acropolis. The magazine, too
would I might know it's name, that L
might haste and subscribe to it. The
decollete lady is grown to be such an
ever present nightmare since the half
tone" fad, that one can not open a
church concordance in quest of sur
cease without being confronted with
"bevy of buds" or a bunch of American
Beauties which make the judicious
grieve and spur the light minded on to
irreverent reference to the far-famed
and sensitive clock which was stopped
by the mere presence of a lady who was
going to a ball.
About Mr.. Comstock know not. I
fondly imagined that no one heard much
about him, except policemen and Grim
inals of various sorts.
But 1.-THE Scarlet Letter. and the
American girl-Oh, Miss Bell, have you
read the Quick and the Dead?' Wasn't
an American girl rather widely adver-
tised as the author of some such book?
What Miss Bell has to say about the
Puritan spirit Of the American girl is
most interesting-as a study in archaic
ology
The Puritan spirit is dead.
1t died when Mr.. Kiralfy come to town
with ""The Black Crook"
If any misguided person still believes
in its existence, let him shut his eyes
and buy theater ticket at any con-
venient hotel When he gets to the
theater he will be pretty apt to be
rather rudely shaken from his dreams
anent the ghost of Puritanism.
'Tess of the d'Urbervilles," "The
Christian" ''The Conquerors, 'Zaza"
if these things be not art in the very
most Partisan of fashions, tell us, oh,
fair young critic of the oVerstrict Amer
lean morality, what be they? To say
nothing of THE Turtle and similar
affairs at the various vaudevilIes which
treat of nothing but subjects of which
the young girl'' is supposed never to
have heard.
There certainly is something to be
said on the matter of the young girl and
art in this country.
But the young girl Of today is an
effect and not a cause.
The young girl is not hurting art.
Art is hurting the young girl.
And that is the fault of the American
parent.
The average American parent is in the
state of mind of the boy who has just
found out that there is no Santa Claus
and he drives all lovers of the ideal to
desperation by buttonholing every wide
| eyed innocent and ''enlightening him.
| The averageAmerican parent has just
| begun to ''see life. land he hasn't learn
| ed sense enough to leave his wife, or at
| least his daughter, at home during the
I process.
Camille" is, dramatically,a fine play,
| pathos, strained situations and all.
No man woman of discrimination
| would dream of Directing to it's produc-
| ton on the score of its immortality