The most natural expression of youthful spirits is the dance. To allow it to become a snare to spoil the lives of young people is one of the great deficiencies of city life. In every city dance-halls, ranging from the back room of a saloon to the casino or “gin-palace,” hold out temptations to young people.
In New York City there are over five hundred licensed dance-halls. This means, at a moderate estimate, one-quarter of a million young people every night in these public dance-halls, most of which are run in connection with the liquor trade.
The obligation to regulate places of public amusement, and to provide good amusement in place of bad, rests with the community.
The minute you begin to regulate the dance-hall you are interfering with many kinds of business; first and foremost the liquor trade and all the interests it involves; then, with the business of those whose livelihood depends upon the vile trade that is stimulated by the usual dance-hall; and behind these groups, an unknown number of perfectly respectable businesses whose trade is increased by the conditions which characterize a “wide open” town. All these manifold interests are rooted deep in the fabric of the government of most of our American cities, and, because their connections are in so many instances seemingly innocent, are all the more difficult to defeat and dislodge.
Playgrounds: The need of organized recreation facilities for children has become pressing, as congestion of population has left no place, not even the streets, in which they can play.
There are many blocks in New York City where the population is greater than in any other place of like area in the world. Where can the great throng of children go to find innocent amusement? Where shall they go out of school hours?
In 1915 it was estimated that there were 734,000 children between five and fourteen years of age who had to play away from home. To provide for them, the city furnished school and park playgrounds for from 100,000 to 185,000, leaving at least half a million children with no provision of any kind for play, except the already crowded city streets.
Vacation Schools: Keeping the schools and playgrounds open during the summer months takes the children away from the hot, crowded streets, at least part of the time. Like public playgrounds, the number of vacation schools is always dependent on appropriations. The makers of the city budget find a greater pressure exerted from the multitude of business interests that want consideration, than they do in support of appropriations for public health and comfort. It will be necessary for women to be as alive in supporting such measures, as men are in demanding that their interests shall be considered. Also facts must be given to prove that the cost of such appropriations is saved in the increased productive powers of a healthier people. It has been stated that a healthy laborer increases the wealth of the country by some $30,000 during a normal lifetime. If this is true, it should be merely intelligent business on the part of the commonwealth to expend a reasonable pro rata of this sum, when necessary, to insure that a child when full grown is healthy.
Recreation Centers have been established in some of the Western cities. Chicago has a series of small parks in various parts of the city, with outdoor playgrounds, and in each one a large building where there is a gymnasium, swimming-pool, and assembly-rooms, large and small. On a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, these places show many happy pictures of thousands of families, with both the old and young spending their leisure in a way that increases their own happiness, and their value to the world.
Municipal Dance-halls have also been tried. In the recreation centers of Chicago there are dance-halls under careful supervision. But whether the city provides municipal dance-halls or not, public dance-halls should be divorced from the liquor business, and there should be careful policing and supervision of private halls, and for this work women police officials are necessary.