Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 260, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1912 — SETS SHOE FASHION [ARTICLE]

SETS SHOE FASHION

Footwear of United States Standard for Universe. Backward Evolution In Foot Covering Puts the Wearer Behind the Ancients In Walking Ability—— Has Many Defects. New York. —Everybody wears shoes at least one size too 6mall, it' is asserted, and with toes too narrow. This gives room for only the great toe to grow and perform Its functions, but compresses the other toeß until the smallest one is a mere scrap. The foot of man should spread like an animal’s paw with every step he takes. This is impossible In a shoe which “fits” the foot Walter C. Taylor, editor-in-chief of the Boot and Shoe Recorder, says: “The greatest waste in shoe buying Is one for which the consumer himself is largely responsible. It comes through the buying of shoes which are poorly fitted.” We not only wear our shoes too small and our heels too high, but we allow fashion to influence us, and there is a constant demand for change in style and material; a demand which the manufacturers supply abundantly.’’ Mr. Taylor says that it would be worth millions to the trade and to the consumer if this could be righted by a common sense view of cur foot covering. Of course the women are blamed for the greater part of this extravagance, for a dainty Toot has long been considered much to be desired Gradually shoes have developed into things of beauty merely and we buy them with the thought of their appearance and not of their use In fact, Americans, as a rule, do not expect to walk great distances. It seems that the development of the shoemaker’s art is in inverse ratio to the development of the foot, for here in America our feet are notoriously undeveloped, and yet America leads the world in the making of shoes. Almost everything else in the way of wearing apparel depends more or less on foreign importations, but America Influences the shoe styles of England, Germany and France, and American methods are standard for the world , „ American supremacy .in shoemaking is due largely to specialization. Abroad an operative does half a dozen different things; here he performs one simple process, and here also one factory makes one kind of shoes If a large manufacturer makes different kinds of shoes he has a separate factory for each kind What a sight the modern shoe factory would be to the primitive shoemaker of colonial days, who was an itinerant workman, carried his tools with him and stayed with each family long enough, to make up the farmer’s supply of home tanned leather Into shoes enough to last until his next annual visit His last was roughly whittled out of a piece of wood to suit the largest foot In the family, and then pared down for the successive sizes. He sat on a low bench, one end of which was divided into compartments where his awls, ham mere, knives and rasps were kept, with his pots of paste and blacking, his palls, thread, linings and buttons, “shoulder sticks" and “rub sticks With all of our wonderful machinery we produce shoes which are not so good for oar feet, as the most primitive and simplest of foot coverings, the sandal, which is considered Ideal by those who appreciate the beauty of the human foot and wish to preserve It The sandal was worn by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks and the “shoes” of the Bible were sandals The same type la still worn by the peoples of Central Asia. India. Japan and China. The Indian moccasin, which extends over the top or the foot, but has the sole and main part In one piece, is

one of the best of foot coverings, soft, and durable. Out of a combination of these the sold without an upper and the upper without a sole the modern shoe has been evolved.