orchid crushers

[George Thompson]

I don't want to alarm you folks in the heartland, but I was reading in the newspaper just the other day about another menace to the morals of the youth of America that is widespread in NYC and no doubt ready to spread throughout the country.

"The tea dances have not invaded Chicago yet, and I hope they will not.  What we want is daylight between the dancers, and not around them.  One of the disgusting features about these dances seems to me to be the activity of old men who are old enough to be the fathers of the young girls with whom they dance, and the no less pernicious activity of the young men who assume the role of orchid crushers.  I don't know whether your readers will know what I mean by "orchid crushers," but --" and the Dean, without going into explanations, intimated that they were a distinctly undesirable element in the community.  ***  New York Times, April 10, 1913, p. 6, col. ?

The speaker is the Rev. Dr. W. T. Sumner, Dean of the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, Chicago.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.