Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-07-06

treated like children and had it's
favorite and harmful beverage taken
away by an edict of law?
The whole situation amuses the
French They are not whisky
drinking. cocktail nation. but life to
hem without the grape would not be
worth the living. They have never
thought of it in this way, and it would
not be possible for any government
to take the fruit away from them.
In a nation where the smallest paid
worker the most insular peasant, the
tiniest microcosm in the industrial
world has his glass of wine twice
day, the fact that a nation of 100.-
lating pap" taken away by parental
hand is so appalling that they cannot
understand the meaning of a land of
liberty.
They do not see the need of it. for
they are not country of drunkards.
The French workman has not the
inclination to spend his wages in
saloon. He does not return empty
handed to a hard worked family. He
does not send his children to rush
the growler." He, of all men in the
world, loves the juice of the grape
and considers it necessary to living;
and yet, throughout the centuries of
its usage, he has never abused it,
When the poilu saw how 100000
big, sturdy, independent, cheering
American soldiers were forbidden to
touch drink. while he had his wine
brought near the trenches in stu
pendous hogsheads, so that he could
drink and fight there began that
strange misunderstanding of our peo-
Pile which is said to still exist in
France.
This, without doubt, was the moral
and mental situation that induced
France to throw grapes into the world
of designing as the first type of orna-
mentation.
1t was a pretty jest. 1T was bit of
laughing satire. 1t was gayly taken
up by Frenchwomen in token of the
great American remuneration. And
yet modern as the suggestion seems
to be, it is an old. old theory among
Bacchus gave the world an exquisite
form of ornamentation.
The history of the grape as apparel
decoration is far too exhaustive to
touch upon in columns; it needs books
The student of art should do it. not
the reporter OF dress.
The world at large has glimmering
idea that, to put il in the words of a
preachers wife. wherever Pan, a
satyr, and bunch of grapes are seen.
something wicked is intended or
about to occur"
Grapes and paganism are closely
associated in the Christians as well
as the artists mind. and one has a
traditional feeling, incurred from the
cradle of our ancestors, that grape
decorations are connected with
bacchanalian riots.
This idea is probably secondary in
the French mind next to that of Ameri-
can prohibition.
X X
Paris herself is said to be dancing
bacchanalian orgy in certain Sc
lected places, especially among those
who have made great wealth in the
war and those who have the old spirit
OF French daring and gayety, which
laughs triumphantly as soon as terror
is over
Ihere is certainly a spirit of inten-
sive gayety in this country as well as
IN Paris. and the idea of grapes as an
apparel decoration. as Il substitute for
roses and feathers, is met pleasantly
and acceptably by the American mind.
1t is newer to us on this continent
than 1t is to the civilizations of Eu-
rope. They have been accustomed to
the idea of punches Of grapes, trellises
or grapes and grape leaves as orna-
ments' in sculpture, in art, in interior
decorations and in the clothes of men
and women.
Over here we have paid only pass
ing attention to the grape. even as a
fruit 1t does not mean the industrial
lie OF nation to US, as it does to
France. Our great acreages grow 80
much and so quickly. and our soil
yields with such prolific readiness to
feed man that we are careless of our
products and processes by which we
are fed.
We do not regard the fruit as q
means of industrial merit. artistic or
namentation or serious agricultural
q