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DISCUSSION

REV. CHARLES K. GILBERT: I feel that whatever I may have to say on this subject must sound very superficial after the two splendid papers which we have heard. I wish I could feel myself as well qualified to speak on this subject as these two who have preceded me. It may be that my right to speak at all will be questioned because I am frank to confess that I have not seen all the sex plays in New York; and I confess I have not very much desire to do so. I have seen some of them; I have read some of the books upon which some of them are based, and I have followed with considerable care the newspaper criticisms and I have talked very carefully with a great many people who have seen these plays -people of various types of mind, and I have learned enough to convince me that so far as the interests for which this Society stands-interests which seek the development and promotion of sex education--the stage today has absolutely no value. On the contrary, I think it is at present a positive menace so far as those higher interests of the movement for sex education are concerned.

Now having made that confession of my belief I wish to qualify it. I honestly believe that "Damaged Goods" did accomplish something which was worth while when it was first produced, under the particular auspices under which it was produced. I know of parents who took their sons and their daughters to see that play, and who imparted to their children through that play a lesson which they, themselves, lacked equipment or courage to impart. But the conditions have changed; and I believe that today we must class "Damaged Goods" with the numerous other stage productions which are, by reason of the remarkable twist in popular sentiment which has so recently taken place, a positive menace to any sane attempt to enlighten in matters of sex.

We don't need to be told that sex plays have "caught on." They are exceedingly popular. That, I take it, is why we have so many of them. We cannot hold that our theatrical managers are impelled by any very geunine desire to uplift the morals of the community in exploiting these sex plays. They are capitalizing

a popular interest in sex problems for the tremendous profit involved.

All of you have seen, I am sure, what the newspapers have had

to say about "The House of Bondage," and the recent action of the police in prohibiting its production. Some of you perhaps may have read the book and know what the play is like. After the police had raided the play, the managers of some of the downtown theatres at once bestirred themselves to secure the right to produce it. The police had suddenly made it "popular." Nevertheless, I believe that this Society at this meeting would make no mistake if it could devise some way to commend the action of Commissioner Newburger and Magistrate McAdoo with reference to that particular play. They deserve the commendation which might well come from this Society.

One is moved to ask, what is the motive which has inspired the theatrical managers to put on all these sex plays with which we are being deluged today? Is it any honest desire to contribute to what we call "sex education"? Are they really trying to improve the morals of the community? And why, again, are these places being thronged with people anxious to pay the price of admission? Do they go there for the sake of acquiring some more accurate knowledge which shall equip them for the duties and responsibility of life; do they go to acquaint themselves with the sweetness and sacredness and purity of those things which we associate with sex? And as for the innocent and the ignorant, as one of the speakers who preceded me has so admirably pointed out-would you take them to these portrayals of the life of dives and brothels, to acquaint them with those things which they need to know in order to live properly the life that is set before them? Are these, indeed, the kind of things that we wish to set before the innocent and ignorant young man and woman of our day? Is it by a display of all that is rotten and loathsome that you are going to inspire in youth a reverence and regard for purity?

I believe there are many plays that are wholesome and helpful. There are plays which effectively demonstrate that the drama could be made a most potent factor in the promotion of sex education, but to be effective they must leave out any direct consideration of sex matters. All of us can think of some beautiful playa play like “Bunty”—which has portrayed the normalities of life in a way to inspire the hearts of people with reverence and respect and regard for the things that are beautiful and holy and romantic, and which inspire the desire to attain those qualities which fit us for a proper participation in the real functions of life. The

drama of today, however, in order to be really useful as an instrument in sex education, must be cleansed of this thing which in the vernacular of today is known as "the smutty play."

I believe, as has already been effectively indicated, that the time has come when something must be done; we must put on the brakes. It must stand forth as a most notable thing in the annals of this Society that whereas but a few years ago those who were struggling and battling for opportunity for a frank and fearless facing of the sex problem had against them the whole sentiment and conservatism of public opinion; today we look with consternation upon the veritable deluge of plays and books and newspaper stories which present every conceivable phase of sex immorality in all its most hideous reality, and with an utter lack of discrimination. It devolves upon societies such as this, and upon all those who have the interest of sex knowledge at heart, to exercise every possible restraint. The time has come when we must do something to check this alarming trend of the popular mind. The question of sex is rampant, and it seems to have gotten beyond control. And in my judgment it is with these plays which exploit for profit the sacred considerations of sex morality that we ought to begin. The time has come when every right-minded man and woman, father and mother, faces a very solemn obligation. Their influence must be vigorously exerted to check, check immediately, the rising tide of sex agitation promiscuously carried on by means of immoral and unwholesome stage productions.

