Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, August 8, 1915, Page 19

A Type of Open Air Dem- onstration on the Beaches Much Objected to. Why the Scanty Attire and Free Con- duct of Modern Bathers Is The Oid-fashioned Bathing Costume, Which Is as Offensive in the Eyes of Some as the Scanty Modern Attire Is to Others. Being Condemned Throughout the Country, and How the Critics Are ‘ Answered THD attire and conduct of bathers at the beaches this year have again given rise to an everin- creasing wave of comment and criticism: On the one hand, it is protested that never before have the limits of decency been so completely ignored, while, on the other hand, tHe departure from con- ventional ideas in bathing costumes is hailed as a necessary reform in order to facilitate swimming and promote physical exercise. The fact that women’s bathing attire this season is scantier and designed to reveal more of the figure than ever be- fore is evident to every one who has visited the shore resorts. Photographs of actual scenes taken at random on beaches in the vicinity of New York are shown on this page. It cannot be denled, either, that the craze for the modern dance, which de- veloped originally in the ballroom, then spread to the roof garden and gradually became an attraction at the restaurant, has now revealed itselt on the beaches. There are those who see in these de- velopments convincing evidence of our ivilization’s decay. 4 The degradation of soclety through luxury, indulgence and ‘the pursuit of earthly pleasures, it is pointed out, was the forerunner of the fall of Greece and Rome, and there is no rea- son to hope that, exhibiting the same symptoms, we may escape the same fate. On the other hand, it has been widely o © Pave THOWPSON.' ful v.ercises, which ought not to be re- stricted. Because physical exercise of this char- acter has been Iimpossible on the beaches in the past, owing to the hin- dering attire which women have been timid enough to tolerate, is no reason why it should be neglected now, it is pointed out, when more sensible attire has been adopted. Nevertheless, many influential people have become 8o incensed at the 1915 brand of beach conduct that a censor- ship of bathing attire is being strongly urged. Perhaps the most outspoken critic of the new order of things at the beaches is the Rev. Father John L, Belford, of the Church of the Nativity, Brooklyn, N. Y., who believes that these things are certain signs of our moral decay. In a scathing tirade Father Belford recently declared: “These two months are the worst in the year. The intense heat makes them physically bad and the general relaxa- tion makes them morally 3 \ “It is unfortunate that so many people believe that badness is the chief con- stituent of a good time. Rest and change are good for everyone, but when they the the Being Playing Leap-frog o. Beach. A Healthful Made Possible by New Abbrevi- ated Bathing Cos- tumes, but Which Is Angrily Condemned in Many Quarters as modest. Sport Too Im- Pueros INTERMATONA NEws SERVICE contended that while In a few cases the entail dissipation and vice > Tangoing on the proprieties have undoubtedly been ig- they become real evils. It Beach, a Com- nored, prudish people have been raising is an old saying that ‘Satan A by a tempest in a teapot. Abbreviated bath- always doth some mischief mon Sight This ing attire is essential if the valuable find for idle hands to do.” \ Season. sport of swimming and bathing is to be ‘The busy man is not tor- " roperly enjoyed, and leap-frog and Zuchc on the beach are extremely use- tured with temptation. But a8 soon as he drops his Why Love By William Lee Howard, M. D. HARLES LAMB, in one of his poems ‘ describing the feelings of lovers, says: “That they do not rightly wot, whether it be pain or not” Cowley signs: “A mighty pain to love it is” while Dryden states: “Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are.” But the cold-blooded psychologist sees in the pains of love only one of the many symptoms of man's and woman's chang- ing natures necessary to keep the world populated and progressing. At first thought it would not appear that there was any connection between the pains of the body and the pain of the soul-lyre. But the causes are related; the effects the same. Pain in the body can destroy the soul. Paiu in the soul can destroy the body. Both sorts of pain mean that you should search for the trouble and apply the remedy. But too frequently soul and body pain are so overpowering as to de- stroy self judgment. As examples: One who suffers from constant and racking pain which cannot Is a RE:.AL PAIN and a Bxloken Héért be relieved and whose cause cannot be stopped commits suicide. Another suf- fering from the pains of unrequited love and from which there can be no relief also commits suicide. It is a sclentific fact that the pain of the soul can cause a heart literally to break. The reason is that real love is a powerful emotion. Emotions produce shock. Most natures rebound to ordinary shocks. But some- times, as in @ physical shock, the effect is deadly. In the cases of powerful soul shocks the pains are too severe, controlling, to live under. It is no reflection upon the unfortunate girl who destroys her life to say she lacked moral courage; that she should have held up under the &reat pain of injured love. We cannot place ourselves in her awful state. To those who never have really suffered, talk and adyice are easy to utter; All pain means there is distress some- where in body or soul. Pain is an alarm clock; a messenger call from the affected part asking for kelp. Pain is also doctor and nurse. When you break your arm, if there was 1o pain upon moving it you would soon injure the fractured ends, set up in- flamation and prevent healing. The pain tells you first to keep the arm still, then to send for the doctor to put the ends to- gether and keep them there, so they can- not rub against each other. The pain of appendicitis acts in & sim- {lar manner to prevent further inflama- tion and possible death; for fearful pains occur if you try to move about. They send you to bed and call for the surgeon, The whole body in any abdominal infla- mation 18 able to aid In a cure on ac- count of the severe pain compelling quiet, ‘The pain causes temporary paralysis of the abdominal muscles, puts your body in a natural splint, this being necessary to avoid spread of inflamation, Without pain as a warning, emergency