Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-15


wftched our fathers certain once
prevalent types of American beauty
49, have proportionateIy dwindled, while
others, once rare, have gained rapid
ascendancy.
About the year 1882 befeu this sudden
turn Of the tide. Until then the blond Teu-
tons of Europe. mostly out of England,
Germany and Scandinavia. and bearing
with them certain distinguishing elements
of beauty quite apart from their mere
biondness had composed our largest class
of immigrants-as 1t had the majority of
our colonists. The darker-haired mixed
types, principally from Ireland, had ranked
second in numbers; the distinct brunettes,
third. The great preponderance of blue eyes
among our matrons of today tells this story
better than dry figures But in that year
of grace, 1882, the golden current from
Great Britain, Germany and Scandinavia
commenced to shrink, and quite another
from Russia Italy and Austro-Hungary,
began to swell across the Atlantic. Mean
while a generation has been at work pour
ing the new beauty elements In upon the
old in the great American cructble. The
first product is about now reaching mar
riageable age, and scientists are commence
ing to note that locks of natural gold are
becoming a scarcity in the land, as are
other characteristics to which pubic at
tention has not been called.
In this age Of the quest of beauty the
American woman finds the public prints
overloaded with the science-more often the
pseudo-science-of self Identification. But
she has never been told how her features,
coloring, mold, stature, have been or are
being, and how those of her poster1ty are
being, or will be, remodeled and retinted
by potent factors as yet controlled more
by chance and nature than by design and
artifce. She has not been taught that
America is vast studio or sculpture
wherein, by gradual processes, old world
trrDrx NIT
elastic hand; wherein, at work upon the
raw clay hurried to our shores by imm-
grant ships, are many sculptors; each I'M
parting his own distinctive mold and TINT
ing with his own preferred pigments. These
sculptors are environment apd their raw
clay is the peasantry of the old world, now
pouring in upon us at the rate OF nearly
one million souls per year.
-I,o-this raw material Of our beauty we
must glance first.
We must take with us to the gateway OF
the immigration station the trained ethnoio-
gist and bid him to sort out the distinct
types, He separates them into three great
compounds, let US say, according 10 the
type Of beauty which each has to transmit
to an American posterity. He fnds at the
end of the year just passed that one OF
his three groups contains ABOUT as many
combined .,-,.
This larger class Is that OF neutral color
ing. or perhaps brown brunette. They
bring us eyes that vary from hazel to dark
gray, hair chestnut or. duller brown; noses
variable, but rather broad and heavy;
faces broad; heads short broad and rouno;
foreheads straight and sometimes almost
oyerhanging: chins full, statures medium
and Inclined toward stockiness-solid rather
than agile.
In other words this type which, In the
mad rush Americaward. is ontnumberlng
either of its running mates two TO one.
belongs TO that great nondescript race OF
Europe. yclept Alpine" or. = sometimes
"Celto-Slavic" We touch elbows with
these round-headed ones daily, in the public
marts sit cheek by jowl with them In the
public conveyances without knowing
whence they come or who they are-these
fastest builders of new American beauty,
neither blond nor brunette. But our eth
nologist tells US that they are pouring in
from parts of Russia, Poland, Bohemia, Bull
garia, Servia Roumania, North Italy, Scot
land Ireland, Wales. Austro-Hungary,
France, and many other lands less known.
-.---l-s-- .+-
But let US look at our other two groups.
The second has been washed upon our
shores by a wave of immigration only
one-half as great the first but one