Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-04-20
HOW DOES 1T Oreruu CLUB Increment Is Simply
r, another CaH to Khaki This
MA II W Time in CiuH Army

THE overall club movement is vir-
l. tually a proposal that we should all
wear khaki this summer to cut the cost
of clothes.
Khaki was good enough for officers
and gentlemen Of the United States army
and the allied armies during the war,
Why isn't it good enough for the Ott =
GERS and gentlemen of industrial life!
| For four mouths of the year at least
! it would be a Saner costume in these
United States than any suit of wool, no
matter how acphyrlike.
! And with the aid Of sleeveless
sweater it might serve for more than
| four months of the year.
Cotton clothes for summer wear have
made progress in recent years. but they
! have been foolish cotton clothes. rCQuir-
| ing much washing. the idea underlying
them being that if they carried with
them evidence of high laundry bills a
man would not lose caste by wearing
them.
! But with woolens gone out of reach,
why not practicable cotton clothes, re-
duiring not too much washing; the
Khaki Of the army, in short:
All clothes development in recent
generations has been toward uniform
and away from the gay -colorcd and
fancy raiment of past generations.
why not summer uniform of scrv-
iceablc brown or drab. relieved in hot
weather or on special occasions by the
! lighter. nearly white palm beach that
| has to go often to the cleaner?
If it might lead to this tho high cost
Of woolCns might not be an evil.
q q q
MEN can only be brave In uniform.
4u Why is it?
No army would go into battle
dressed as wc ate in civil life. every one
to his own taste. in checks and stripes.
in grays. greens. blues and browns.
1t is not merely that friend and foe
would bc hard to identify.
But there is some assurance IN the
! fact that the man next to you is dressed
exactly as you are.
So the overall club requires the con
fdcncc that springs from numbers
dressed alike.
TO confess openly in our clothes that
the war has lowered our standard OF
living is too much for the bravcst
Let enough brave men do this by
adopting Il uniform. calling themselves
a club and their purpose war upon the
profteers, and the thing may be done.
Most Of us. when we wish to dress
differently from the rest, have to join
club to do it.
When we want to think differently
from the average we join a club to do 1t.
There must be a movement before
we can move.
The man who can move without a
movement is the bravest of the brave,
and his name comes down through his
tory.
Diogencs was the whole Ovcralls club
Of ancient Athens.
He never wrote word, at least not
one that survived.
All that is handed down of him is an
aneCdOtc or two expressing his con
tempt of his contemporaries, who were
too much afraid of the protitecrs of an
cient Athens to adopt the simple Dio-
genes mode of living in tub.
But his name lives on, awakening q
secret admiration and envy.
lie was man who didn't have to
wait until 100 other men bought tubs
before getting into his.
II there were more Diogcneses there
would be fewer profiteers.
Meanwhile, for the general average
who derive their courage from numbers
and uniforms, the overalls club.
DUT don't think to escape the
ID profiteer easily by taking to khaki.
The cotton growers have met and re
solved that the minimum price for cot
ton should be sixty cents pound.
A few years ago they used to dream
of the blessed age when cotton should
fetch twenty cents q pound.
Now it is to be sixty.
And it requires no great resolution
no great organization, no campaign OF
education 10 make it be sixty.
AS TO reduction in acreage, remarl
the cotton growers, there is no occasion
to recommend it.
The shortage Of agricultural labor
will take care of that.
DO you wonder that there is great
agitation in Europe over who will con
troll Syria?
Syria il one of the few places on tn,
earth where cotton can be successfully
grown.
And Syria has n native population
unspoiled by the opportunity to take a
train north and earn $40 day.
q q q
WHEN Mr.. IIoover's sugar cqualiza
w tion board advised the President
last summer TO buy the Cuban sugar