Indianapolis, April 25—Cheek to Shiek dancing is a “flirtation with the devil,” says Mrs. Anna Burner, policewoman in charge of dance hall matrons who are waging war on the “Trance” step, latest ball room sensation.
“You can’t get a toothpick between these ‘hip hounds’ who are making immodest dancing a rule rather than an exception,” Mrs. Bruner declares. she raps the “soul caress” of the Trance step.
Night after night of this “purple paradise” puts pale and pallid cheeks on the children of jazz, matrons report, but, when such cheeks meet, Sheik and Sheba catch each other by the nape of the neck and around the back—a cross between a headlock and a half-nelson—and, closing their eyes, move away in semi-consciousness.
Sometimes they don’t move far, for others are doing the same thing. Good to choice squirmers require only two square feet of floor space. While high-priced cowbell artists syncopate “Maul Me Good, Daddy, I Wanna Be Bruised,” those trying to make the world safe for sanity put up a brave wrestle to reach animated clinch experts and call of objectionable struggles. While the “sax” sobs “joy is unconfined,” youth answers youth, hot lips tremble, and pleasures plunge into a whirlpool of fantasy, the matrons declare.
Young girls dancing together form the bulk of complaints at police headquarters. It is charged they allow their emotions unrestrained expressions, even dancing together the entire evening rather than risk a “kickless” dance with the young who don’t know his stuff.” Since the “new woman” has come forward, a row of gates-ajar collors form a line where the wall-flowers blossomed in days agone.
But it is the aftermath of these semi-Apache dances that cause the policewomen to hum a hymn of hate.
“Girls between 16 and 18 years of age crash into dates and spend the rest of the night on wild joy riders or mule parties,” Mrs. Burner asserts. “An age certificate ought to be part of the approach of every girl at a public dance. Neither men nor girls should be allowed to visit dance halls alone. The men come only to pick up a girl for the evening, and the girls openly advertise for a partner.
“Booze and dope peddlers flourish because of the mixed crowd. A girl dancing indiscriminately with men she has never seen before is in real danger.
“Modern dancing has taken a front seat with death as the greatest leveler of all mankind. Popel of almost every station of life go to public dances, smoke, ankle-scratch and mix drinks,” Mrs. Brunner reported in her conference with Police Chief Herman Rikoff. She has been promised additional assistance if improprieties do not stop. Nearly every pulpit in the city has launched an attack on the dance halls.
A young man desiring to stage a dance at a downtown hotel, asked Mrs. Bruner for permission.
“What arrangements have you made for a matron?” he was asked.
“Oh, a matron won’t be necessary. she would be out of place, or maybe she could wear an evening gown, eh?”
“No,” replied Mr. Burner, “the matron will be fully clothed.”
From page 2 of the Whiteville News-Reporter, May 8, 1924. The policewoman’s last name was spelled Bruner, Brunner, and Burner in the article.
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