"The Clipsheet"

The Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals of the Methodist Episcopal Church, has a publication known as The Clipsheet. The following article recently appeared under the caption "UnAmerican Indecency in New York Theatres:"

For the first time the New York theatre has sunk to depths of indecency which must be characterized as alien.

In years past there has been dirt upon the American stage, but it has been American dirt. It has been foulness which Americans could understand and, while it represented what was lowest in American life, was still human and not beastly.

At present shows are on the American stage which are as foreign to America as anything which would be tolerated in Suez.

Two girl shows in particular are grossly indecent. At one of these shows, girls do dances while practically entirely naked. At another show, which is offered by a man famous in theatrical circles and which is shown at a most prominent theatre, girls troop down to the footlights, naked from the waist up and practically naked from the waist down--don't call it nude, just plain naked.

Taking exception to a "scene in a show where Mr. Ford is made to appear as President, and particularly to a line . . . in regard to 'Axel,' the son of Ford," The Clipsheet commented: "If we were Mr. Ford, this line would be cut out of that show in mighty short order."

It went on:

The dialogue in the first of these shows is sufficiently offensive. In the second it goes far beyond the limits. A scene in the second of these shows is a burlesque on the play, Rain. It makes a joke of the activities of a woman outcast.

Two plays are equally objectionable. One pictures the life of a woman of the streets from childhood in Normandy to old age in Tunis. These theatres are packed with men, women and children.

Never before have leading theatrical producers made such a public appeal in prominent theatres to the physical side of sex emotion. What has heretofore been intimate and personal is dragged out in indecent display. It is not American, never has been American. It never will be American.