Strange Times 59: Let the Spooners Spoon

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Today brings horror on the Kurfüstendamenstrasse and love on Broadway. Spoon like there’s no tomorrow for…

February 28, 1921

• The Chicago courts announce their intention to settle the case of 17-year-old bank thief William Dalton quickly. Learn the whole story of his flight and capture in last week's issue.

• After being denied the opportunity to celebrate his birthday, Caruso is reportedly still feverish, but resting well and eating normally.

• The Weather: Unsettled today, probably rain or snow; tomorrow generally fair; not much change in temperature.

This is 1921, folks. Never believe that the west didn’t know.

BERLIN, Feb. 27—Following Hugo Stinnes's exposure, which is said to have thwarted a plan of Nationalist reactionaries for a revolution, Berlin spent an exceedingly nervous Sunday.

Outbreaks were expected and guarded against in places where revolutions usually begin–the Lustgarten, before the former Kaiser's palace, the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate. 

Squads of soldiers and police patrolled these areas and streets leading to the Reichstag were roped off.

This afternoon Berlin experienced the first pogrom in its history. Hundreds of university and upper school students armed with clubs and stones raided the Jewish section and then invaded the Kurfüstendamenstrasse, which is the richest street in Germany. Hundreds of Jews were attacked and many beaten.

The police, having been forewarned, arrived in large numbers in auto trucks. They were led by Prussian officers, who did not attempt to stop the students, but pulled the victims into trucks. When a number of students jumped onto these trucks and attacked the Jews, who were already unconscious and bleeding, the officers asked the students to confine their activities to the streets.

It is estimated that several hundred Jews were beaten. A score were taken to hospitals, where two are reported dying tonight. The demonstration is considered one of the first results of the reactionary victory in the Prussian elections, which aims to re-establish the old monarchist regime.

I went back and forth on how to arrange this week’s two stories. Should I do the cheery one first and the grim one second, to bring you up and knock you down? Or should I do it the other way ‘round, and give you all a chance to leave with a smile? Life is grim enough, I decided—enjoy what may be the sweetest story ever run in Strange Times, and know that nothing tragic will follow.

Sheriff Knott made public yesterday correspondence between himself and a person writing on Hotel Pennsylvania note paper under the pen name of "Pro Bono Publico," relating to a matter concerning the public morals, which the correspondent thinks the Sheriff should take up at once.

The writer has observed "spooning" by occupants of the upper decks of the Fifth Avenue buses, and recommends that the Sheriff's Deputies, and possibly members of the three panels of his jury, including the most prominent men in the city, be delegated to the work of "stamping out the nuisance." The letter said:

"Dear Sheriff: I have read in the daily papers that the Fifth Avenue Coach Company, which operates the buses on Fifth Avenue, refuses to heed the objection made about the spooning on top of its vehicles. As a citizen, I wish to protest against a continuance of this public nuisance. If these young people must spoon, let them do so in the privacy of their own homes.

"It seems to me that this is a matter meriting public attention. There is no hope that the police will do anything about it, for the traffic policemen on Fifth Avenue are witnesses to the public spooning that goes on, but take no action. I therefore write to you, as Sheriff, and ask that you appoint Deputies to take this urgent matter in hand."

The Sheriff answered:

"Dear Sir: Since you continue to hide your identity, I am unable to address you as courtesy demands. I know you will accept my apology for addressing you through the newspapers, from which you gleaned the information which you make the subject of your letter.

"I cannot answer your objections about public spooning and the suggestion that I take official cognizance of it without also speaking as a private citizen. As such i wish to say that I do not sympathize with your complaint.

"Dear Pro Bono Publico, have you no sentiment or human sympathy? Have you never been out in the country in the Springtime and watched the birds in the tree-tops bill and coo? Of course, if you have not, there is not much use in pursuing the subject further. But apparently (I judge this from your present address), New York is only your temporary domicile and very likely you come from outside. 

"However, no matter where you come from, you have observed that beautiful exemplification of spooning, when a fond mother holds her offspring in her arms and the two exchange sweet, affectionate salutations; a heart to heart talk as it were. Such observation, my dear sir, should have given you a more sympathetic view of life. It seems to me that a man must be either a crabbed old bachelor or has been disappointed in love, who seeks to invoke official aid in putting an end to a heritage of nature that is as old as the world. Certainly there is nothing clandestine in spooning atop a bus. Perhaps you know the old proverb, 'Honi soit,' etc.!

"My advice to men who cannot stand the sight of the loving meeting of minds and eyes—and in some cases lips—on a Fifth Avenue bus, is that they ride in the subway. A trip or two in the rush hours there ought to cure them, for in the subway, men and women, boys and girls, are thrown together indiscriminately and even without the formality of an introduction or acquaintance. They are compelled to occupy about the same proximity to each other that the lovers do on the buses, sometimes more so. The difference is that in the subway this attention is forced on them and instead of billing and cooing, one hears bickering and cussing. Let the spooners spoon. They always did. They always will.

"Now, talking to you as Sheriff, I want to say that I must refuse to designate deputies or appoint a posse comitatus to stop what you call a nuisance. That statement by you, I think, represents only a conclusion—a state of mind."