STAR AND GARTER Theatre; Chicago, Illinois

LouRugani on September 27, 2025 at 8:43 am

(Chicago Tribune, March 12, 1917) Church Women Reveal Suggestive Acts After Peaceful “Raids” on Theaters

BY THE REV. W. B. NORTON.

SCANTILY dressed women, lewd jokes, the American flag disgraced, the Christian religion flouted, drinking, gambling, murder paraded, crowds of men and boys in the audience, many of the boys in knickerbockers.

These are some of the things which shocked the women of the Woman’s Church federation who made a round of a dozen or more of the theaters of Chicago Saturday evening.

Mrs. J. G. Boor, chairman of the morals committee of the Woman’s Church federation, was in charge. She was assisted by fourteen women and up several men, some of whom accompanied the women, while others went to ag the theaters where men only are admitted.

Mrs. H. T. Leslie, 6844 Lafayette avenue, was one of the women who visited the Gayety theater, 531 South State street.

“The performance was vulgar and degrading,” she said. We teach our children to honor the American flag. Here they disgraced it. Girls came on the stage in tights with shoulders and arms entirely bare, draped about the waist in the red, white and blue. They formed a pyramid and the one who came the nearest being nud formed the center of the pyramíd. In this attitude they sang a song entitled “My Country.” not our national anthem, while a flag was lowered from the ceiling.

Sample of “Humor.”

“One of the comedians said: ‘It doesn’t make any difference what a woman has on or whether she has anything on. O yes it does,’ another said. When Gen. Grant surrendered to Lee he only had on a ragged union suit. Our girls have more on than that.”

“One man told a girl he would strip her to the skin. He first made her take off her hat, then her dress, then her petticoat. She had on tights, but the suggestiveness of the act was plain to see.”

Mrs. L. E. Koontz, 653 North Lockwood avenue, was one of three who visited the Star and Garter theater, 815 West Madison street.

“We sat in the gallery,” she said, “and noted that the audience was chiefly made up of young men, some of them nice young, manly looking fellows, others were of the depraved kind. My heart ached for them because I realized their legitimate desires for amusement. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. The jokes were of the coarsest character and evidently intended to inflame the imagination. One comedian told how some one threw a brick through the window and struck the leg of the girl he was sitting with and broke three of his fingers, plainly implying his hand was in contact with the girl’s leg.

Some More “Comedy.”

“In a scene one girl and two men became intoxicated, the girl being dragged off the stage in a beastly state. The men spilled the liquor on the table, dipped their hands in it, and slapped each other. Finally they kicked over the table and spilled the rest of the liquor on the floor.

“The girls were called the Jolly Widows and were dressed in tights.”

Mrs. F. M. Reynolds of Austin confirmed the report of Mrs. Koontz.

“The performance is to be condemned from start to finish,” she said. “There was not one redeeming feature. There was a lewd poem recited about looking at women, in which the name of Christ was mentioned. The drinking scene and the pajama dance were disgusting.” Mrs. R. L. Moffett, 4618 North Racine avenue, visited the Casino at 403 North State street.

“Suggestive jokes and Hula Hula dancing such as I heard and saw ought not to be tolerated,” she said. The Hula Hula dancers were bare legged and their bodies were draped only in a shawl.

Better Features Applauded.

“Were there any more like you in the family?” one coarse joker asked another. “No, when father died mother lost the pattern.”

“I believe the audience would enjoy a higher grade of entertainment, because a moving picture of a war scene and the performance of a player on an accordion, which were good, received the loudest applause.”

Mrs. Boor found conditions at the National, 610 South State street, she said, disgusting in the extreme.

“A young woman described a dance in a most suggestive way. ‘What did you have on?’ her male companion asked. ‘I had on a string of beads, then a little space and another string.’ ‘You ought to leave off the two last strings,’ he replied. ‘Did you dance the seven veils dance?’ she was asked. ‘If you did you left off six and a half of the veils,’ he said.”

“Forty per cent of the audience was under 21 years, many of them young boys.”

“The theaters are not as obscene as they were. They have been improved 75 per cent over the theaters of a few years ago, but they are still demoralizing, corrupting, and a disgrace to a Christian civilization.”

the most objectionable of all,“ said Mrs. E. Pretty.

“The girls were dressed so they appeared perfectly nude. They came on the stage protecting themselves with parasols. They moved the parasols from side to side so as to expose themselves for a moment to full view. Then they sang, ‘To see a little more you must meet us at the door.’ Could there be any plainer solicitation to evil than that?”

Mrs. A. C. O'Neal, 2512 West Sixty-sixth street, expressed in the strongest terms indignation of what she saw at the Haymarket theater, 722 West Madison street.

“If there is anything worse than I saw at the Haymarket, I hope I may never see it,” she said. “There was awful profanity, and from beginning to end vile love making and sexual suggestion. The twenty girls dressed in tights ran out on the run board into the center of the audience, and stooping over to the men sang songs of invitation and suggestion. I saw only two other women in the audience besides the four women in our party.”

Many Theaters Visited.

Among the theaters visited were: the South side, Gayety, National, Gem, and Stella; north side, Casino, Hippodrome; west side, Haymarket and Star and Garter.

“To describe the chorus girls of any theater as shapely, scantily clothed, alluring to men, will displease no owner or manager,” said Mrs. Boor.

“To picture the horror or even wrath of good women at witnessing the members of their sex on exhibition like well groomed prize winners at the international stock exhibit will merely cause a smile of ill concealed approval by those interested in the box office.

“But to pass a law giving authority to close such theaters under an injunction and abatement act, by which managers and owners are held responsible for the character of the performance, will raise a storm of protest because such a law will close the show.”

Need for New Law.

“But this is what led us women to brave the disgraceful and distasteful houses of entertainment which we believe are destructive of the young life of our city. We want our legislature to know that there is a crying need for the passage of the law offering relief from the menace of the immoral show such as is provided by the senate bill 130, introduced by Senator J. J. Barbour, and a similar one introduced by Representative Allen J. Carter, which make the owners and managers liable for whatever is exhibited in the theaters they control.”