T

I

DANGER SIGNS

HOSE who believe in the exalted mission of American democracy and hope for the fulfillment of its sublime destiny as the archetype in free government for other peoples, may well take serious thought of the growing toleration by the public of the shockingly immoral publications which have come into the hands of the rising generation.

The laws declaring the circulation of such publications a crime, were, down to the period of the World War, generally effective. Then the barriers were lowered permitting the purveyors of licentiousness to pervert the minds and pollute the souls of our sons and daughters. This is strong language; but no language is strong enough to adequately picture the depths of infamy to which certain publishers have descended in issuing for general circulation obscene, lewd, lascivious, immoral, filthy, indecent, impure and disgusting books, magazines, pamphlets and other prints. Those eight adjectives are taken from the law itself, which selects them to describe the character of publications which are prohibited from being published.

Sodom and Gomorrah were not the only cities

which fell through corruption of the morals of their people. Many cities and nations have risen, flourished and died since their day and the downfall of every one of them was presaged by a growing sexual laxity and a prevailing indifference to an insistence on the maintenance of public morality.

No country in the world has had so high a standard of personal conduct in this respect as our own. The foundation stones of the Republic's greatness were laid on the bedrock of sound morality. Nowhere in all the world has womanhood been so exalted and reverenced as in the United States, which has won for itself among the nations of the earth the proud title of "The Paradise of Women."

"The grandeur that was Rome" was won while her people adhered to their ancient rigid code of moral conduct. When the sterling virtues of the republic gave way to the profligacy of the empire Rome's doom was sealed as surely as that of Sodom and Gomorrah.

It requires but a cursory examination of existing conditions to realize how we, in this country, have begun to drift away from our old moral ideals within the past few years. Whether this be due to an essential drop in moral tone or comes as part of the aftermath of the World War is a moot question. Probably it should be regarded as one of the well-nigh countless evils which the war-demons scattered over the face of the whole earth.

But it is a waste of energy to debate the character of the agencies which have brought about the change. Enough that it has been wrought, and the fact is a challenge to every moral teacher, to every parent, every patriot in the land to do battle against the immoral influences the tendencies of which are to corrupt private and public morals and undermine the social structure of the nation.

In the theatres, debasing plays are produced, which are not merely tolerated, but greeted with loud acclaim by crowded houses. But, after all, the theatrical phase of this propaganda of immorality is not nearly so insidious and difficult to combat as that which is effected by depraving publications.

Printed obscenity has countless distributing agencies and preys upon the souls and bodies of millions in secret. Once permit an immoral publication to go into print and it becomes a source of evil influences from generation to generation. The high price of admission charged for a single evening at an indecent show, sets a limit on the scope of its evil influence. As a rule, parents are able to keep a check upon the attendance of their children at the theatres. Not so with printed immorality. It is obtainable by young and old at news stands, at stationery stores, and from circulating libraries at a nominal cost. And the fact is that bad as some theatrical shows are, their promoters would not dare to produce the hideous depravity that is