Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1919 — Will American Women Replace Service Uniform With Sex Lure Drapery? [ARTICLE]

Will American Women Replace Service Uniform With Sex Lure Drapery?

By ELIZABETH NEFF. W. C. T. U.

Dress Campaign

Is the American girl going to slump back into prewar style-slavery? She has worthily worn a military uniform, she has won honors for service and bravery side by side with our soldiers; she has nursed the wounded and cheered the homesick; she has fought for great ideals. Now will she let herself degenerate into the mere female of her species? Will the American woman allow her service uniform to be replaced by the suggestive draperies of sex lure? Is she willing to be a living poster or a grotesque cartoon for the advertisement of manufacturers’ goods? If she will not why does the American woman, supreme arbiter in other respects,, submit meekly, abjectly to the wildest freak of fashion decreed by men —un-American men who have the continental conception of woman and dress her in the continental half-feudal character part? Is it patriotic, when the physical development and health of our girls is a national asset, to invite disease by unhygienic clothing? Is it fair to the young manhood of our nation to suggest in our homes the very temptation from which we try to protect it on the street? It is the American girl who must henceforth restore order out of chaos, must set the standard of purity, and to do it she must dress her part. What shall the new world leader, the American girl, wear? It is easy to say what she will not wear, and that is a homely uniform damned bv the phrase “dress reform.” If the art of all ages cannot design costumes for our pretty American girls that will be beautiful, graceful, comfortable, healthful and modest, then the art of all ages has failed and it is dp to this important young person to take the matter in hand herself. Therefore it is time for woman to set herself a new standard of modesty. . " ' This is, in brief, the new campaign begun by the W. C. T. U. for the advancement of social purity. It is sumiharized in this official resolution : “Whereas. Certain styles of women’s dress are unhygienic, immodest, inconvenient and conducive to extravagance and immorality; therefore “Be it resolved, That the<fcmen of the W. C. T. U. use their influence to demand simpler and more modest clothing for both day and evening wear and discourage the unseasonable wearing of summer furs, winter pumps, narrow skirts and open-necks as well as constant changes of fashion?’ x .