Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 248, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1910 — FLIRTING IS A DANGEROUS PERIL [ARTICLE]

FLIRTING IS A DANGEROUS PERIL

Preacher Says Coquetry Is Door to Divorce Court. Potent Cause of That Coarseness and Bestial Vulgarity Which Is Doing So Much to Diminish Home Power. Chicago.—“lf the true life story of the 16,388 Chicagoans divorced -in the last ten years were written, it would be found that the first station which led toward the divorce court was frequently a romantic flirtation at an amusement park or fashionable summer resort.” This was one of the introductory comments made the other evening by Rev. Percival H. Barker in a sermon on “The Pace That Kills” at the First Congregational church, Maywood. “Flirting is a potent cause of that coarseness and bestial vulgarity which is doing so much at present to impair the beauty and diminish the power of American home life, degrading marriage to the low level of a convenience and to the still lower level of sensuality. Flirtations foster the social evil,” he continued. “The mother who permits her six-teen-year-old daughter to sail about the city in an automobile until two o’clock in the morning with a counterfeit sport of weak jaw, and weaker morals, opens the front door to grief and disgrace. If you don’t know what company your daughter keeps or what time of night she turns in, your roar when gossips get busy will sound about as pathetic as the wheeze from a jewsharp. “This is the time for the modern minister to shun idle and toothless generalities and speak in unequivocal language. There is something almost criminal in the blank ignorance of parents concerning the whereabouts of their children during the evening hours. “It is more difficult to marry off a girl who has been pawed over by every chap in the community than it is to fatten sheep on pineapple ice. And should they come to Hymen’s altar, they assume the responsibilities of wifehood with the enthusiasm of a one legged man at a society club dance, for they have flirted away their hearts until they are incapable of truly loving their husbands. “The flirt is likely to discover affinities in other homes and put the

discoveries into practise. Thus flirting undermines the home; and when home life with its sanctities, its calm and deep joys and sorrows, ceases to have its charm for us in America, the greatest breakup and catastrophe in history will follow. “In respect to this menacing evil, a good rule for youth is: Resist the beginning of flirting. Flirtation is the first step toward self-degradation. “The man or woman who flirts is hatching a serpent’s brood that will one day wake into life to hiss and sting; he is rearing wild beasts of prey that afterwards will turn upon him and rend him. Shake it at its birth. Flirtations dwarf man’s view of life far more than they broaden them.”