The Social Emergency | Page 6

the motion pictures, the exhibits of quack doctors, vaudeville performances, many so-called comic operas, popular new songs, the dress of women approved by modern fashion,--these all help at times to prepare young people to fall before the special temptations that beset all commercial recreation centers. Especially dangerous are the saloons, billiard rooms, dance-halls, ice-cream parlors, road-houses and amusement parks. Both male and female enemies of decency frequent these resorts. They are often schools of sexual immorality, with clever and persistent teachers. Unless we take them into due account, we cannot see the whole problem of education in sexual hygiene and morals.
Then there are the legal phases of the situation. We must consider, on the one hand how much can be accomplished by legislation, in view of all the known factors in the situation. Our courts, for example, in spasmodically or regularly rounding up women, fining them ten or fifteen dollars apiece, and turning them loose, are trying to meet the social emergency by shutting their eyes to nine out of ten of its essential features. Their policy gives a clean bill to the male prostitute, arrests the woman, takes away a part of her earnings, sets her free under the necessity of seeking new victims to offset the fine, offers her no incentive to lead any other life, incidentally increases opportunities for police graft, and virtually gives the sanction of the law to the whole nefarious business. The ostrich with his head buried in the sand sees our gravest social problem about as clearly and wholly as do many who are administering laws concerning prostitution in American cities.
The impotence of laws passed in advance of public education and public demand is a difficulty often overlooked. Some reformers seem to think they can eliminate the social evil by getting a law passed. They urge state legislatures to pass laws requiring every school to teach sex hygiene. These people think they are going straight at a solution; but they fail to see the patent fact that there are not now enough competent teachers for this work; no, not one teacher for every hundred schools. Another example of futile legislation is the California law requiring the reporting of cases of venereal diseases. One could easily list a score of laws in the domain of sexual morals which are ineffective, either because in their very nature they could not be enforced, or because the public do not wish to have them enforced. Perhaps there are no factors of the social emergency so frequently left out of account as the relation of public education to public opinion and the relation of public opinion to the possibility of law enforcement.
As a matter of fact the educational phases of social reform are of most immediate importance. Nothing can so profitably occupy the attention of social hygiene societies as the education of the public. If groups of social workers come to serious disagreement on other phases of the present emergency,--if the discussion of restricted districts, minimum-wage laws, health certificates for marriage, and reporting of diseases divides the group into warring camps,--all can unite in favor of spreading certain truths as widely as possible; and it is not difficult to agree on at least a few of the many methods which have already proved effective in educational campaigns.
At the outset of our attempt to educate the general public in matters of sex, we face certain factors which govern the scope, time, place, and method of any successful efforts. Failure to give these factors due consideration has brought many attempts to early and unhappy ends, and convinced some people that ignorance is safer than such education.
We must reckon carefully with the centuries of social tradition which have resulted in the taboo on the subjects of sex and reproduction. It may be that this conspiracy of silence has proved a failure; it may be that it has no basis worthy of intellectual respect. It may be that all people should welcome the new freedom of speech. These are not issues in the process of education. Our first concern is the actual state of the public mind; we begin with that or else we fail.
Biologically the all-inclusive issue concerns the survival of the race. Nature has no favorites: the fittest of the human stock will survive after others have degenerated and disappeared; the fittest animals will ultimately people the earth. Sexual degeneracy is the surest road to race extinction.
No aspects are more important than those concerning morals and religion. The restraining influences of the fear of disease may and probably will be thrown off by science. Whether education in scientific aspects of the subject will do good or harm in a given case depends on the extent to which moral and religious ideals control the conduct of the individual. The inadequacy of