News you can use
News you can use
By Emily Mayer
In last week’s column, I mentioned that the Hill County Democrat was quite upset and vocal about the apparent goings-on of dances hosted at Havre High School. The Democrat continued its diatribe in this week’s issue. I thought it would be entertaining to read, so here is the entry in the Feb. 26, 1916 issue:
DANCING AT HIGH SCHOOL
In a recent issue of this paper we requested the school board of Havre to meet and pass a resolution prohibiting in future all kinds of suggestive dancing and drinking whiskey in the high school at Havre.
We seemed to have let fly a bomb. The editorial seems to have stirred things from center to circumference. We have received letters and many verbal compliments from the very best citizens of our fair city thanking us for the good work and sincerely hoping it would go on.
The editorial was a little forceful but was written with the very best of motives, for the good of mankind. We had no selfish motive in penning it. We have no boy or girl in the school. If we did have we would not stop with an editorial or a protest, but we would do like they di in old Virginia, use a little action. But we are interested in education and in the welfare of the boys and girls of Havre.
At any rate the board met. They resoluted. They discussed. They conferred. But what did they do? Like a lawyer who has not defense to a case they as a last resort filed a general denial. A denial is the very strongest form of affirmation in many cases.
did they deny that the school district was in a terrible financial condition? Yes: a general denial puts in issue all the assertions of the allegator. The preside of the school board told the editor those exact words, that the school was in a terrible financial condition only a very short time ago. The president’s word ought to be proof of the fact as he will not say he did not use those words.
Did they deny that there was a boy in the auditorium of the Havre High School with a pint bottle of whiskey in his pocket and that for other school boys drank out of that bottle the same night of the dance? We have proof that such was the fact and can prove it to the satisfaction of any one who will call at our office and have done so to many.
Did a general denial disprove that school boys coming home from school every day may be seen smoking cigarettes? This is a matter of common observation.
Now, this is not a question about Miss Easter’s fitness for teaching. Some years ago we knew her very well and as so far as we know she is perfectly competent to teach school and personally we have always entertained the kindest feelings for her. We said nothing about her and we would not do so. In discussing school matters we always use the term “she” even when we are referring to the school superintendent, who generally is a man. Miss Easter is not the issue. The Board need not get behind a woman’s skirts in arguing this question or resoluting. It was a man, not a woman we were after. The superintendent is the head. He directs. He approves. If he approves such things as we outlined in the editorial he alone is responsible, not some demure, modest little school teacher who gets her orders and obeys.
Now, the Board is above him. They declined to do as we suggested in their interests and in the interests of the school and we look to them as the proper parties to act.This is not an issue of men or women but a principle that appeals to us. We are discussing measures not men. The issue is now and will be by this newspaper put up to the people of Havre, and if necessary to Hill county. We do not believe sixty per cent of the people of Hill county will countenance suggestive dancing in the public school, nor do we think 60 per cent of the people of Havre do.
The issue is clearly defined. The only way is to let the people decide this question at the polls. It may take two or three years to get it properly decided but it will be decided and decided right.
This newspaper serves notice that it is in this fight, it is fighting for a principle and it is going to stay at it. At the next school election in Havre this question can be partly settled and then the work can go on until a victory is won. Let the fight be to a finish.
When the great Cicero was once asked by a Roman citizen if he thought he would secure a convection against Veers, he replied If there was enough virtue in Rome he would do it. Now, the good of Havre can stand up and be counted. Those in favor of the highest in moral efficiency in the public school can stand on one side and those who believe in suggestive dancing in the public school can take the other and we shall see who wins. Stand up and be counted.
Further on the editorial page were little digs on the school board, Superintendent N. C. Abbott and a call for better morals for students by calling those who wished to host a “fandango” dance “wild animals” who should be “kicked out in the middle of the street or placed behind the bars for the misdemeanor of disturbing the peace.” The dance J. K. Bramble was so vigorously protesting was the tango.
In the Havre Plaindealer newspaper of the same date, “Squm” wrote about a dance that Mr. Bramble might approve of in the Society section:
Masonic Dance Thursday
DeMolai Commandery Knights Templar of Havre was host at an exclusive Masonic ball given in Lyceum hall Thursday evening, which proved one of the most delightful affairs of the kind ever occurring in Havre. Lyceum hall presented a pleasing appearance in its decoration of electric streamers, among which were woven many emblems of the Masonic order. Members of the Commandery, about forty in number, attended in full uniform, and these with the elaborate costumes of the ladies presented a most pleasing appearance. More than a hundred couples were guests of the Commandery, many being from points outside the city east, west and south.
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