Albuquerque morning journal., 1922-04-16
FLAPPERS HAVE
BEEN FLAPPING
FOR CENTURIES
Bv FREDERIC j. HAsKIN.

New York City, April l5.-Let
those who, bemoan the bold, bad
ways of the modern flapper take
heart. In few more years she
will be enduring her share OF grief
and envy as an even wilder genera
ton flaps daringly before her out
iraged vision. Twas ever thus. HIS
tory shows that every age has had
| is recalcitrant young people VINO
have rebelled against the discipline
of their elders and caused great
anguish to the public-spirited.
Take a few samples Of the loud
Ilaments on the subject of flapplnS
recently appearing in our dally
newspapers and compare them with
those written at various periods IN
the past (plenty are to be found IN
/ the archives of our libraries) ana
lyou will at once be struck by their
Iuncanny similarity, Listen to this:
THE girl of the period is a crea-
ture who dyes her hair and paints
| her face as the first articles Of her
personal religion; whose sole IDEA
of life is plenty of fun and luxury,
land whose dress is the object Oh
such thought and intellect as she
possesses. The girl of the period mas
| done away with such moral mut-
fishness as consideration for 9TH
ers, or regard for counsel or re-
Ibuke. If a sensible fashion lifts
a gown out of the mud, she raises
hers midway to her knee. She talks
slang as glibly as man. and by
preference leads the conversation
to doubtful subjects"
If it were not for the one word
midway" one would scarcely guess
that this vitriolic criticism was
penned by Mrs. E. Lynn Linton
once popular English novelist, a"
early as 1888. We are so accus-
toned to naving the late war
blamed for all the giddy behavior
| of the present that it is something
| of a shock to discover that the
flappers Of other eras were also
considered hopelessly wayward. A.
matter of fact, there has prob
Iably never been a year since the
days of Adam and Eve when some
guerulous voice has not been lifted
Iup against the needless dissipations
of youth.
Thus, some Mrs. Grundy, com
planning several decades ago on tho
way girls dressed to attract atten'
ton, added philosophlcally:
But has not, in every epoch' the
race-oid instinct Of the female &c
bedeck her body so as TO attract
the male, through whom alone she
can achieve her destiny, led to eX'
Itremes, eXtravagances, even vulgar
lities? Doubtless every saVagt
tribe harbors some shameless mink
who, by her daring manner of put
Ting on or taking off single bead
brings down on her head the vials
of wrath of the older women, who
wonder what her mother can be
thinking Of"
Bad Girls of the Eighties.
Even the prim eighties were mol
sufficiently prim to satisfy many
of the good citizens of the period
According to Mrs. John Sherwood's
Manners and Social Usages
(1SS4), observers of society in New
York and washington in those days
found it to be--"a record of drunk
enness, filtration, bad manners and
gossip, backbiting, divorce and
SANDER"
Far back in 1919, apparently,
conditions were just as bad. In
-, this year we find Miss Emma Will
lard making an Address to the
Public, particularly the Members
OF the Legislature of New York,
in which she beseeches that body
| to contribute some instant means
| for educating the young females
of the state las a possible panacea
for the frivolity of the time"
"Not content with doing nothing
to promote their country's welfare,
she declared, like pampered chill
dren, they revel in it's prosperity
and scatter it to the winds with
wanton profusion, and, still worse
| they imprison its source by diffus'
| ing a contempt for useful labor
To court pleasure their business
within her temple, in defiance oI
the laws of God and man, they
have erected tho idol OF fashion