Great Falls daily tribune., 1920-06-19

New York, June 18.-From the police
department of this city emanates the
glad news that by using pretty blonde
girls as bait the blue-coated guardians
of our moral welfare succeeded in ar
resting four flirtatious men on recent
holiday.
1t is true that this is a relatively
small percentage of the young men in
New York who are inclined to smile at
pretty girls on a holiday, and it seems
unfair in a way that these four should
lion of other criminals of the same
stripe run at large. But obviously, an
example must be made of someone If
the wave of springtime flirtatiousness
whcih is sweeping over the country is
to be checked. Like bolshevism, profit
eering and the illicit consumption OF
hard liquor, it calls for strenuous pun
tive measures.
Beyond a doubt" says Dr. A. Spool
induffer, the eminent psychologist, in
formal statement, there is strong and
growing tendency on the part of the
American male to flirt with the Amer
icar female. This indecorous, not to
say immoral tendency has been observed
from the earliest times. Even in Pur
itan New England in Colonial days
when winking at girl was crime pun
ishable by confine ment in the public
stocks, It was found impossible wholly
to suppress it. The tendency is seen AT
it's worst among the very young. but in
some verile specimens it persists to an
astonishingly advanced age. The enor-
nous recent growth of the crime of
flirting or mashing must be ascribed to
a growing laxity of conduct in general
and also to the rise of the short skirt,
the peek-a-boo or pneumonia shirt
waist, face powder, rouge and other first
aids to feminine pulchritude. 1t should
be promptly and dras.ically suppressed
by proper punitive measures, by dress
reform laws. and by propaganda de-
signed to include a sterner moral stam-
ina in the rising generation"
More UpIIft Coming.
The campaign against mashing of the
great New York police department,
which has already earned an enviable
reputation by it's enforcement of a
rigorous morality and its freedom from
graft and scandal of all kinds, together
with the impressive statement Of DR..
Spoofinduffer, is taken here to herald
a nationwide campaign against moral
laxity in the relations of men and wom
en-, which may be not without its effect
upon national politics. 1t is pointed out
that the uplift forces have already COM
pletely banished alcohol from our midst
and that all of their plans are made
for prohibition of smoking and the use
of tobacco in all other forms. 1t is even
reported that a private association for
the Improvement of the morals of others
is already giving examinations in order
to select a number of agents with espe
cially gifted olfactory powers. The duty
of these minions Of rectitude will be to
patrol resident sections mad sniff the
air in order to detect the illicit smoker
and bring him to justice.
The important point, however is that
the powerful uplft element, having
abolished alcohol and tobacco, will al
most inevitably turn to flirting and sex
ual morality in general as the last of
the great trio of temptations which be-
set mankind, and the logical next step
in the movement toward absolute moral
perfection. That the issue should ulti-
mately get into national politics seems
most probable, and candidate for the
presidency on a platform of 100 per
cent morality may well be a feature of
the 1910 campaign
A Department of Conduct.
An enormous national department for
the enforcement of all moral uplift leg