Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-02-13
Liquor Is No More Dangerous
a Temptation to a Boy
Than Dress is to a Girl.
She'll Grab Chiffon Even as
Eve Did the Apple.
BY DOROTHY DIX

A CCORDING to the Biblical story,
"A when the Serpent desired to tempt
our first mother, he offered her an
apple. That was the method used by
the Old Devil. The modern Satan doesn't
tempt woman with an apple. He holds
out TO her a few yards of chiffon and a
handful of spangles.
And she grabs them, even as Eve did
the apple.
Apparently a woman is never too young
or TOO Old to be immune to the tempta-
ton of clothes. She feels it in her very
cradle. and one of the most dithcult' ana
terrible and insoluble problems present
ed by our public schools is the dress
problem. For there is hardly a school IN
the whole country which does not have
every year the sordid and pitiful tragedy
of some foolish little girl who has COM
mitted a crime in order to have as pref
ty a frocll as the other girls have.
Nor is this strange. The rich girl and
the poor girl sit side by side in the class
room. The rich girl has beautiful and
dainty raiment. The poor girl is attired
i'm ugly and coarse garments. rms so
fills the por girl with discomfort at her
lot. and envy of the things that the rich
girl has, that sometimes she steals in
order to crafty her desire for finery,
and very. very often she runs away and
takes the easiest way to spangles ana
chiffons.
OF course, our public schools are the
splendid flower of our democracy. But
democracy means different thing TO
man and a woman. Democracy makes
man fel. I'm as good as any other man
Democracy to a woman means I'm
going to dress as fine as any. other Wo-
Ia 111akaS
der if there isn't a good deal to be said
for that civilization in which people, and
especiallv women, have their fixed place,
and clothes. and are content to stay In
the place and costume to which IL mas
Itscased Heaven to call them, and where
the shop girl does not aspire to dress
like Mrs. Astor.
No one knows what to do about these
dress-mad little schol girls, who are
tempted beyond their power OF resist
ance by the fnery of their better OFF
classmates. Miss Mary Mcdowell, the
head resident to the University of Chi
cago settlement has suggested that
uniform, to be worn by all high school
girls. might be a cure for the evil.
This is hardly practicable, since the
parents of many of these girls have
so little money that they would not be
able to provide their daughters with
even the simplest uniform. They must
dress in such garments as they can as
semble, instead of having brand new
outfits.
Miss McDowell's idea, however, car
ries with it a suggestion that well-of
parents should take to heart. and that
is that they should, as far as possible,
remove temptation from the path OF
these weak little sisters by dressing
their own daughters as plainly as possi-
BILE when they send them to the public
school.
Let every fond mother remember that
every fluttering ribbon, every sparkling
piece of jewelry. every lustrous bit of
silk or satin with which she adorns the
body of her little girl, may be the
means of sending the soul of some other
mothers little girl to perditiOn.
We no longer ask now, Am I my
brothers Keeper" We know that we
are. We know even more truly that we
are our sisters keeper, and chat we dare
not shirk our responsib towards
these poor little girls who ha We not tn"
strength to stand alone by themselves
and fight the demon of dress.
The finerey temptation comes to the
school girl at the time of life when she
has least power to resist it. When we
grow older we attain a certain philoso-
ply, and an endurance that enables us
TO accept the chances of fate with an
even mind, and to see people more for
tunately placed than we are without
making ourselves miserable about it.
Clothes also drop to their real position
in the scheme of things.
But when we are very young we want
the world and the fullness thereof. We
want everything that anyone else has,
and very denial of our desires, every
disappointment. is a blow under which
we are crushed to the earth. And es-
pecially do we want TO dress like our
companions.
There is no woman, save the few
darlings of fortune, who cannot recall
the shame that burned her to the quick
when she had to wear an old dress to
some party at which all the other girls
had new dresses, of the tears she shed
over some other girls hair ribbon be-
ing half an inch wider than hers, or the
passion of yearning with which she
lOnged FOR a pair of silk stockings, such
as the rich girl i'm her little set wore.
Therefore. women, at least. will un-
derstand how a school girl may be led
to take the false step that will wreck
her whole life just to crafty her desire
to dress as we'll as her classmates and
no woman has a right to pray Lead us
not into temptation" unless she herself
has consciously refrained from leading
some silly little girl into wrong doing
by dressing her own daughter so plain
ly when she goes to school that she will
not be a temptation to her poor school
mates.
Naturally, it will be said that you
cannot put the whole world of women
into a drab uniform to protect the poor
weakling, and that as soon as she gets
out of school, she will face all the al
lurements of fashion and find the devil of
pretty things reckoning to her from
every shop window. This is true, but
the girl will be older and better able