Connecticut western news., 1914-09-17
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| wandering girl. We gave her slam last week because she deserves one, she is getting altogether too fresh and too much of general nuisance, and us we boys have had to bear not only the blame of their own wanderings but that of the girl wanders who gladly went with them and boldly led the way. We are handing out the truth in chunks. Yes, we have the wandering boy in our midst, no doubt and also the wan dering girl; but who is primarily to blame? The grown people, the older ones, grown in wisdom and experience; Pa and Ma Public; the bachelor man and maid, long past their youth; the old saints and the old sinner; the whole social fabric is to blame for the wan derings the s.de-steppings,, the moral lawlessness of the young girl and man. Hear this. Silence gives consent. To tolerate or pretend not to notice evil conditions is to accept and countenance them. The treat world public, toler.
 
 incredible they should ever be heard outside of brothel. Our boys the girls, some of them, sing them openly in their hon es, and the public listens to the m in shows where the girls do not wear clothes enough to wad DO gun. Nasty literature floods the papers and magazines. Indecent post cards are let loose by the ton and the wander. ing girl does not scruple to mail them to young men-the worst one are I usually sent in an envelope. Who sanctions by their toleration these post cards? The public, the world social body. Who tolerates the indecent dances? What can we expect of the young when the old set bad examplesy We frankly wonder that any of our young people in this day and genera. tion can possibly be moral or decent. The average girl aud the average young man managcs to get by some way, we don't know how, but it is a miracle how they escape utter moral ruin. The popular" song alone is an offence against c, mmon decency.. The other day at one of our big fairs, we stopped to listen to a song coming from one of the new Edison victrolas. It happened to be Darling am Growing Old. !" Beautiful voices were singing it. The expression on the faces of old and young who listened was, oh so different from that we see when such nartiness as Smoky Ookums," "I always dream of Bill, and dozens, yes hun dreds of dozen of such like rotten songs that cater to the lowest impulses of humanity, are sung, poor such ridiculed little love song of few decades ago ! but how clean and beautiful the senti- ment of the words, how sweet the sim pie melody and such songs as were then sung toucht d the heart. No hint of an evil sugges tion in melody or verse. Holy and sacred emotions of the human hearts are, today, being defiled, cheap ened and coarsened by the unspeakably vile songs, and the dances and the lack of clothes on our women and girls, and the foul performances of vaudeville and roof garden, the suggestiveness in most of the popular plays-all these and thousand other things turn the thought of youth toward evil instead of good. Do not blame the wandering boy or girl. Society permits the moral snares; the social pitfalls; the stream of moral pitch are allowed to flow unchecked in city and town and hamlet A few good moral people get together every Sunday and the preacher breaches to these same people. Nobody is touched. No one is awakened to his or her public duty or moral responsibility to the young. If the good people were as strenouus to destroy the works of the devil, as the evil doers are to build up and further all his works. We should have fewer wandering boys and girls at night
 Let us wind up with one or two more big chunks of truth. The great ma jority of our young people in every community reflect the character of their surroundings. They become what the older ones who mould public opinion determine. If there is more pitch than clean white sand to play with then there will be fewer clean souls and bodies among our young people. Un- derstand that young girls and boys under 20 do not set up the standards of morality, or make laws, or public opinion. Older folks do all this. You elders can't sanction saloons, evil re- suits, the doings of bad men and women, nor tolerate bad songs, pictures, nasty postcards, lewd dances or litera- ture, bold undress, vile plays, bad habits and conduct in the young-all these, and much more, you cannot sanction or tolerate, and expect that nothing evil shall happen to our young folk. When druggists license means that man can sell drink by the thim- ble full or pint tumbler, why blame the saloon bar alone for the ruin of decent young men? You can't fence in yard by putting the yard outside the fence. Without enforced law and moral restrictions, without the open contempt and displeasure Openly ex. pressed), of that most powerful factor, public opinion, for wrong doing and the evil in our midst, and without de- termined action to drive out the things