The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1914-02-25

If the effect OF the song Is good, we
are cherishing blessing. But II the
effect OF the song Is bad, then indsed.
whether we know 1t or not, we are
cherishing thing that has remark
able resemblance to curse.
Look through any moving picture
audience and you will always see the
little daughters OF the poor.
All day they have drudged In fac
tory, shop or home. The bloom or
youth is still upon them, but poverty
is beginning to pinch.
| In their adornments, cheap jewelry
and a brave show OF style, one can
see alike their ambition and their
ideal
A moving picture comes to its end.
The singer takes his place upon the
stage. The title page of song is
thrown upon the screen and the laugh,
ter of approval greets some such
heading as this:
WHEN l GET YOU ALONE To-
NIGHT!
The little daughter of the poor
huns the chorus, for the song is all
the go; presently she leaves the
movie show and gains the street out
side. 1t may be that she finds her
self in the street called straight
Or it may be that she finds herself
in another street entirely, depending
somewhat upon the girl and somewhat
upon the influence around her, and
depending particularly upon such in
fiuences IS the song, which she has
just .hsard and which she is humming
as she steps out into the night.
But it is the home which is the
final lair of the popular song.
| The piano, the cabinet organ, the
talking machine and every other musl-
cal instrument cali for the popular
song.
| 1t needs only short memory to
recollect the time when such cali
was answered by songs like Kathleen
Mavourneen, Believe Me, or In Days
of Old.
Now, however, if your daughter is
entertaining caller they no longer
sing such simple songs. Listen and
you will hear them shouting: Put
Your Arms Around Me Honey. OF
Cuddle Up Closer, or some similar
erotic syncopation.
Moreover, it isn't necessarily your
daughters steady" young man who
lis singing thess songs with her. It's
any young man.
And their only excuse for singing
such stuff is that they're the latest
| popular successes.
lyrics of license, and virtue finds =
self assailed in its last retreat.
| Let us 60 back long, long way
ana ask ourselves how people ever
started to sing, and why they go Oh
singing.
In its purest sense, song is a mode
of expression used when the spirit OF
life is SO stirred that it bursts from
| the confines of ordinary speech and
rises into harmony.
>
song is child of the spirit.
Then what pity, when we ought
to be rejoicing and uplifting our souls
/! in song, to find that the wells of har-
mony are being polluted with moral
poison
| We search for reasons. Why are
such songs sung?
! For the slightest and yet for the
strongest Of reasons.
Why does bride wear veil? And
why does a man have lapels on his
coat?
Because such things are thu style.
So, too, with suggestive ragtime
songs. They're the style, the latest
/ popular successes. II you don't know
them, you're not up to date.
| 1t is a mournful commentary upon
public manners that our sons and
/ 6aughtsrs must be in touch with filth
I in order to be UP to date.
/ But 1t isn't only mournful com
] mentary. 1t is a fact. And, as a fact
it's thing to be faced.
| Another angle Of the question arises
/ for further consideration. We are al
/ familiar with the force Of repetition
/ upon old and maturs minds.
/ The great advertising campaigns O
i the country are based upon this force
I Education itself depends upon it.
! We become convinced of the mer
/ its OF a certain biscuit because it l!
| impressed upon us everywhere W.
turn. And for the same reason it be
/ comes a part of our thought that twt
and two make four.
If reiteration has this power upol
strong minds, consider its effect up
on young and impressionable under
standings. The fye-dollar shop CIR
is wording in the basement of a store
In the music department piano \
banking away at some such lesson "a
morality as
LOVE MY WIFE, BUT o YOU KID
Around the girl on every hand II
No. I'll -,