The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-08-08
PASTOR SCORES
 WOMAN'S DRESS
Dr. Poteat Shocked, At Apparel Seen On The Green, Says Arrests Should Be Made Calls It A Mortal
 Menance

Comparing the present indecent. as
 he terms it, tendency in wonan's dress
 to that of the period which immedi-
 ately preceded the fall of Jerusalem,
 which he said was characterized by
 the same lack of decency, and pre- saged the fall, Rev. E. M. Poteat, for
 merly pastor of Calvary church, in the Sim City, now president of Farman
 college at Greenville, s. C., has made a
 severe araignment of the present fem
 mine fashions in an interview with the
 New Haven Journal-Courier.
 pr. Poteat said he had never spoken
 upon the subject from the pulpit be- cause he has had other sub Jects to
 talk upon, but that he feels very deep
 Iy the moral issue involved in the mat
 ter could not fail to show in the sig
 nif1cant words he spoke Incidentally
 1t remained for New Haven, conserva-
 tive as it is considered, to shock pr.
 Poteat in a ~woman's dress. The min
 ister has travelled considerably through
 the large southern cities recently since
 the agitation upon the slit skirt and
 the transparent gown, and saw the first
 slit skirt with all it's latest modif1ca-
 tions, reaching from a crack in the goods to the opening that displayed to the knee the supposed-to-be-h hidden hlagree, in Atlanta, the most metro politan city in Georgia, but never in
 his varied experience has he seen any thing to compare with a transparent gown that he saw Wednesday on the New Haven green.
 eff such a thing had come to pass in New Haven ten years ago, the women who wore the gown, or lack of it, would have been arrested for indecent exposure, but the men as I noticed them looked on with s1igh1y amused i pruriency, and the young woman dis played her charms with the bo1dness or unconcern of a coryphee, only she l had not the dancers excuse for her abandoned get-up. The young woman i was walking through the green, and as the sunlight struck her fimsy gown it | created an impression as if clothed in tights. On the variety stage one might have expected to see such things, and there would be no suggestion about it, but plain fact, but to my mind that young woman's ganb was infinitely more harmful to the morals of the community. Human nature is not inn mune from its own faults and propen- stiles and the young women who in dulge in such depraved dress are a menace morally to the comm onwea1th.
 ''I say that woman should have been arrested in the interests of decency, and yet I do not believe that legislat- ing against, the slit skirt and this sort of gown can possibly do any good, while the mothers of daughters per init the young women to wear such clothes. The men can do nothing ex- this problem of decency rests with the women, the sensible, staid matrons of our community who are not held >in tyranny by the dictates of fashion, for [ presume it is fashion which demands that women make themselves so con- spicuous. The. evil can only be reme- died by concerted action among decent women, in swomens organizations. and In the agitations of the Journals devot- od exclusively to women.
 'tCivilization has always touched it's climax in the character of it's women, and that a crucial period inf our civ l1ization for morality is present is in- dtcated by the 1ewdneas of modern dress. Before the fall of Jerusalem the prophet Isaiah, in chapter 3, verse Is, of Holy Writ, exhorted the women to repent Of their evil ways, and de- scrfbed them in a manner which is strangely parallel with present-day conditions in dress. He mentions their naughty walk, the stretched-forth necks, and wanton eyes mineing as they go and tinlxling with their feet. How strangely like modern dress, like women today with their ankle watch ss, their crescents and pendants and bracelets and perfumes, as the prophet mentionsi
 There must be reaction or the na- C1On VIII A hood is it's greatest forttfication. The effect upon civilization is incalcu1able, and we can't trffie with such facts
 '"The redress cannot come from the pulpit for the people who should be do not go to church, and the nome must apply the remedy. !,
 Speaking of tango dancing, pr. Po- , teat was as critical of this as of wo- nen's dress. CT have seen exhibitions of the turkey trot, bunny hug and tan 20 that I am sure, from the standpoint of the men indulging in them, were , not wholly innocent. All decent per sons in society have tabooed such ex- aibitions of immortality" said he.
 Dr. Poteat, awho has been in the , south some eight or ten years since he eft New Haven, said that in society , circles of the south the young men .rowned upon these dances.