Evangelist Martin on "The Three Social Evils"

California, 1921

"If laws were passed in the state of California making it unlawful for men to dance with women other than their own wives, and allowing single men to dance with each other, and not with single women, the dance craze would soon be abated," declared Evangelist T. T. Martin, addressing a union meeting in the Twenty-third Avenue Baptist church yesterday afternoon on "The Three Social Evils — Dancing, Card Playing and Moving Pictures."

"In San Francisco," he continued, "statistics show that 75 percent of fallen women come from dance halls.

"The harm of the dance comes in the contact of the sexes and should be abolished for that reason. Although the dance ruins many women, the great sufferers are of the sterner sex. Where the dance ruins one woman it harms a dozen men."

Card playing and moving pictures were both condemned by the evangelist. "If card playing, one of the great social evils, is to be abolished, the women must cease gathering around their bridge tables. Were that the case, the men would not gather at their poker tables."

—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, March 7, 1921, p. 8.

Priest Says Tango is Doing God's Will

1914

St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 7. — Girls who whirl in the dizzy tango and kick up their heels and exhibit their ankles are doing the will of God, according to the Rev. D. S. Phelan, editor of the Western Watchman. The reverend editor is pastor of a Roman Catholic church here.

The will of God, he says, is that the girls shall get married and bear children and to do that they must exhibit themselves in such wise as to attract the attention of the sterner sex. He rails at the army of "crusty bishops and crabbed priests," reinforced by a lot of rheumatic dancing masters, who are opposing the tango.

In a tango editorial in the current issue of the Western Watchman Father Phelan says in part: "Don't mind, girls. These crusty old priests are only retouching the awful anathemas they formerly launched against the round dance so much in vogue now among our sodalities.

"People do not understand the innocent female mind. These tango dancing girls are engaged in God's work. The bewitching little miss who disports her charms in the ballroom is doing God's work as emphatically as the bishop in his orisons. But, girls, permit us to tell you that the man who falls in love with your pretty face is apt to become a better husband than one who is captured by your ankles. But, face or ankles, you have a right to fascinate him if you can."