MRS. CHARLES H. ISRAELS: I should like to say, as a keynote, that I think the right sex drama has not yet been written.

After all, the function of the drama is to reflect life-it holds the mirror up to nature. These plays that we have had this Winter have been holding the mirror up to only one phase of nature they have not been quite true, quite big or quite strong enough.

We talked mostly this evening about "The Lure" and "The Fight," and we have not really discussed the most sincere of all the plays which was produced-Miss Crother's little play "Ourselves." Every note, every line, every word of that play rang with sincerity. But the play really had two motives, two things, to think about. It solved one problem and it left the other just exactly where it began, and in just that far the play fell short in

accomplishing the big thing. It is true that "Ourselves" made a plea for the single standard of morality, but you did not need the story of the girl interwoven to make that particular plea, and when we come to the story of the girl the play just did not give any answer. There just wasn't a solution. After all, the only thing, the only development of the girl in the play as far as we could see was that her standard, her ideal, was raised, something fine was appealed to in her character and she could no longer take the depraved thing that she had found acceptable before her new experience. The real change of heart, the real change of character that we like to think was brought about, had not really been brought about and perhaps could not be brought about, because at the first opportunity when the same temptation touched her in finer form than before, she fell again. At the end of the play we are left without any assurance that it isn't going to happen the next time and the next, and your feeling is that the only solution that may hold her steady is marriage.

Now to my mind, that has been the trouble with all the sex plays so far they do not offer a solution, and therefore weaken the lesson they might otherwise convey. I sent a great many different kinds of girls to see "The Lure"-girls who were at school, girls who were learning a trade-I sent other kinds of girls, and they all felt that it was a lesson, a fine thing to know that those things happen. That play was useful, but after all if we are going to use the drama as a factor in sex education, it must needs offer some solution; there must be an answer.

real difficulty of the situation. "Damaged Goods" presented a Now the sex play-the drama

Now that to my mind is the These plays do not really teach. problem and offered a solution. of sex and the problem of sex-has appeared for many many years in the theatres on the East side of New York. Ten years ago we had in Yiddish sex plays with problems just as broad and of much deeper significance than any English writer has dared to put on the American stage, and the people went to see them and were educated because they were put to them on that Yiddish stage as a real reflection of their own life. When we begin to present the problems of the lives of all, the problems of our different communities, then we shall get the drama, but I take it we are not discussing the drama as a whole.

Judge McAdoo is to be commended for stopping the "House of

Bondage," but why arrest the leading lady five minutes before the curtain goes up-there are other times. These managers pray for the police to interfere with their plays, and they sit there and hope that somebody will tell the police something terrible is going to be produced or some one is going to do something awful, because just as soon as the doors open, the house will be sold out. One of the most striking things that I have seen is the crowd outside of Weber's Music Hall waiting to see "The Traffic in Souls." Some of them are going with the honest motive of seeing what the thing is, what they are all talking about, if something can be learned. Some are going out of curiosity, but in all those thousands of people of all kinds who went to see "The Lure,” “The Fight," "Ourselves" and "The Family Cupboard," somewhere in somebody's soul a note has been struck, and if we are going to believe in the one sinner that repenteth, if they did touch the sinner and make him repent, they have some function of good. They evidently reflect some need in American life today, are evidently taking us through some kind of a transition period. After all our American stage has suffered less from frankness than from the other thing, because we don't all want sweet things all the time; we want the things that stir us profoundly. You can send all your little girls to see "Peg O' My Heart." We need those things too, but there is something big that must be stirred in all of us by the big things in art, and it is just possible that we are striving toward some big thing through the medium of these ineffective tools. But they are only ineffective temporarily. They are teaching us a lesson because we have got to decide for ourselves whether we have gone too far. My own feeling is that we have not gone quite far enough in giving the girl in the street and the man in the street the thing that will bring uplift to him. It is quite true that we may, but I am not altogether sure that their tastes are cultivated quite to the point of getting uplift out of it.

The manager is not in business for philanthropy, but he sincerely hopes to give his public something which satisfies a need in them and bring profits to his theatre, because he has a somewhat large investment.

On the other hand, as a result of the production of "Damaged Goods," for which a small group held themselves responsible, the theatrical managers did believe that the public wanted something as frank as "Damaged Goods," but if you come down to careful

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