Needed: A Moral Housecleaning
Marbury, Elisabeth
517 NEEDED: A MORAL HOUSECLEANING By ELISABETH MARBURY I HAVE been frequently asked to give my opinion as to the most direct method of cleaning up the theatre, and I have not hesitated to answer...
...The undesirable plays are merely the natural development of the tendencies of the day...
...it is because I go out in the world that I know what is going on and whereof I speak...
...While there is little doubt of the need of some immediate and drastic restraint so far as the stage of today is concerned, nevertheless, as I have said both through the spoken and the written word, the influences which are the undercurrents of these salacious performances are to be found primarily in the homes...
...The children are sheltered by so many physical considerations that soon they become sensitive to every wind that blows...
...We have already been forbidden to drink...
...We shall soon be told what food products we are allowed to eat...
...Under the able guidance of Mr...
...They are unjustly held responsible for the abominable methods of education of which they are the victims...
...I believe that instead of raising the standard of so-called modern education, that if we could return to arithmetic, spelling, geography, and grammar, we might be benefited thereby...
...Latch keys and license establish the new order, while these same parents sleep quietly in their beds, undisturbed by the fact that the young people of their family are running wild from one cabaret to another, drinking highballs and cocktails ad lib., and dancing the most vulgar of all modern dances with men they scarcely know or whom they have just casually run across...
...A lady passing by threw up her hands exclaiming, "What is the world coming to, when people no longer believe in God, and no longer believe in shimmies...
...This may seem a dark and exaggerated forecast, but look about today and see how much foundation there is for the gloomy picture...
...If I say anything I am told that I am old-fashioned...
...Affections are mistrusted, impulse to crime becomes natural...
...Is there left any inherent restraint from the inborn recognition that certain things "are not done" ? When one refers to the polite usages of civilized society one is thought to be funny...
...therefore, if it were not proper to be produced, it would not be proper enough to be licensed...
...Learning will be administered in tabloid form...
...Silk socks and silk stockings have taken the place of more substantial hose...
...Will Hays, the moving-picture industry has been morally benefited, and we have grown accustomed to seeing each film now presented bear its license number...
...Take them literally by the hand, make them feel the warmth of sympathy and affection in your grasp, and you will be astonished at the spirit of fine intention you arouse...
...They arc there to listen to prurient speech and to become used to flippant familiarity with vice which is one means of gratifying a vulgar curiosity...
...It is a case of the little learning which is the danger of modern life...
...The more obnoxious the play, the more one sees the matinees full of young girls from sixteen to twenty years of age...
...It is merely a spurious tribute to avoid absolute nudity, and we are now very rapidly traveling back to the primitive attitude of our first parents who, it must be admitted, clutched at fig leaves as a mere concession to propriety...
...That is a luxury we rarely allow ourselves, yet perchance if those who direct modern education would strive to make the young people do a little plain thinking for themselves, the result might be admirable...
...There is nothing that is real, nothing that is sincere...
...Jaws will soon be saved the action of chewing...
...Many subjects are taught, the knowledge of which is useless...
...There would then be no necessity of a jury...
...Personally, I find the youngsters I meet most amenable to reason...
...We shall have no moral vertebrae...
...It is claimed that clothing engenders self-consciousness, and that purity is evolved through the return to nature, all of which is tosh...
...Life is projected through death...
...Years ago, when William Inger-soll was to lecture in Boston, a large placard was placed as announcement in a window wherein were displayed some Jaeger one-piece suits...
...To be fastidious in speech and dignified in deportment qualifies one as a comedian...
...Was there ever a more shallow argument...
...The author and the producer would be heavily fined, and perhaps imprisoned, should they venture to produce a play for which a license had been refused...
...In fact, do we any longer possess standards in taste...
...What has attracted them to these particularly offensive dramatic offerings which have been "written up," which have been condemned or defended at length in the public press ? Is it not safe to assume that they, as well as their parents, know what they go to see ? They do not buy their tickets either inadvertently or ignor-antly, yet there they are in the audience, listening to language that is foul, following a theme which is perverted and revolting, and watching gestures which have but one purpose and one meaning...
...Half of the studies advocated are dictated by the snobbishness of the intelligentsia...
...We shall be morons, in fact...
...We do not need more schools which drive impractical knowledge into puny brains, but we need more schools where characters can be formed—where boys can be made more manly, and where girls can be made more womanly...
...Today, at least, she would have forgotten that such a thing as the last mentioned garment ever existed...
...Does that exist today...
...Brains are befogged...
...They are there to be steeped in what is commonly known as "sex appeal...
...There is practically no self-control, no self-discipline taught in the homes...
