Note 82 — Chapter V · THE WILL TO PLAY
Reading edition
These statements of the girls are corroborated by the following paragraphs from a recent study:
“During the past few years aggressive measures have been taken by different reform organizations aiming to bring about a more wholesome atmosphere in connection with public dances, especially those attended by the poorer boys and girls. Proprietors have been induced to employ special officers to attend the dances and keep order, prevent ‘tough’ and ‘half-time’ dancing, and protect innocent girls from the advances of undesirable persons. The duties of the special officer are difficult to perform. If he interferes too much, the dancers go to some other place where they enjoy more freedom. As a result, the honest proprietor who endeavors to conduct a respectable hall loses patronage, while the disreputable owner makes all the profit. Again, the young people who attend these balls know immediately when a person different from themselves appears in the hall. At once the dance becomes modest and sedate, and the visitor goes away to report that ‘while conditions are not what they should be, yet on the whole there is great improvement.’
“A social club gave a ball on the evening of March 23, 1912, at a hall in East 2nd Street. The dancing was very suggestive. The special officer was entertaining a police sergeant, but neither made any effort to regulate the actions of the dancers. The next afternoon another club occupied the hall at the same address, with the same special officer in attendance. Suddenly, when the dancing was in full swing, the officer hurriedly rushed among the dancers and told them to ‘cut it out’ as three detectives had just come in and he did not want to see the place closed up. A girl, apparently thirteen years of age, was dancing at the time and the officer put her off the floor, loudly declaring that the proprietor did not allow young girls to dance in the hall. Things resumed their former aspect, however, as soon as the detectives retired.”—Kneeland, George J.: Commercialized Prostitution in New York City, pp. 68-70. Bureau of Social Hygiene. New York, Century Co., 1913.