In January, 1896, a Jerico preacher’s Sunday sermon about the evils of dancing drew the ire of some residents, who denounced his “slanderous remarks” in a letter to the editor of the El Dorado Springs Sun and presumably to the Jerico Springs Optic, though it’s unavailable. Following is a full transcription, with the original headline.
Claims to be slandered
JERICO SPRINGS, MO., Missouri, Jan. 28, 1896 – To the editor of THE SUN: Will you please favor us with a place in the columns of your paper for this contribution.
The object of this is to place before the public the slanderous remarks of censure, insinuations and insults cast by one preacher Stone from the pulpit Sunday night, January 26, at Jerico Springs, Mo., on the young ladies and gentlemen who dance and attend dances. The following are some of the epithets that this slanderer heaped upon the heads of those of that audience that night:
“They who dance are the scum of the earth, that no intelligent or moral people dance,” and to further insult the dignity of the gentleman and shock the sensitive feelings of the ladies he said,”Ladies, when you take the man’s hand in the ballroom how do you know that it is not a hand which has just had hold of the hand of a harlot, and that there is not a young man who attends dances that would not seek the downfall of the young ladies attending.” Might he not as well have said that the young ladies are accomplices of the young men in as much as people are known by the company they keep? Thus did the slanderer heap his tirade of abuse on those of that audience that night.
We will now ask, by what right did he take the liberty to assault and insult people with this disgraceful language? Was he too ignorant to realize (or too mean to care) the sweeping range of such language as he made to yourself on that night? Are not these young people who dance near and dear to parents, brothers, sisters, relatives and friends everywhere?
When a man stands in the pulpit and utters these words before a respectable audience, that moral people as a class do not attend dances, that it is the lowest class of people who do attend them, and censures young men with carnal intent with young ladies on such occasions and those young ladies being the associates of young men – we would ask again: Do not such utterances incense the feelings of every parent, relative and friend of these young people? Do they not invade nearly every family circle, penetrating to the very center of the fireside around which the most sacred ties cluster? We would ask once more, seriously, is there anyone possessed of a good conscience, who would approve of this slanderer’s insults? To the contrary are we not justified in believing that all moral and dignified people will join us in vindicating our rights and reputations and condemning a man who will utter such bitter invectives as being an unprincipled reviler? and, it would seem, who had no other object in view but to try to ruin the reputations of all who dance.
In conclusion we state that we are a few of the great community at large who dance, but ever stand ready to defend our reputations and rights against the attacks of anyone who will come before the public to slander us and lie on us.
Jericoans.
Jerico Springs on parade 