Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-08-08
Buying by the Clock and the
Tilt Against Economy.
The Success of a Scheme.
Importance of Accessories.
Clothes for Workin &
Hours.
BY ANNE RITTENHOUSE.

She paws her own bills She earns
the money to meet these bills. AS she
| is a wage Garner and therefore sup
posed to know something oil business
| she feels an unquiet sense Oh huiiiiia-
| ton if she spends unwisely.
This mental attitude is parity True OF
| the woman whose husband pay the bllis
when the income is small, but the wom-
an who is in public life has no time 10
remedy her mistakes. She must MAKE
the best of her failures. otner women
can reshape their failures.
No woman can go about with sand
witch placard on her back winch pro-
claims the fact that she knows her gown
is wrong but she bought it in hurry.
There is a slang phrase in New YORK
society, used to describe an addressed
woman, which runs, 'She looks as though
she bought her clothes in the after
noon The wage Garner might trans
pose this phrase into another key by
saying that woman looks as though
she bought her clothes during the lunch
hour. This is exactly what many wage
earners do.
There is a time clock in establish
ments where most women work. 1t
reaches the high and low. 1t punches
their composure as well as their hours
Whether or not one gets the best work
done through the time clock method is
not 10 lNe WIN lIlo SulIdHCC VI
thousands of women into wage-earning
fields there arose the necessity to gov
ern and restrict them as day laborers.
The time clock is punched, the signal Is
given for lunch, the one hour is sternly
held to as sufficient freedom and the
wage earners troop out into the air at
the hour when all shops are closed Do
all women of leisure realize this?
How, then, can the worker buy what
she must wear except at the noon hour?
How, then, can she eat sufficiently to
keep her we'll if she must economic on
time by swallowing a chocolate eclair
and gulping a cup of coffee? This is
the real problem of the average wage
Garner.
A well meaning old lady once asked
a chorus girl what was the most dis
turbing factor in her stage Hfe-mean-
ing morals, of course.
The girl answered. "A Jacobs ladder
in a new pair of silk stockings"
If welfare worker put the question
to wage Garner she would answer,
To buy clothes and food in one hour.
Discussing the actual clothes to be
worn by a wage Garner is made diff
ficult by the many subdivisions into
which woman workers fall Socially and
financially each group of wage earners
differs as do the stars.
The ranks are filled each year with
recruits from every class of society. 1t
is the movement of the era; it is the
fashion to be a wheel in industry. The
rich wish to work for excitement; the
woman on an average income to help
it out by selling ability; the young girl
for pleasure, for the wherewithal to live
and as an aid to the family budget
The older generation condemn the
men of this era because they permit
their sisters to work in public and sup
port themselves. The young man and
his young sisters who are under fire
look upon such views with the contempt
and indifference they would give to the
laws of the Modes and Persians if they
were read to them. -. -
No young woman of this stirring gen.
Grafton intends to condemn herself to
poverty and obscurity until she is mar
ried. Once there was a pride in not
working for a living. Any obscurity and
sacrifice were better. Today there is a
greater pride in not being. q burden, on
the men of the family. There is creep
ing in a belief in the French national
doctrine that the wife SHOULD take her
part as financial helpmate to the hus-
band when there are no children.
These are the many reasons for the
which the war encouraged and devel-
oped- Those who have found freedom
from irritating economy in their ability
to make wages are not content with
the old treadmill of life.
** X +
In addition to the money earned, with
it's freedom from sordid economy, wom-
en- have learned to love the excitement
of public life. They like the stimulus
of contact with active. intelligent men
and women. They yearn for the ex-
citement of the crowd. They are in
curably restless in the four walls of
house.
Such women are merely financial
symbols of the entire race Of American
r6n fNk
or matron, have forsaken the hearth for
the highway and the market place. They
are now counted by the millions.
The fact remains that they must
dress well. There can be no Sunday
best"
No woman who is not a wage Garner
can thoroughly understand the prob
lem of those who must buy clothes hur-
riedly, who have not the time for patient
and drawn-out fittings, who must keep
in mind that each garment is to be in
the public eye until it's service is ended
Fashion must here hold hands with
utility; whatever is ugly must be barred:
whatever is extravagant must be taboo,
unless one must get yearning out of
the system by infrequently getting a
thing that is useless. if lovely.
II all these precepts were practiced nv
the wage Garner, America would not be
the target for disagreeable comment as
it is, because of the clothes on a mass
of our wage earners
An English officer who is here study
ing industrial conditions, modern
Cambridge man, who is familiar with
the working women in France and Eng
land, was asked his opinion of this class
in America.
His answer was an expression of hor-
ror. as he said with dramatic fervor.
'if the women in England dressed as
your working women do they would be
arrested. l mean it,"
He thinks these women indecent in
their clothes, immodest, in shocking bad
taste. They are an outrage to the eve
and the senses. He detailed the knee
length skirts, the transparent chiffon
blouses without sleeves. the slippers on
stills, the openwork silk stockings, the
immense coiffures, the incessant paint
ing of the lips, the rings on hands. the
lack of gloves on the street. Cheap,
tawdry, grotesque. he said.
He was asked for remedy. He an
swered emphatically. Uniforms"
He was perplexed at the burst of
| laughter that greeted his answer I'm
aglne American women in uniforms. -
| said men and women gathered at the
dinner table.
They wore them in the war;" COM