Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-12-21
CLUBS FOR THE LONELY
By Frederic j. Haskin
TEW YORK CITY, Dec. 16.-New York
y has a new and novel club which is at

club, which means simply the Registered Ac-
quaintance Dance club.
| Ostensibly, the only object o. the club is to
give dances, but really it's big purpose is to
combat loneliness-suppOsed to be the special
curse of New : Ork-by promoting sociabil-
ity on "a large scale. Every week or so, the
R. A. d. club gives d larg- dance, Usually in
the ballroom of one of the big hotels, where,
discarding the Formally of an Introduction,
all the members proceed to get acquainted
and exchange Gances with each other, secure
in the knowledge that the strangers they are
dancing with are quite respectable.
For the club guarantees that Anybody in
New York can apply for membership in the
club, but not everybody is eligible. 1t all de-
ponds upon how satisfactorily he or she fills
out the pertient (some say impertinent) lit
tie blank attached to the membership card,
which requires a great deal of information.
In addition to name, age, and address the
club registrar must know the name of the
applicants home town, If he is not a New
| Yorker; when he left it, and the length Of
time he has been ii. New York; whether he is
single, married, or widowed; his occupation,
present employer and employers within the
last four years, and the names CT the schools
and colleges he has attended-in fact, all the
details which any American mother would be
glad to know about her childrens acquain-
ances, but seldom does.
| At the end of the blank moreover, Is a
space for the names of two references, called
|
the names - buA less men, physicians or
other professional men, school or college Of
| ficials or clergymen would be preferred. The
blanks are examined and filed in the club
headquarters, and the references Investigated.
| The Social Procedure
Having satisfied the club authorities in
this respect, any member is eligible to meet
any other member ''Your membership is
your introuI I'll n" is the club slogan. If an
r. A. D. youth sees an unknown r. A. D. flap
per with whom he would like to dance, he
does not wait to be introduced, but goes and
asks her. Usually, he says something like
this:
S'How do you do? My name is Smith. You
look as if you danced awfully we'll. Will you
| let me have One?"
| To which the r. A. D. f1apper replies in this
vein: $50 glad to meet you, Mr.. Smith. My
name is Jones. Yes, can let you have the
ninth"
"The R. A. S. club wishes to emphasize
that there =; no 'jinx in it's plan," said the
secretary of he club in explaining the idea
Members are not expected to contribute time
or money to any uplift or welfare schemes,
and they will not be made the subjects of
any uplift welfare work themselves. 1t
is dancing club, and the members join to
dance with each other, and not to read
Browning, listen to lectures on Yogiisrl or the
| fall of the Roman Empire, or join in fiery
debates on the social significance of modern
| oil u 4NOpOu 10 puLCluS up ZIG uOACy-tuC
club is entirely self-supporting and has been
from it's start. The initiation fee is dollar
and the dances are dollar week, If paid
for monthly, although tickets for single
dances may be obtained If arranged for in
advance Guest tickets are issued only to
prospective members. There are dancing in
structors the floor, for whose service an
extra charge is made.
"Ohr present membership consists chiefly
of college men and girls, and OF the profes.
MI
doctors, teachers, artists, writer's, men who
are in banks-a bank president or two-and
! most of these young people, apparently in
| their late twenties."
When asked about the clubs origin, the
secretary explained the idea had occurred to
a few officials in the New York community
service, after a particularly violent attack of
some prominent clergyman on the city's
dance halls.
"But believe in dance halls" declared a
woman official connected with the service,
adding an authoritative voice to the discus
sion. "Why shouldn't there be dance halls?
know from experience in my social service
work that the public dance hall is the only
means by which many young men and women
can make acquaintance in New York City.
normal social life is one of the hardest things
to procure in New York. Of course, such
halls can be abused, but with proper super
vision I should think"
eyes, so should IT, declared another Off
c1al, and why not start one with proper su-
pervision?"
Out of this discussion grew the idea of the
R. A. D club, which is the most notable and
progressive of all the various organizations
that have been designed to prevent loneli-
ness since the var. The war was the great
awakener to the community's responsibility
in this respect With all the society flappers
rushing around and dancing with strange SOL
diers and sailors, and with their mothers
chaperoning informal entertainments for war
workers, and with people inviting both
strange war ;ors and war workers to their
houses for week-ends and Sunday dinners
formal customs were bound to suffer, and
they have bG9n suffering ever since. In the
middle west, especially the custom of invit-
ing lonely strangers to dinners and evening"
parties still fol rishes to amazing degree
| There is Marie couple in Akron, Ohio,
| for instance, who have recently received
great deal of publicity because they have inau-
gurated public at-home Wednesday evening.
sometimes they entertain as many as forty
/ five persons, mostly strangers to them, in
their attractive suburban home. Autos meet
the guests at the station and carry them to
a wide porch hung with Japanese lanterns,
where they are usually greeted by the small
daughter of the household, and led upstairs
to take off their things.
The whole atmosphere is delightfully."- in
formal and homelike. The hostess does not
in the least mind having a dozen or more
and coats on her bed and she never COM
plains when some bashful youth scratches
| her favorte Victrola record. The only at
tempt to keep track of people at all is by
tagging each with card bearing his name,
| So as to eliminate the nuisance of extensive
Iintroductions
A Novel Hostess
who