The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-01-13
MODERN DANCE WRECKS WOMANHOOD AND
RUINS HOMES SAYS EVANGELIST VOM BRUcH
BRANDS 1T AS
MAIN HIGHWAY
TO CRIME, VICE
Especial to The Argus.)

or the Modern Dance" before an
audience that packed the Armory
theatre and established new rec
ord for the campaign. The evan
gelist said in part:
/ 1.-The modern dance is the amuse-
ment that every true believer in
Christ calls repulsive. The nearer
one gets to God the less he cares
for it. It is that amusement that
every church is against. For over
one hundred years theologians such
as Bociver, Sabetti and Sartoi have
Numbered out against the dance.
In the Protestant Episcopal
church authorities such as Bishop
Hopkins, Bishop Mead and Bishop
Cox have voiced the sentiments of
their church against the dance. The
Methodist church condemns it. as
do also the Baptist, Congregation
al, Presbyterian and other church
es. God pity the church member
or pastor whose conception of
Christ rises no higher than the
bunny hug, turkey trot, tango, hest
tation, Texas Tommy, fox trot.
shimmy dance, seagull swoop, and
skunk-wa1tZ
@Nething Good In It"
Now, what good is there in it?
Does the dance promote spiritual
life? Does the dance strengthen
the soul to resist temptation? Does
the dance lead to a clearer concep-
ton of God and duty? Does the
dance increase your love to your
fellow man and your devotion to
God? MOI The dance robs the
spiritual life OF its victims. Ask
the dancer his or her views of
life. and they are not much. The
dance diminishes the spirit of prTy-
er and interest in spiritual things
and disqualifies a person for earn
est efforts to lead men from wrong
to right, from sin to salvation.
THE dance is the carnival of
death to spiritual life Many have
gone to Sodom from the Sunday
school The modern dance is in no
sense conducive to Christian life.
The scant, low-necked, clinging
dresses of the women, and the close
mingling of the sexes can in no
sense be conductive to morality
! This may be strong language. yet
sex is the undoubted basis of the
modern dance. Mothers, l believe
| in pleasure, but when the virtue of
your daughters hang in the bal
ance. I protest. The Christian who
winks at the dance and other de-
vices of the devil soon becomes the
| laughing stock of sinners, infideis,
skeptics and Golfers.
"Destreys HEALTH
1.-The dance is the carnival OF
death to health. 1t destroys health.
More dissipation goes on because
of the dance than any other thing,
and then some say, 1 dance for eX-
ercise.' Do you? The dance VIC
lates every known law of health
The medical profession as whole
denounce it as destroyer of
health The late hours, the impure
air breathed into the lungs for
hours at a time. the scant clothing
of the dancers. the overheated
body, the fagged-out muscles and
the tenseness of the nervous sys-
tem-all these things tend to lower
ones vitality and allow the germs
of disease to breed and multiply.
"The dance is the carnival of
death to morality. II dancing is so
uplifting, if dancing is such re
fined influence, why is il that the
lower the scale of morality in a
community, the more dancing?
Where is the most dancing going
on in the cities tonight? In the
slums, in the saloons and brothels.
Why? A low scale of morality is
the answer Dancing appeals to the
sensualities of the sexes. Take sex
out and you have ruined the dance
business. Out of 100000 fallen
women in the United States, statis-
tics show that seven-tenths went
there through the dance. A Cath
Ollie priest of New York said his
confessional had proved that three
fourths of the girls that have con-
fessed to him lay the blame on the
dance. The dance takes $4,000 OF
our young people out of our high
schools every year Read the dane
ing masters books, From the Ball
Room to He'll, and F. A. Faulkner's
book, The Lure of the Dance He's
been behind the scenes. He knows.
"kills MOdesty."
The greatest shield to virtue is
modesty. The dance is the carni-
val of death to modesty, for in no
society, outside of a brothel, is such
familiarity tolerated as in the
dance. Girls. when you let man
put his arms around you, you let
down the bars and lead to all sorts
OF license. Girls, beware The
dance leads to too much familiarity
and consequent regrets. The dance
is the carnival of death to virtue.
And as it is the carnival of death
to virtue so is it also the carnival
of death to Christian influence.
Thank God that there are some
mothers who would rather their
children wabble like a hippopota-
mus than to have their girls risk
their honor upon a dance floor to
learn gracefulness. There's great
danger in how we teach our young
people to be graceful. II you think
close bodily contact, and whirling
around in another's arms, is for
making one strong and graceful,
there is something wrong with you.
Mothers, lend not your daughters
to this school of lust.
Graceful and beautiful said
one, is the girl who has never been
taught the blush of the modern
dance. Sweet is her friendship
whose aim in life is TO impart to
others the joy and peace she has
found in Christ Surely the dance
is the carnival of death to spiritual
power.