doctor and nurse, not one of us would get out of childhood alive. Pain always means that some sort of rellef is needed to a disturbed organ or function, feeling or desire. Love is that part of existence which makes it worth while. It is the stimu- lating function of all living things. With- out some kind of love supporting and feeding the hungry soul the pain is dis- tressing and destroying. It mav be slight at first, but soon increases unless satis- CAN KILL fied to an intolerable decree. It may be mother love or the natural love for mate. In either case if it is un satisfled it causes pain. Do not forget that mental distress, longings, lonesome- ness, the hunger for sympathy are only degrees of soul pain. Pain may come from another kind of love—or, better said, a longing, a hunger to attain some object in life, Such spu! pains come from a dissatisfied ambition to make & name in literature or art, to be a carrier of God’'s messages, to give to the world some valuable invention or discovery. ‘When a man or woman is possessed of these impulses and desires to the exclu- slon of all other really important matters in life, and fails to release or obtain them, most obsessing mental and soul pains are certain to follow. This pain calls for relief. Rellef only can come through attainment. This be- ing considered impossible, the suffering individual commits sulcide or else sinks into a state of mental and moral lethargy. Many of the sad tales related in the daily papers have at their bottoms these de- plorable conditions. Copyright, 1915, by the Star Company. Great Britaln Rights Reserved. f\.“ur‘ Deaches a Proof of Our Civilizations Decay? capfrog Has Become a Popular Sport at Most Bathing Beaches This Year Owing to the Freer Costumes Worn by Women. business and runs away for a vacation he finds danger on every side. The books he buys to read on the way, the compan. fons he meets on the train, the amuse- ments provided at his destination, the conversation and the atmosphere are simply charged with moral polson. “When we leave home, let us bear in mind that we do not leave God. “In him we live and move and have our belng.” The Ten Commandments are not bounded by city limits, “Propriety and decorum are guardians of virtue, and nothing should induce us to set them aside. “Style may demand certain concesslons but it may never demand the sacrifice of modesty or decency. “Prudery is contemptible, but we may never disregard St. Paul's injunction, “Let your modesty be known to all men! ‘The Lord is nigh!” Read the Epistle to the Ephesians, especially the fifth chap- ter, where the apostle tells us that im- modesty should not be so much a ed Qmong us, nor obscenity nor foolish talk 4 nor_scurrility. “Let people say what they will about dancing, the fact re- malns that it is always dan. gerous and often positively sinful. Promiscuous dancing is inexcusable. Dancing with strangers is worse. “A visit to the beachce (s quite enough to convince the nrost bro. inded that pre! of Immorality that Is absolutely Inexcusable. “No one will dispute the fact that a certaln degree of un- dress is essential for bathing, but when that degree is used to spend the day or a large part of it on the sands, where the sexes mingle with a gree of freedom that would not be tolerated on the street or even In a ballroom, it Is time to cry out in protest. “The spectacle of half-naked women and men lying about the beaches, and, often in each others arms, should not be community. “Canon Liddon has a passage which we may well read and ponder: ““When Greek thought was keenest, and Greek art most triumphantly creative, and Greek political life so organized as to favor in a degree elsewhere unknown among men, the play of man's highest natural energies, Greek soclety was pen- etrated through and through by an in- visible enemy, more fatal in its ravage to thought, to art, to freedom, than the sword of any Persian or Macedonian foe. And already in the age of the early Caesars Rome carried in her o secret of her impending duuum:l:: Rffl in the coming centuries. “‘St. Paul detected and exposed 1t in terms which are mere explicit than th employed by Tacitus and Juvenal. o life-blood of & race may be drained away less nobly than on the battlefieid. Hvery capacity for high and generous exertion, or for the cheerful endurance of suff: at the bidding ot duty, all the -mfl moral force on which ountry can rely In its hour of trial, be sapped, de- stroyed, annihilated by a domestic traitor, “‘So it fared with imperial Rome. The fate of the great empire was not really decided on the Rhine or on the Danube, Before the barbarians had as yet begun to muster their savage hordes along the trontiers of anclent elvilisation, thefr work had well-nigh been completed, their victory had been won, in the citles, the palaces, nay, in the very temples of the emplre, “‘And upon what resources could the old Pagan society fall back in its alarm at and struggle with this formidable foe? It could not depend upon the State, The Emperor was the State by rmpersona- tion; and not unfrequently it happened that the Emperor was the public friend and patron of the State's worst enemy. Nor could any rellance by placed upon philosophy. “‘Doubtless philosophy means well in some of its phases, in some of its repre- sentatives. But philosophy is much too feeble a thing to enter the lists success- fully with animal passion; and, as a mat- ter of fact, philosophy Lu more than once been compelled or cajoled into plac- ing her intelluctual weapons at the dis- posal of the sensualist. “This enemy is our enemy. It is not imaginary. It is real. It is at our doors. It stalks abroad without disguise. Its agents are legion. Its power grows apace. Never was it so bold, so strong, 80 impudent as it {s here and now. Nor are these manners confined to the vulgar Bast Siders. “Under the flag of the Knights of Colum- bus some of our own young men and wo- men spend Sundays and holidays in bun- galows and tents at Coney Island and Rockaway in this less than half dress, dancing and amusing themselves on the sands, “Let others do what they will, we who have the light to know evil and the power to overcome it should do all we can to limit it “Evil is not to be trifled with. There is only one way to handle it. That is to avold the places where it prevails and the persons who practice it.” Another Photograph Snapped at a Public Beach Showing Bathers Enjoying & Modern Dance.