Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1910 — SHIBT WAIST IS THREATENED. [ARTICLE]

SHIBT WAIST IS THREATENED.

Garncßt That Hu Come to Hy Menaced by Manufacturer*. Let no one take fright at the threat of the New York shirt waist barons to put the shirt wale* out of fashion. The barons have a strike on their hands and wish to Alarm the strikers. • The latter are—skilled in the making of shirt waists, having devoted their lives to the art, and if shirt waists were abolished their strike would become purely academic and they would face starvation. But they refuse to tremble, because they know that the shirt waist has come to stay. Npt all the anathemas of aIL tbe fashion czars in creation can move it an inch, the Baltimore Sun says.

And no wonder. Was there ever a garment more sightly and ingenious then the shir ft waist? It gives a certain dashing grace to the! most obtuse figure. Its collision with the dark skirt beneath it gives the effect* of an orthodox waist, even when there is no waist there. It submits easily to the customary processes of renovation. It is cheap. It “goes well,” as the makers of robes et manteaux say, with any sort of skirt. It is cool. It« has both dignity and a touch of coquetry. Whether peek-a-boo or airtight, it satisfies the eye and soothes the mind. A woman in a freshly lauhdered shirt waist knows very well that she is doing deadly execution, and the thought elevates her.

For lovemaking the shirt waist has abundant advantages. Oldsters well remember how difficult it was, in the days before the waist, to encircle a pretty girl with easy nonchalance. The upper garments worn by the dear creatures at that time were full of pins and easily soiled. The young man, bleeding from a hundred wounds, would mutter harsh words, and the girl, thinking of the dry-cleaner’s bill, would faint. The shirt waist put an end to all those horrors. To-day one just grabs the girl and gives her a hearty hug. It Is not necessary to put on chamois skin gloves, for finger prints on shirt waists yield readily to household ammonia; and it'is not necessary to have a surgeon waiting outside, for shirt waists are held together by ropes, rivets and belting, and have no pins. And so one may now caress one’s love in comfort.

The shirt waist doomed, and by the simple ukase of a lot of New York business men? Pooh, pooh! Let them first prove their power by attempting a holy war upon chewing gum, the false frizz, or detachable cuffs.