Omaha daily bee., 1920-03-05
BY BEATRICE FAIRFAX.

I1cI OarS SnOulQetS slope down
to wisp Of silk which should have
felt obliged to rise up and greet the
vision long before the terrified eye
Travelled down to meet it.
The complacent immodesty OF
her nakedness is topped by mag
nihcent head OF deliberately waved
and puffed and netted hair with
curls and fluffy locks adding a lure
to the sophisticated charm of the
eoiffure.
Her eyebrows are plucked and
penciled into Z hard line.
Her lashes are beaded and the
eyes under them are at once cal
culating and yielding, alluring and
cold. They are sordid and disillu-
stoned.
Hern nose is a weak little jelly
without character or poise.
Her lips are carmine blot.
OF whom do ] speak, you ask:
OF Miss Broadway as seen by a
young artist who has come to us
from a southern country and who
tlnds in our "Paliid North" a type
OF wcnanhood to dazzle and alarm
him. He has not made her beauti-
ful, but repeilant. There il no sug-
gestion ,of charm or loveableness to
the girl the astonished artist has
drawn. 1t does not, seem possible
that this siren should ever be wife,
mother or homemaker. OF the ideals
OF woinanhood as they have been
cherished through the ages, she can
know nothing. She is froth and ex-
element, fever and WEAKNESS. She
is today. She is Jazz.
And the worst of it, that in the
caricature of femininity which the
young artist has painted there is
modicurn OF truth. | am sadly
tempted to say, not that there is a
little, but that there is much truth.
But for the sake of the many fine.
sweet old-fashioned girls who are
still with us, l refrain.
The trouble is that the Haunting
siren. Miss Jazz la 1920, shows.
She is conspicuous. She stands out
against the background OF her more
modest, quiet sisters. And the
world takes its opinions from what
it sees in the foreground of life, not
from what it would have to 20 pry-
ing about in the dark to discover.
Il Isn't fair that the caricatures of
true femininity which go parading up
and down the avenues of every large
city should be in evidence to-. pass
themselves off as typical America1I
women, while the homemaker, the
office worker, the serious minded
girl is at a desk or aNloom OF a pi-
ano or an ironing board.
Seeing's believing. The girl on
the avenue il there to be seen. The
worker: is bending over her task;
and that doesn't take her out into
the afternoons stream of traffic.
Over and over again, every day, I
see Miss Jazz.
+ She wears the new French slip
'pers, short of vamp and tied with
elaborate ribbons. Her thin stock
ings are wisps, drawn into The cob
webby thinness Of optnwork clocks.
The wind whistles about 4 vast ex-
panse Of this and whi$ks up to
meet a tightly wrapped skirt Of vel
vet. Said skirt is longer by several
inches than the average bathing
suiti Above it a gay little dolman
of squirrel eddies out. And some
where between a tiny brocade hat
pulled down over flashing eyes is a
lace.
A paragraph for the face:~ 1t is
penciiled of eye and carrnined Of
lips. The chin is whitcned to match
the nose. But on the tip of the shin
there's daub of red to match the
evenly applied drug store roses of
the cheeks. That fact is not natural.
and it has no expression other than
a challenge for attention and a
simpering plea for admiration.
Why do you do it, girlss You all
look alike--and you all look silly.
You aren't sufficiently individual 'or
differentiated from one another to
win real admiration. You have
traded an appearance OF character
and sweetness and charm for cos
metie, made-up ordinary ehalleng-
ing look.
Why?
Once the term painted lady" was
one from which a respectable >wo-
man would shudder away. Now