Washington, July 30—Chaperones for young folks and especially for those who take part in what Inspector Grant of the Washington Police Department calls “jazz auto rides” are being strongly advocated here, with Mrs. Giles Scott Rafter, president of the District of Columbia Congress of Mothers, leading the way.
Inspector Grant believes that the automobile is the “greatest medium of vice,” and Mrs. Rafter declares:
“The elimination of chaperones is one of the causes the decline of morality among the younger generation—too much freedom will spoil the best of boys and girls.”
“The tendency today is a feeling of repulsion against restraint, and the girls and boys are doing pretty much as they please,” the police official says. “It would be well if the mother or some responsible person could accompany the young couple on some of their rides, and perhaps the jazz auto riding and wild parties would stop.
“Women, it would seem, are enjoying their first taste of real freedom. They are like a man who takes a drink for the first time. He says to himself, ‘Oh, one drink won’t hurt me.’ But then he takes another and then another, and finally becomes intoxicated.
“That is the way with women and their new freedom. They think if they do it once they won’t want to do it again, but finally, just like men, they become intoxicated. And these things may be anything from jazz auto riding to spooning.”
Mrs. Rafter thinks that the American girl has “too much freedom.”
“The parents alone are to blame,” she says. “If the girls wear skirts that are far too short, rouge, smoke, spend too much money, and flirt, it is their parents’ fault. They allow them too much freedom.
“I have always been a firm believer in proper chaperonage. The parents should know what their daughters are doing when they are out and who their associates are. Too much freedom will spoil the best of boys and girls.”
From the front page of The Enterprise, Williamston, N.C., August 2, 1921
No comments:
Post a Comment