Summary:

More than one mother complains about the corruption of her children, more than one shed bitter tears of despondency because she does not know how to prevent this corruption or how to grasp some sort of means so as to protect the children before it is too late, and keep them chaste and incorruptible for the future and the nation.

Today we will consider one of the main sources of corruption, and by becoming acquainted with it we will be able to avoid it.

The main source of demoralization and corruption among our young people are the so called cinematographs (moving pictures), popularly known in English as "5-cent shows."

Cinematographs, which have become a permanent public institution, can not only serve as entertainment but also as a means of education. They 2excite human instinct, which rather needs to be appeased. Not long ago I was in one of those theaters. I sat among the audience and waited to see what was to be turned out on the screen. Many people brought their children along to see the show.

Finally the first pictures appear on the screen. Some man sits down on a chair, and shoots himself in the head. In a short time his wife appears, dressed in a ball room gown, along with one of her male admirers. She thinks her husband is asleep and they begin to play funny antics upon him. They put upon his head a "fool's cap," blow into his nose, etc. Finally they notice that the poor fellow is dead. A picture sufficiently unpleasant. Then comes the next picture: A love story with all kinds of petting, done very faithfully. And now the third picture: A young couple just married, after overcoming many obstacles, goes to a theatre. A year later we see how the young mother is rocking her baby to sleep. After a while she takes a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard, drinks fast and quickly, hides the bottle hearing the footsteps of her husband who is just returning home. The husband comes in a completely neglected state and demands money for whiskey. Because there is no money at home a quarrel 3ensues between the husband and wife, and next a desperate battle. The husband stabs his wife with a knife, and afterwards hangs himself. In the end it becomes evident that this is the only episode shown on the screen that is rewarded with applause.

Sufficient... three films, one a suicide, the other a love story in operation, the third a murder and suicide. It will do for adults, but what of the children? Such is your moving picture theatre.

There are moving picture theatres which show very few pictures of this type, but only in a lesser way because without a great "sensation" there is no entertainment. The public, worked up to a pitch by moving picture theatres, demand sensational scenes, and the effect it has on youthful transgressors who see such pictures, is best shown by the court records of larger cities, where these youths admitted they were stirred up by these transgressions by looking upon criminal scenes in these theatres.

A moving picture can be the means of wholesome entertainment, and at the same time educational, but it must undergo a just reform. At present 4the moving pictures are very harmful. It is time to think about some sort of preventive measures, and the parents ought to be the first ones to think about this, especially the mothers.

And what is the value of such parents who lead their children to these dirty shacks where filth flows in a stream? You mothers in whose hearts there is still to be found a spark of faith and some sort of love of goodness, do you give yourself an account of the course you are taking? Will that daughter of yours not take a liking to this sort of filth? Will she in a few years bring you shame and disgrace? And who will be at fault? You, mother, because today you yourself are teaching and preparing her for this evil by leading her into these Jewish ramshackle shacks.

And you, father, taking to these shows your son, you can be sure that the son brought up on this kind of fare will poison his future years.

You, mothers and fathers, if you only knew what the future of your children will be by taking them to such nickel shows, you would today avoid with disgust these hell holes smelling of rottenness. Unfortunate are you, Poland, if you will have sons raised on this kind of fare!

And therefore, keep away from these sources of corruption. Remember that what such shows will corrupt, no church, no priest, even no school can restore.