Panic (Bloodlands collection)

by Harold Schechter

Sociologists refer to these periodic alarms as “moral panics” and describe them as a form of mass hysteria, typically ignited by a handful of shockingly similar crimes that happen in rapid succession. Sensationalistic reporting in the news media—coupled with the doomsday pronouncements of moral crusaders—persuades the public that these incidents represent a new and terrifying threat to the social order. A distinguishing feature of moral panics is that the fear they provoke is far out of proportion to any actual threat.

Empirical evidence, however, has little effect on irrational belief. A few terrible crimes are all it takes to set a moral panic in motion.

Einer’s fellow members of the Mädchenschaft, the girls’ subdivision of the German American Bund, who stood “at strict military attention.” At around nine o’clock,

As the coffin was lowered into the ground, members of the Mädchenschaft raised their arms again in a “Heil Hitler” salute. Fighting back tears, Einer’s grim and white-faced father tossed a white carnation into the hole, then led his stricken wife back to the funeral carriage, while the other mourners drifted toward the cemetery gates.[13]

Worst of all—at least according to one prominent critic—was the current fad of big band music. There is nothing surprising about this line of attack. From flapper-era jazz to early rock and roll to 1990s heavy metal, American pop music has been denounced as the cause of everything from rampant promiscuity to juvenile delinquency to Columbine-style mass murder. So it was predictable that, at the height of the sex crime panic, swing was condemned as the source of the supposed epidemic. In a widely syndicated article, Arthur T. Cremin, founder of the New York Schools of Music, declared that, through rigorous scientific experimentation, he had obtained definitive proof of the insidious effects of swing music, particularly on the young. Enlisting the aid of two adolescent volunteers, a boy and girl who had never met before, Cremin placed them “in a room where we could watch them without being observed.” A phonograph in the room “provided a program of good music, classical pieces and popular songs such as waltzes.” Enveloped in this uplifting atmosphere, the two youngsters “were friendly, but that was all.” Some days later, the same couple was brought back into the room. Instead of a phonograph, however, the room was now equipped with a radio tuned to a station playing swing music. The effect was striking. “They were much bolder,” said Cremin. “The boy took much more leeway in his actions, and the girl didn’t object.” Before long, they had shed all moral restraint. “They necked,...