(Discusses present-day sex arrangements, as they affect the future generation.) Our first task is to consider how people actually behave in the matter of sex—as distinguished from the way they pretend to behave. The first and most necessary step in the cure of any disease is a correct diagnosis, and in this case we have not merely to make the diagnosis, but to prove it; because the most conspicuous fact about our present sex-arrangements is a mass of organized concealment. Not merely do teachers and preachers for the most part suppress all mention of these subjects; but the defenders of our present economic disorder are accustomed to acclaim the private property régime as the only basis of family life. So long as people hold such an idea, there is no use trying to teach them anything on the subject. There is no use talking to them about monogamous love, because all they understand is hypocrisy. In this chapter, therefore, we shall proceed to hold up the mirror in front of capitalist morality.
I pause and consider: Where shall I begin? At the top of society, or at the bottom? With the city or the country? With the old or the young? I think you care most of all about your boys and girls, so I am going to tell you what is happening to the youth of America in these days of triumphant reaction.
I have a son, about whom naturally I think a great deal; just now he is a student at one of our state universities, and he wrote me the other day: "I went to a dance, and believe me, father, if you knew what these modern dances mean, you would write something about them." I know what they mean. They have come to us straight from the brothels of the Argentine, among the vilest haunts of vice in the world. Others have come from the jungle, where they were natural. The poor creature of the jungle has his sex-desire and nothing else; he is not troubled with brains, he does not have a complicated social organism to build up and protect, consequently he does not need what are called "morals." But we civilized people need morals, and we are losing them, and our society is disintegrating, going back to the howling and fighting and cannibalism of the jungle.
Prof. William James, America's greatest psychologist, tells us that going through the motions appropriate to an emotion automatically causes that emotion to be felt. If you watch an actor preparing to rush on the stage in an emotional scene, you will see him walking about, clenching his fists, stamping his feet, making ferocious faces, "working himself up." And now, what do you think is going on in the minds of young men and women, while with their bodies they are going through procedures which are nothing and can be nothing but imitations of sexual contact?
The parents, it appears, are ignorant and unsophisticated, and have left it for the children to find out what these dances mean. In Rhode Island, one of our oldest states, is Brown College, chosen by New England's aristocracy for the education of its sons; and these boys go to social affairs in the best homes in Providence, and they call them "petting-parties." And here is what they write in their college paper:
"The modern social bud drinks, not too much, often, but enough. She smokes unguardedly, swears considerably, and tells 'dirty' stories. All in all, she is a most frivolous, passionate, sensation-seeking little thing."
This statement, published in a college paper, causes a scandal, and a newspaper reporter goes to interview the college boy who edits the paper, and this boy talks. He tells how he met a lovely girl at a dance, and his heart was thrilled with the rapture of young love. "Frankly, between you and me, I was pretty smitten with this particular little lady. Felt about her, don't you know, like a real guy feels about the girl he could imagine himself married to. Thought she was too nice to touch, almost; you know the grave sort of love affair a man always has once in a lifetime. Well, we walked a bit, and I guess I didn't say much, for a while. I felt plenty—respectfully—just the same. And as we turned the corner of one of the buildings here, she grasped my hand. Hers was trembling. 'Love and let love is my motto, dearie,' said this seraph of my dreams; 'come, we're losing a lot of time getting started.' That girl thought I was dead slow. She didn't know that just then I imagined the great love of my life was just entering the door. It was cruel the way she got down from the pedestal I had built for her."
Suppose I should ask you to name the influence that is having most to do with shaping the thoughts of young America—what would you answer? Undoubtedly, the moving pictures. It is from the "movies" that your children learn what life is; if I can show you that a certain thing is in the "movies," you can surely not deny that it is passing every day and night into the hearts and minds of millions of our boys and girls. Take a vote among the girls, what would they consider the most delightful destiny in life; surely nine out of ten would answer, to become a screen star, and pose before a world of admirers, and be paid a million dollars a year. Make a test and see; and put that fact together with the one I have already stated, that in order to get an important job in the "movies," a girl must regularly and as a matter of course part with her virtue.
You will be told, no doubt, that this is a slanderous statement, so let me give you a little evidence. I happened within the past year to be in the private office of a well known moving picture producer, a man who is married, and takes care to tell you that he loves his wife. He was producing a play, the heroine of which was supposed to be a daughter of Puritan New England. To play this part he had engaged a chaste girl, and as a result was in the midst of a queer trouble, which he poured out to me. His "leading man" had refused to act with this girl, insisting that no girl could act a part of love unless she had had passionate experience; no such thing had ever been heard of in moving pictures before. Likewise, the director agreed that no girl who is chaste could act for the screen, and the producer asked my advice about it. Mr. William Allen White, of Kansas, was present in the office, and authorizes me to state that he substantiates this anecdote. We both advised the producer to stand by the girl, and he did so; and the picture went out, and proved to be what in trade parlance is termed a "frost"; that is to say, your children didn't care for it, and it cost the producer something like a hundred thousand dollars to make this attempt to defy the conventions of the moving picture world.
I will tell you another story. I have a friend, a prominent man in Los Angeles, who was appealed to by a young lady who wished to act in the "movies." My friend introduced this young lady to a very prominent screen actor, who in turn introduced her to one of the biggest producers in America, one of the men whose "million dollar feature pictures" are regularly exploited. The producer examined the young lady's figure, and told her that she would "do"; he added, quite casually, and as a matter of course, that she would be expected to "pay the price." The young lady took exception to this proposition, and gave up the chance. She told my friend about it, and he, being a man of the world, accustomed to dealing with the foibles of his fellowmen, wrote a note to the actor, explaining that inasmuch as this young lady had been socially introduced to him, and by him socially introduced to the manager, she should not have been expected to "pay the price." To this the actor answered that my friend was correct, and he would see the manager about it. The manager conceded the point, and the young lady got her chance in the "movies" and made good without "paying the price." This story tells you all you need to know about the difference in sex ethics that society applies to the "lady" and to the daughter of the common people.
You know, of course, what is the stock theme of all moving pictures—the virtuous daughter of the people, who resists all temptations, and is finally rescued from her would-be seducer by the strong and sturdy arm of a male doll. Could one ask a more perfect illustration of capitalist hypocrisy than the fact that the girl who plays this role is required to pay with her virtue for the privilege of playing it! And if you know anything about young girls, you can watch her playing it on the screen, and see from her every gesture that what I am telling you is true. My wife knows young girls, and I took her, the other day, to see a moving picture. She said: "I have solved a problem. When I come home on the street-cars, it happens that I ride with a lot of young girls from the high school. I have been watching them, and I couldn't imagine what was the matter with them. All simple, girlish straightforwardness is gone out of them; they are making eyes, in the strangest manner—and at nobody; just practicing, apparently. They wear yearning facial expressio............