Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, August 8, 1915, Page 21

A Type of Open Air Dem- onstration on the Beaches Much Objected to. Why the Scanty Made Being Our Playing Leap-frog o. the Beach. A Healthful Possible by the New Abbrevi- ated Bathing Cos- tumes, but Which Is Angrily Condemned in Many Quarters as Too Im- modest. Sport Attire and Free Con- duct of Modern Bathers Is The Old-fashioned Bathing Costume, Which 1Is as Offensive in the Eyes of Some as the Scanty Modern Attire Is to Others. Being © Pave THOMESON.' Condemned Throughout the Country, and How the Critics Are Answered Tl-m 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, tie departure from con- ventional ideas in bathing costumes is hailed as a necessary reform in order to facilitate swimming and promote hysical exercise. e y'l‘lle 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 re shown on this page. N 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 clvilization’s decay. 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- eon to hope that, exhibiting the same symptoms, we may escape the same fate. On the other hand, it has been widely contended that while in a few cases the proprieties have undoubtedly been ig- nored, prudish people have been raising a tempest in a teapot. Abbreviated bath- ing attire is essential if the valuable sport of swimming and bathing is to be properly enjoyed, and leap-frog and dancing on the beach are extremely use- ful v.ercises, which ought not to be re- stricted. Because physical exercise of this char- acter has been impossible 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 outepoken eritic 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 bad. “It is unfortunate that so many people belleve that badness 1s the chief con- stituent of a good time. Rest and change are good for everyone, but when they entail dissipation and vice they become real evils, It is an old saying that ‘Satan always doth some mischief find for idle hands to do.’ “The busy man is not tor- tured with temptation. But as 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 ba 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. Paln 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 REAL PAIN and a Broken Heart CAN KILL 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 scientific 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 sou! shocks the pains are too severe, coutrolling, 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 great 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 help. Pain is also doctor and nurse, When you break your arm, if there was no pain upon moving it you would soon injure the fractured ends, set up in- ur Deaches a Proof of Civilizations Deca 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 , the compan- meets on the train, the amuse rovided at his destination, the conversation and the atmosphere are simply charged with moral poison. “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 Hpistle to the Epheslans, especially the fifth chap- ter, where the apostle tells us that im- modesty shoyld not be so much as named @mong us, nor obscenity nor foolish talk by nor scurrility. “Let people say what they will about dancing, the fact re- mains that it is always dan gerous and often positively einful. Promiscuous dancing s inexcusable. Dancing with strangers Is worse. “A vislt to the beachcs Is quite enough to convince the most broad-minded that there prevalls a degree of immorality that Is absolutely Inexcusable. “No one will dispute the fact that a certain degree of un- whi to spend the day or a large e oy “ W PuoTos INTERNATIONA NEws SERVICE Season. 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, 8o they can- not rub against each other. The pain of appendicitis acts in a 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 & warning, emergency doctor and nurse, not one of us would get out of childhood alive. Pain always means that some sort of relief 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- Copyright, 1915, by the Star Company. Great Britaln Rights Reserved. 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 sald, a longing, a hunger to attain some object in life. Such spul 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 falls to release or obtain them, most obsessing mental and soul pains are certain to follow, This pain calls for rellef. 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 dally papers have at their bottoms these de- plorable conditions. > Tangoing on the Beach, a Com. mon Sight This part of It on the sands, where the sexes mingle with a degree of freedom that would not be tolerated on the street or even In a ballroom, it Is time to cry out in protest. “The spectacie of half-naked women and men lying about the beaches, and, often in each others arms, should not be tole: *Iin any clvilized 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 energles, Greek soclety was pen- etrated through and throegh 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 bosom the secret of her impending decline and fall in tha coming centuries. “‘St. Paul detected and exposed it fn terms which are more explicit than th employed by Tacitus and Juvenal. . life-blood of & race may be drained away less nobly than on the battlefield. Hvery capacity for high and generous exertion, or for the cheerful endurance of suff at the bldding of duty, all the stock o moral force on which a country ean rely in its hour of trial, may 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 civilization, their work had well-nigh been completed, their victory had been won, in the cities, the palaces, nay, in the very temples of the emplire, ‘“‘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 mmpersona- tion; and not unfrequently it happened that the Bmperor was the public friend and patron of the State's worst enemy. Nor could any reliance 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 hu 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 s 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 is here and now. Nor are these manners confined to the vulgar East 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 lmit ft. “Evil is not to be trified with. There is only one way to handle it. That is to where it preva who practice it Another Photograph Snapped at a Public Beach Showing Bathers Enjoying & Modern Dance.