“Isn’t my child having a grand time,” muses the proud mother, as she contemplates the popularity of her daughter. “She is so popular with the boys that she is out every night with some boy and doesn’t get in until after midnight. It is wonderful.”
Does that popularity cause the boys who call to stay at home in the parlor?
“No, they always take her out for a ride.”
Poor old mother! Your daughter is having a grand time. Sure she is, but how?
Out every night on some lonesome road with the car parked?
Most of the popularity of these days is born in promiscuous love. The young libertines flock where the cheap love is the easiest.
“My little girl is different,” is what you say! That is what they all think and feel. Let me tell you something. You are not raising your girl when you permit her to go out auto riding into the night. You are not giving her the chances she deserves. Your little girl is made up of the same flesh as anybody else’s little girl; has the same emotions and impulses as anybody else’s little girl, and is no different from anybody else’s little girl. Every girl that drops to shame and degradation was once as pure-minded as your little girl. She was permitted to run at will with any man she met in autos late at night. That’s the difference between your good little girl and the bad little girl. They are all good to start with. The descent is always gradual and it always follows the long auto rides into the night.
I am going to present the truth to you mothers, with the full projectile force of its naked hideousness.
I tell you only the truth. The facts are worse than any fiction yet conceived by imaginative writers.
You may get mad with me, I don’t care. If you don’t want to know what’s going on, don’t read this. Throw it away. I am writing for those mothers who want to know exactly what is going on.
Let me print a picture, a real picture, and you had best frame it and hang it on the wall of your memory.
The nice boy calls and sits in the parlor and kids you along a few minutes, and then he says to the girl he has come for, “Let’s go.” The nice boy and your girl depart into the night.
This story refers to the habitual night rider.
It is true as Holy Writ.
They are barely out of sight before his arm slips snugly around her waist and she pulls up close to him to make the huggery more convenient. He is doing this unless he is a “Positive stick” or a “human pill.” If he is a regular, he proceeds to pull a lot of cuss words. No young man is au fait unless he can sling ‘em dirty. The greater his assortment of expletives the more he impresses the popular young thing with his worldliness. If that isn’t so, I’ll quit right here. They bowl around the city, maybe to a dance for a short while, maybe to a salacious picture show.
And they sail out into the night. He has a favorite spot where he generally does his parking. If your girl is accustomed to parking, there is no argument. If she is not, he will find some excuse for parking. His mind has been on nothing else since he sat in the parlor and conversed with you. He may have “engine trouble” or has to look for a flat, or is just simply tired of driving, and we may as well sit here as in the parlor.
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? And they sit there.
Overhead the stars wink knowingly at each other, and the fence posts stand dismally out in the night gaunt sentinels.
Flagrant breezes toy with the curls that drive from her pretty forehead and the nice boy holds her closer in his arms. Why not? Not a soul is near and it is nice to be held tightly by one you love. Why not? They are doing it in the pictures and no one thinks wrong of that. Why not? The story books are full of stories of girls in the arms of the ones they love. Why not?
No one will ever know.
He vows of a love that is tender and enduring. He whispers sweet nothings into rapt ears. He presses a long 10-minute kiss to her lips. Her cheeks grow warm. There steals over her a strange new feeling that comes to a maid when she is alone with a man, and held in his arms. He kisses her again and again, those hot, warm kisses. Her head falls back limp in his arms—that is your little girl and the nice boy who just left your home.
This is a true picture of the girl who habitually goes night riding down shady lanes as God Himself can draw it.
I didn’t go so far with my story as that couple could go if those rides are permitted.
Where was your little girl last night?
“Why my little girl was at a dance.”
Sure, she was there for a while.
My girl wouldn’t do such a thing as that.
That is what they all say, but nightly thousands of cars are out there on the public roads parked with the lights out. Somebody’s little girl is out there wrapped in somebody’s arms. Where was your little girl?
Don’t go making alibis. Just ask yourself if you really knew where she was.
Just reason with yourself a little while.
I am talking about the habitual night rider.
Where was your little girl last night?
Wash she in the vast army of parked automobiles that flock the land after nightfall?
Every road leading out of every city is flocked with parked cars and in many of these cars some libertine is seeking the downfall of some innocent girl. And they say the world is getting better.
Don’t take my word for it. Go and see. The sight is awaiting you any night on earth you see fit to go out and investigate.
Thousands of little girls are out there in those parked cars. Girls just as innocent as yours.
Where was your little girl last night? Are you sure?
From the front page of The News-Record, Marshall, N.C., “The only newspaper published in Madison County,” Friday, Oct. 6, 1922
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