Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-02-06
WASHINGTON GAY
AFTER WAR WORK
Social Life at National Capital
Takes on Interest With
Prospect of Peace

With the signing of the armistice,
Washington put itself on a peace
basis quite regardless\ of interna-
tional conferences or peace parleys.
with the result that even with a
closed White House and no official
program of what old-fashioned
people call state functions, the ma
tional capital is having the gayest
winter of q decade.
Not since the Taft Administra-
ton, when everybody danced, from
the President and the Speaker of
the House to the midshipman from
Annapolis and cadet from West
Point. home for brief holiday, has
the city been so gay. One diplomat
has spoken of dinner parties ram
pant" The succession of debutante
teas. balls, small dances, and cotil-
lions, undreamed of two months
ago, is now endless. Yet, despite an
evidence of extravaganza in the
matter of dress. there is still con-
ervativeness in food, which is one
of the lessons the war taught us.
Although dinner parties of forty
and fifty covers are so usual as to
pass almost unnoticed. and each
new candidate for social honors
has had her time-honored tea as a
debut, dinners and teas are marked
by less elaborate display of flow
ers, food and favors than before the
war.
Few Washingtonians of today are
natives of the District of Columbia.
Society is constantly recruited from
every point of the compass to merge
into the gayeties of this victory
Winter. Debutantes who inherit
their claim to polite attention
through five and six generations OF
District families and debutantes
who never saw the dome or the
Capitol or portico of the Whlte
House until three months ago are
dividing honors amicably, not ohly
with each other but WIN NlsI.iIis
dignitaries of international nmport-
ance and with the Nice-Presldeht, I,
Who in the absence of the Chiet
Executive, may be regarded as the
chief Parsonage. There are no po-
litical lines in entertaining The
Marshalls." as the e-Presldeht
and his wife are called by the great
body of the capitals Vanity Falr
sTbe Ladies of the Senate, an
organization of Senator's wives, con-
tinues its war work activities III a
modified degree, with MIS-: fhil-
ander c. Knox, of PennsyiNaaiiia'
and Mrs. Alice Pomerene, or ONO
as the active aids of the Nice-P resi-
dents wife, but there is no uoupt
that the work is secondary IN Wash-
inpton nowadays. Play is the oraer
of +he day. While scores OF women
ara still devoting themselves 10 can
taen work. to classes in recohstruc-
tion and to work among the Wouiiu-
ed who are coming into Washlhs,L.oil
literally by the carloads, these lauIes
In uniform, either of the lotor
norns or the refreshment stan, are
cbanqing their clothes three uthes
ond finding time to participate III
tba revived diversions of peace tlIlls'
Not only has the feminine I'M
fo,n, except in rare lhstaiices
a;,an nlace to the smart tailoreu
s,,;t and demf-toilet, with fasAlon-
oble modistes working oveftime "
Ell orders for evening frocks' pu'
iaweIs that were placed in saie ue-
nosit vaults are emerging into ths
do vlipht as we'll as the supoueu
waxIight of the well-appointeo oih-
na,. table. The Russian Ban Oh Ten
davs ago marked the return OF tne
tiara the diamond dog collar, anu
the ropes of pearls that were en-
tirelv out of place in wartime. MANY
of the women guests adopted the
Kakoschalk, originally introduced IN
W'a sbington by Nine. George Bakh-
osteff when her husband was the
Amhassador of the late Czar. ka-
koschniks ranged from corohet VI
silver lace copied from some picture