The Washington herald., 1921-11-09

with complacency. and looks for
ward with alarm, who Is sure that
the people or the past generation
held monopoly on all OF the vir-
tues, and that the youth Of the
present are going hot-foot to the
devil.
Just at present the land Is moro
than usually AFFLICTED with the
walls of these Jeremiahs, and you
canEot pick up paper or q maya
zine that is not filled with the LAM.
entations of some melancholy
prophet over the lack OF manners
of the young people OF today, and
who does not devote quarts OF prin-
ters' ink to foretelliIlg the awful,
fate Of our country when IL falls.
into the hands of the present Cod
less generation.
Look at the indecent way In
which girls dress with skirts to
layers OF chiffon doing duty for
bodice, Look at the Tree and easy
way in which they associate with
the opposite sexl Listen to their
free discussion OF topics that wom-
en- used to talk over only with their
doctors! Watch them shimmying,
and toddling. and dancing other
dances that originated in brothels!
What sort of wives and mothers are
they going to make? And the boys.
No better. Jellybeans with pinched
in waists to their coats. and slicked
back hair, racing about In high
powered cars, fun speed for de-
struction. God help US all. they wall.
How different the youth OF today
from the young people of our
grandparents time, these critics
mourn. In those days young people
had high ideals and were guided by
a sense of duty instead of a desire
for pleasure. They dressed sensibly
and modestly. They conducted
themselves with dignity and were
fitted to meet the stern responsible
ties of life when they came upon
them.
So much for the good old days.
as we look back to them across the
space of three score years, but IL
appears that the Jeremiahs of that
day thought just as badly of that
generation of young people and
prophesied as dire things concern
ing them as the pessimists OF, to-
day do about the present crop OF
youngsters. For in the old Godeys
ZdultS DOOh - du
passioned article drawing an in
vidious comparison between the
young men and women of that day
and their grandparents. and criti-
cising the follies of 1855 just as
bitterly as any satirist ever did the
follies of 1921.
This voice from the grave cried
aloud against the immodesty OF
skirts twelve yards around the bot
tom and that swept the earth, as
We do against high-water skirts as
tight as a trousers leg. He was
as much shocked by the polka as
we are by cheek k-to-cheek dancing.
He was as much Mortified by a
woman's wanting a higher Seduca-
ton as we are at the thoughts of
free love. He thought our parents
manners just as bad as we think
our grandchildren's are, and he
prophesied that our fathers and
mothers would never be fit to run
| the country, just as we prophecy
| the same thing about our children.
All of which goes to show that
each generation has held precisely
the same view of the one that was
| to follow IL. Age has always lam
basted youth and doubted its wis
dom, and yet the world has gone on.
Our grandparents whose virtues
We now extoll, whose intelligence
we now revere, whose achievements
are our glory, were thought by
their parents to be ill-mannered
cubs without sense or stamina, who
| could come to no good end
This should fll us with hope for
the future and lead US to believe
that our fears for our children are
as unfounded as our great-grand-
parents were for theirs. Other
times, other manners and, after all,
as between the knee-length skirt
that a woman can run a race in IL
she SO desires and the hoop skirt in
| which she was imprisoned and
helpless, is not the advantage with
the present instead of the past?
We do progress, though we may
not know il at the time.
Copyright, 1917