...If the young person is sent to a proper school the responsibility of the parents seems now to stop at its threshold...
...We shall not have to decide what books to read or what plays to see because boards of censorship will do all that for us...
...Presumably some of these, at least, are Catholics, educated in Catholic schools and colleges...
...It is because I do keep up with the times, because I am always in contact with "flaming youth...
...This course of procedure is very simple and is operating successfully in London, Boston, and Philadelphia...
...there would be no interference by the police...
...I remember on one occasion, when a lady remarked that she could not afford to join a certain class in literature because she had just bought a very expensive hat, a friend answered: "Is is not extraordinary that you are willing to spend so much in putting something on your head, whereas you will not pay to put something in your head...
...Any opposition to this plan springs, I fancy, from groups who enjoy the importance of forming themselves into committees and of apparently becoming well-advertised guardians of public morals...
...so that in winter there is an annex in the South, whereas in summer some camp is provided either in the Adirondacks or in Maine...
...I am old, but my brain is not obsolete...
...Those ladies of the First Empire who were thought most indecent in their tunics would be today considered too much dressed...
...If the manuscript, when presented to the licenser, contained merely objectionable passages which could either be eliminated or modified, the author would be given the opportunity of revising his play, and of submitting it again before the license were definitely refused...
...It is a very common form of vanity, that of courting newspaper publicity...
...We are constantly informed by the municipal administration that new public schools are needed, that even now in many localities children are only given half time...
...and there would be no procrastination due to legal delays...
...Only in such cases as when the text and treatment were utterly prohibitory and salacious would a license be definitely refused...
...I do not write in any carping or reactionary spirit...
...If the parents are asked why they permit their children to attend plays of this character they invariably use the now familiar slogan: "What can I do...
...Everything now is masticated in advance...
...We see the same letting down of moral standards in literature, in art, and in society...
...Various climates are taken into serious consideration...
...Confusion follows, and in some cases suicide results...
...The ordinary experiences of tramping over snow, through mud, or despite obstacles, is eliminated so far as is possible with the result that our next generation will literally be raised in a bed of roses...
...Private schools are multiplying, but in order to vie with each other in the successful patronage of the wealthy, devices of all kinds are introduced...
...Even when people were not influenced through religious belief, they were controlled by a refinement resulting from tradition and good breeding...
...We seem always ready to do everything but think...
...The careful study given to a reduction of garments and the search for a tint of flesh color in the selection of stockings do not indicate that our poor little dears are ignoring their bodies as seductive assets...
...They have a good understanding of cause and effect to which one can appeal...
...Is to be "old-fashioned" of greater importance than to sit by, supinely allowing a child's unformed character and limited intelligence to dictate the outgoings and incomings of his or her life without either let or hindrance...
...I shall, not refer to parents who possess no religious belief, but I particularly wish to ask Catholic fathers and mothers what they intend to do to restrain the conditions which have been springing up...
...There is, so far as I can see, no real objection to finding a second Will Hays for plays...
...thus there is no valid reason why this same experiment should not be made in New York...
...As for citizenship, all responsibilities will be spared through additional legislation...
...Since when has the Church sanctioned the utter liberty of conduct which now prevails—since when have parents been encouraged to let their children do as they please—and since when have they been excused from all sense of personal responsibility in the upbringing of their boys and girls...
...517 NEEDED: A MORAL HOUSECLEANING By ELISABETH MARBURY I HAVE been frequently asked to give my opinion as to the most direct method of cleaning up the theatre, and I have not hesitated to answer that the only practical expedient is to appoint an official licenser in whom will be vested the power to determine as to the fitness of each and every manuscript which will be submitted...
...Morbid introspection, deplorable self-consciousness seizes the imagination of the young student...
...But one of the main troubles today is that nothing is really done for our boys and girls but to preach at them...
...they are there to learn more of those influences against which they have always been warned by the Church to which they belong...
...This would avoid all publicity and all delay...
...We shall soon become such moral pigmies and such spineless creatures that we can sit down and wait to be instructed by those paid to make us decent or to prevent us from becoming indecent...
...No effort of any kind will be necessary...
...If, in my remarks, I make any statements which cannot be proven accurate, I admit the right of challenge ; otherwise I trust that those who may read what I have to say will at least be honest with themselves...
...Those who, as described by Mark Twain, wore only strings of beads and a smile would not feel too much out of place in the modern drawing-room...
...Evidently this is not the country nor the era when the quiet worker in God's vineyard is easy to find...
...No play could then be produced without a license...
...Everything is born of the physical, nothing is restrained through the moral...
Vol. 5 • March 1927 • No. 19
