New-York tribune., 1918-06-03
Leather and War
w HETHER we are to win the war 3,
wv not within our decision, but onlv
By II. ]. Davenport

wv not within our decision, but only
whether we shall do our best to win
it. But this best is not question of spa..
modic, unorganized individual putterine
One New England manufacturer, realizing
that the occasion demands general self.
denial, would like to save the leather that
is becoming scarce and dear. So he is said
to be experimenting with wooden soles for
shoes. But can he sell them? There is No
guarantee of this in the mere fact that no
ieather soles ought to be made or worn if
the leather is needed for war. If his com.
pet'tors make them he may go bankrupt in
the isolated striving to do the rational
thing. His shoes may easily be the mora
durable as we'll as the cheaper But pre-
clsely this may be the reason why no ons
will buy them. They will also be the noisier.
II leather soles are not to be worn the
production of them will have to be forbid.
den. To leave the matter to exhortation
on the side Of consumption and to expert.
mentlng and profteering on the side of
production is to miss the essential point.
Consumption is as much competitive as pro-
duction.
But what IS the use, anyway, so long as
the fall patterns for shoes call for more
waste leather than ever before-some of
them eleven to twelve inches high from
the heel, the heel itself probably already
two to three inches too high? But why
should this be? 1t appears to have been
solely by Gods grace that the skirts have
been cut short enough to save some clc1h.
But now this good gift is to be thrown
away In making the shoes so much the
taller. AS the cloth is less the junction
point shall merely be so much the higher
so tnat the shoes in time of especial leather
scarcity require more leather than ever
before.
But-praise belt shall be all in the
name of modesty. Yet if this sort of mod
esty were outlawed for all there could re-
main no immodesty for any In morals.
sometimes, just as in business often. this
: is the way that competition works-the bad
OF 1t to go along with much other of the
gooo OF IT: For so long as cloth-saving
SKIRTS and leather-saving shoes disclose any
slightest interval of stocking, there are lust
1hese inches of interval with which com.
pe'itlve propriety may concern itself to
oiscredlt all efforts toward individual self
DENIAL and economic wisdom. The women
mat decide to be modest will have to forego
being public spirited-patriotism possible
only on terms of conventional indecency.
ones choice must be between shocking
waste and shocking show of stocking.
only those declining to save leather can be
chaste of apparel
But other competitions must he +aLsr
into account before the case for shoes and
leather is all in. There might. indeed he
easily more leather to waste in tba ay
travagance Of high shoes with leather soles
nao not so much already been elsewhere
thwarted OF getting produced. There is in
truth never any guarantee that what is gain
1ui-or preventive of loss-for private com.
petltlve business is wise or wholesome for
the general public. The sole possibility Of
puDAc 1rugallty may rest with the outlawy
" ~ competitive waste Each issue of Tha
tribune, for example, devotes mucb rood
wh1te paper to the persuading of people to
buy that which never ought 70 have hesp
proouced, or, once produced never to have
1ound buyer. The typical Sunday paper is
an excellent example CT what ought not
now TO be tolerated-in war time-an ex.
ample also of what each particular paper
cannot help doing so long as its connections
are Tree to do it, but none the less waste
OF scant freight equipment. scarce coal,
Hn''ceo and inadequate supplies of paper.
'nK' OH and labor. "The London Mail" is
no" CUT down to four pages daily Ard
Northcllffe has his own Canadian paper
mills.
And stlll-what about the leather? five
must waste 1t on shoes il we have it. this
aHords about as good an argument for vast.
ing IT elsewhere as for saving it-leayes
u.s. indeed, no further possibility of follow
ing any purposeful or rational policy. So
may DC OF only the slightest of practical in
CereSt q ivyo
comment to note how wastefuilv the leather
is failing to get produced. Into nv gar.
page paii this morning goes bacon rind
enough for one good pair of shoes The
average american family throws away an
ioaily more than enough pig skin to shoe
IT, Worthless. is it? Its seryiceability is
ven established in the football, attested by
l's use 1or footballs. If, then, the women
must De better covered belo,y the knee than
oy s,ocslngs-they need not even SO much,
% an o! US IN summer Were better off bars-
foot--pig skin would not be immodest m
0"e outer layer Of the prescribed covering.
AND why do consent to waste the bacon
rinas do not. The packer insists %
se4iing them to me. have no choice; and
herewith all the annoyance of having then
cut on and worse still, have to pay to gss
mem scavenged off the premises And why
u,u .he packer send them along with the
eoioie portion? That was what the rest
were doing, and what the consumer was
used to, and what the government--or its
1909 offlce-has aot had the sense to stop,
ana what it, in turn. could have found no
sense In stopping. so long as in the field o.
shoe manufacture all sorts of competitive
wastes remained still legal and gainful.
But we can lose wars in these ways-tn
that part Of the thing that. being within our