Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-11-01
AS ONE WOMAN SEES 1T
Concerning Lost Motion Discussing
the "coings on" Of Girls and Proof
Advanced That They Are
All Right
BY SARAH ID. LOwRIE

they were defended in essays and violent
young letters Of protest from violent young
champions. Then the pulpit took up. the
hue hue and cry and mourned the ways OF the
mained perfectly silent through 1t all are the
girls themselves.
Perhaps they are not aware Of what the
hue and cry Is all about; perhaps they are
aware and do not care; perhaps they, care
but feel 1t is hopeless to explain.
THERE is great deal of hopelessness
l. about explaining things felt by the gem
Grafton coming on toward the generation In
power.
generally Understand their grandchildren
better than the children's parents do, and
get more of their condolences.
For one thing. the minds of grandparents
are generally more casual and easy going.
They have had to scrap 80 many things that
sponsibilty. They have their few principles
that have stood the tests of life and they
produce these with swift logic on occasions
and with great directness; other things they
let pass,
Now IL there is one thing youth appre..
ciates and comprehends 1t Is directness, and
no generation ever comprehended it better or
practiced 1t more Loyalty than does the pres
ent oncoming generation. ...
WTHEN I was girl brusqueness was
w rather chic but not unadorned sim
plicity. If girls made up they did it--wcll
not casually In the street car, but behind
closed doors, often locked doors.
If they smoked they did 1t only with a
certain initiated few. not in restaurants; IL
they were Indifferent to religion they went
often enough to church not to seem ir-
religious il they were with crowd Of high
brows who conversed about books and pic
lures they had never heard Of, they tried to
catch on enough to seem to know; II they
kissed or were kissed they tried to forget it
next morning; IL their elders told them 1t
was wrong to do certain things when in
reality It was only inconvenient-to the
elders-they tried to act as though they be-
lieved 1t was wrong and often got up fine
little moral Righteousness about not doing
them and a fine little remorse for doing
them.
Whereas now-barring the sly ones and
rotters who will always be handicap to
every generation-it is n point of honor
among the young to be just what they are.
neither "pieface" nor high brow, nor indf-
ferent to larks, nor ignorant Of what is sin
and what Is just convention.
TNHEY really like truth and they will take
l. any amount of truth II 1t Is appropriate
to their exigency, but they hate cant and
they are impatient of truth out of place
are garrulous to them. many hymns full Of
astonishing exaggerations, many prayers be-
side the point and many pews very confn-
ing.
They also find most of the philanthropies
their elders have started. and look vainly
for them to finish, a great waste Of money
and time and effort because they do not ade-
quately meet the situatoh-are In fact sur
face poultices and do not get down to the
wrong to right it once and forever.
They do not like to sit on boards to listen
L. nE
how to keep the bureau drawers Of the pri
vate patients clean. They think one person
can decide that in one minute and see that
it is done.
They are not so afraid of work MS even
their older sisters were. They are actually
their babies and playing round with their
husbands In way that bewilders their own
mothers. f ''''
TNHEY do not neglect their babies because
L they do not joust them up and down and
sway them to and fro on their knees. or sing
them to sleep or walk the floor with them
The truth is the milk they prepare by an
exact formula and the baths they give with
quick dispatch and the hygienic habits they
keep the babies to and the quiet unbroken
rest they allow them, make it possible for
mothers when they are of duty.
A GENERATION ago all but few So
n cety women promptly lost their figures.
The girl Of this generation keeps her figure
after her marriage as matter of course SO
that it is very difficult to pick out the
mothers In a crowd of young things As a
consequence unmarried girls and married
girls go about together with no great feeling
of difference, which, If 1t makes for the
sophistication of girls. makes also for a GER
tain pleasant youthfulness in married
women. They do not date" SO soon.
A FTER ALL the great test for every one is
"A how does he or she measure up to an
emergency-a quick call, with no time to
think. only time to act instinctively.
Well. / saw how girls of every class acted
in IN emergency here in Philadelphia two
years ago this month when the town settled
down under the Black Death, which was
called the influenza.
There was a job that was a real one. That
meant possible death and that meant great
hardship and some horror. / saw the little
souls who came out last year and danced
their little high heels off and their stockings
into holes every foolish jazz night saw
| them lifting dead aud decomposed bodies out
of terror stricken tenements with set, mat
ter of fact young faces, heard them answer
phone call after phone call with the pa
tience of an angel of God. advising dis
tracted mothers where to find help and help
less, pathetic men how to get their wives
into temporary iufirmaries. I saw them
start off to the ends of the city to nurse. to
clean, to watch to run errands. They baked
at nothing because 1t was a real Job their
elders were setting them to, real trust!
r CONCLUDE that since they had the
l. sense and keenness to grasp great
calamity by the throat and shake It, but not
be shaken by it while the fight was on their
grasp at pleasure may be just as genuine,
| Just as uncalculating. just as forceful.
Their way Of pleasuring seems astonish-
! ing to the onlookers of the elder generation,
| but so was their treatment of pain.
If they refuse to think themselves sinners
in their pleasures, so also they refuse to re-
gard themselves as heroes in their dealings
with tragedy.
They are perfectly matter of fact and
simple about both, and perfectly hopeless
that we who are most Of US not simple, will
understand. d ,4S.J
TNHEIR very democratcness Is simple be-
| l. cause 1t is so a matter of course. II
| they have eliminated the word ''respect'
1T. l,,Ia Boo Ln.. ~