Wickedness

Trusting Providence to let fall upon him the mantle of Fundamentalist leadership which the late W. J. Bryan wore without rival, John Roach Straton, loud Manhattan pastor, has toured from pulpit to pulpit. The sermon which has packed churches miles from Broadway, reaches its climax in a rhapsodic disruption of the modern dance. The climax, as delivered in Louisville, northern capital of territory which Fundamentalism holds in almost unbroken sway, follows verbatim:

"That I might not be accused of speaking from mere hearsay, I selected some well-posted young men to accompany me, and went incognito upon a round of investigation of the dance halls.

"I cannot begin to tell you, my friends, what I saw and heard in those places, all of which were supposed to be 'respectable.' I can give you only the faintest idea in this address. In one dance hall, which had been formerly a great skating rink, we saw between 5,000 and 6,000 young men and women, on Saturday night, when they danced until Sunday morning. They were crowded in closely together, and were surging up and down the great dance hall floor, locked tightly in each other's embrace, in many cases with the cheek of the girl against the cheek of the man, as they went gliding across the floor, to the sensuous strains of oriental music, varied, from time to time, by the clanging discords of a jazz band, their bodies vibrating together and often coming into postures that were positively indecent. And all of this in an atmosphere that was strongly tainted by cigaret smoke and the fumes of whisky, which was being sold in cold-blooded violation of the Constitution of the United States..

"We saw tipsy girls, as well as men, in all of the halls visited; and in one place, we saw young women who were raving drunk, some of them surging out of the hall on to the street outside, with their loud talking. "We were solicited again and again in these places by the 'instructors' or 'dancing partners,' as they are called. Though they had these plausible titles, they were nothing more than women of the town. "I would hate and loathe myself, if I could stand in the presence of such sights as I saw in the dance halls and not find myself stirred with wrath, and if my cheeks did not grow with hot shame, not merely that the human race had fallen so low in its tastes, but that men, for the sake of dirty gain, should be thus permitted to prostitute youth and to put a mortgage of immorality upon the coming generations !

"Yes, though I am not advanced in years, I confess that I am old- fashioned. I am so old-fashioned that my mind cannot discriminate between a young man hugging a young woman sitting upon a sofa, or hugging her upon the dance hall floor. And if the demands of modesty, and the requirements of sound social custom prohibit such a practice in the one case, I cannot see why they should not prohibit it in the other. For surely, my friends, if there is any choice between the two things, the odds are all in favor of the hugging on the sofa, as the dance is hugging set to music, and music always has an exciting effect.

"In the case of the dance, the two bodies are in closer proximity! They are in rhythmical motion, one against the other, and the stimulus of music, as well as bodily contact, is there to heighten the danger of wreck or ruin.

"The weak excuses which some church people make in justification of the dance are indeed idle. Some say that we ought to dance for the sake of 'grace.' But the very idea of anybody developing grace by learning to bounce like a bunny and trot like a fox and gallop like a goose and grapple like a grizzly bear and shake like a plate of gelatin with the St. Vitus dance!

"No! The only grace in the modern dance is the disgrace of it, and especially as applied to church members.

"I am well aware that some church members of today dance. I am persuaded, however, this is because they have never really stopped to think of the issue. Very earnestly and very humbly, therefore, I wish to raise the issue in the minds of all such people. Again and again I have had church members say to me following the presentation of the thought contained in this address:

"'I had never considered it at all in that light, and I shall never dance again.'"