Judge Warns Durham Men About Dangers of Tango and Turkey Trot, 1914

From the Durham Dispatch and the Watauga Democrat, February 1914

DURHAM--Judge Jeter C. Pritchard today registered his protest against the tango and the turkey trot and the slit skirt in the fifth of a series of meetings for men being held at the Baptist Church. Judge Pritchard was heard by over 1,000 men, and many amens and nods of the head greeted what he had to say about the present-day fashion of the feminine part of the North Carolina population.

“The Conservation of Manhood” was the subject on which Judge Pritchard spoke, and he outlined a number of ways in which the fathers and mothers of the State could conserve the manhood of the rising generation. The distinguished jurist spoke with a seriousness characteristic of all his discussions of moral issues. He talked in a conversational tone, but none of the addresses that have been delivered in Durham have been listened to more attentively.

His speech was filled with illustrations of the results of the failure of parents to give their children the proper home training. All of these illustrations came from the observation of the speaker while he was on the bench, in the Senate and in his present position.

The proper home training was the first means advocated for the conservation of the boys and girls of the State, and the second was prohibitive and repressive laws.

In the first case Judge Pritchard said that he knew of many instances in which the fathers left the whole training of the children to the mothers. That this was bad was shown from the fact that there are always times in the life of boys and girls when the strong arm of the father’s authority is needed.

That the prohibition law was not an interference of the personal liberty of any man, but an effort to take the temptations away from the people, the young people of the State, was the position taken by Judge Pritchard on the whiskey question. He recalled some of the scenes from the early history of Madison County, and said that while he was practicing law in that section of the country he defended 57 murderers. The dockets of the county were crowded with murder cases. He told of the fight made against whiskey in that country, and finally wound up with the present day conditions of Madison.

The duty of the South in the enforcement of these laws was stressed. The duty rests heavier on the South than on any other section of the country because of the fact that the South is the most American part of the country, and hence on her depends the preservation of the American Institution.