Here is a charming article from the New York Times on 26th October 1938 (page 20). My favourite bit is “cannibalistic rhythmic orgies” – cannibalistic? Wow. Again, I guess I’m going straight to hell. 

The full article reads:

WARNS OF EFFECTS OF ‘SWING’ ON YOUTH
Archbishop Beckman Assails ‘Jitterbug Orgies’ Before Catholic Women’s Session

Jam sessions and jitterbug ‘orgies’ of “swing” music are wooing young people “along the primrose path to hell,” the Most Rev. Francis J.L. Beckman, Archbishop of Dubuque told the National Council of Catholic Women tonight.

Archbishop Beckman, speaking on “Art for Youth and the Church,” said “evil forces” were fostering a type of art “embodying evil and malicious propaganda,” and that the Church must act against it.

“Today,” he said, “while the Church pursues as zealously as ever she has in the past her policy of motivating, conserving and drawing to herself the best of modern art, evil forces are hard at work endeavouring to undermine its Christian status, debauch its high purpose and harness it to serve individual diabolical ends.”

“We permit, if not freely indorse by our criminal indifference, ‘jam sessions’, ‘jitter-bugs’ and cannibalistic rhythmic orgies to occupy a place in our social scheme of things, wooing our youth along the primrose path to hell!”

“In such a setting art has been robbed, as was the Man of Jericho, of its beautiful essence and meaning and left to die along the highroad of communistic endeavor.”

Archbishop Beckman advised that the Church should first accord youth “every advantage of pursuing their cultural aptitudes by establishing a new and vigorous educational program calculated to reconstruct and redefine the Christian conception of art.”

Secondly, he said, clerical and lay authorities should awaken to “the extreme danger of the art situation as it exists today” and a program should be followed of “worthy and valuable art projects extending into every field of art endeavor and embracing the multiple youth of the land.”

Mrs. Alfred S. Lucas of Mobile, Ala., told delegates “our youth is the hope of the nation” and urged Catholic action through the work of training and guiding them.

A mass for youth was celebrated in the Church of the Nativity by the Rev. Dr. Thomas K. Gorman, Bishop of Reno.

Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel of New Orleans told the national council that the “diabolical philosophy of birth control is suicide to the nation.” He warned his listeners to “watch the new tactics of the birth controllers, especially the maternity guilds.”

Miss Margaret Lynch, assistant executive secretary, said the United States would have to look to the farm areas to keep up the population. Rural areas, through isolation, and in some cases through religious principles, she said, had been protected from the “so-called civilization” of the cities.

 Click the thumbnail below to view a scan of the original article: