New-York tribune., 1919-07-19
Red Things
By Emma Bugbee
was red sweater on sale II.

other day in q Fifth Avenue sbon
not rose, nor cerise, nor Cherry. NV
fame, but plain anarchist red.
This fact would have excited no cor.
five years ago, for it would have been ,a,.s
for granted as one of the signs Of tha
ing of the vacation season, with d..
mountain and sea when a September tan,
tones up tha summer air, and not only tia
temperature but human psycholoev >.
quires the wearing of the red. Last w.o,.
however, the appearance of a red swe...,
meant something more; it meant the revolt
OF the young and happy against the cur.
rent assumption that a red sweater ;s
declaration of red politics.
These remarks are not to be cons+rr.s
political. The Bolshevists have no right =.
monopolize red, to the embarrassment =,
republicans who are blond and democrs.,
who are the right brunette for red 70
Fifth Avenue leads the way and the beaches
follow sturdly, there is yet chance N
save the good old color
What rugged, bourgeois record II has,
What Bolshevist dare challenge the mem.
ory of grandfather's freman's Shirt. and
the greatest day Of our fifty summer. when
he donned it with all its glitterng BADGES
and marched in the Old Home Week no
rade?
Then there were the turkey red cotton
cushions in Aunt Seliuas kitchen. on which
the white kitten and the black slept sae
by side against a background of SUNSHINE
ana yellow green honeysuckle vines, giving
us our first taste for futurst effects.
A little later came the Harvard sofa
cushions and the red canoe with which
Freddie Prince dazzled the high school and
which was conceded to be the propertv of
Marion Taylor as soon as she appeared bv
remarkable coincidence in new red dress.
Nothing radical-nothing Bolshevist, YOU
see, about red per Sc. There is nothing
good or bad but association makes it so.
However, the point is that if all the grad
yates of Harvard College and all the girls
who ever loved a red sweater start at once
a vigorous propaganda something NAV vet
be done to make the world safe for red
precedent which is encouraging h.
cause 1t was successful may be found in
the campaign of the suffragist against ths
use of rose color by the anti-suffragis+s 7.
moves
sutraglsts ever made when they adopted
the American Beauty rose as their emblem
and spread through the halls of Congress
the impression that any beautiful woman
who appeared with a rose in her belt or
Pink ribbon on her hat had come to cam
Paign against the Federal amendment. II
was the one thing that reused the ire of
the younger suffragists, for it struck a
sensitive spot. Not even sufragists living
remote from the practical affairs of lfe
were unaware of the fact that rose is the
favorite color Of the male and that anv
woman with rose in her hat can get hear
ing for herself or her cause. whereas the
sister in dark blue or brown may be as beau
tiful as the dawn, but no man will ever look
at her.
Meantime, it is q pleasure to record that
the suffragists called that bluff They went
right on wearing their pink ribbons and
dewdabs, defying the right of any anti
sufraglst to appropriate color 30 uni
versally becoming. 1t was different with
their yellow or their purple green and
white; those colors were no good to any
body else, lying around unmproved, 20 to
speak, and glad to be taken I'D and put to
useful occupation.
There is significance too in the incident
of the red silk petticoat of the pretty young
orator who was caught in the melee around
Madison Square Garden one night last
spring, when band of sailors and soldiers
folt called upon to suppress all things red.
Inc radical orator, having finished her
speech, was leaving the hall, when the SOL
diers and sailors set upon her with much
tumult, shouting Here's red!"
i couldn't imagine what they had against
me-" she told the story afterward. "for
had been most law abiding and philosophi-
cal IN my speech, and, anyway, those sail
ors had not heard it. So | thought at first
they had caught the wrong radical. until 7
remembered had on my best red silk pet
ticoat. 1t was bought long before Boil
shcvism was invented, and still had no as
soclatlon in my mind with economic theo-
ries. l could be just as radical in green
skirt But l knew it would take a long
time to explain all that to the sailors. so
l just looked pathetic and cried:
"'Oh, don't detain me, please! have
to catch the boat to Staten Island
"And the sailors evidently believed that
anybody who wanted to go to Staten Island
must be harmless, so they let me 60 and
forgave me the red petticoat"