, 1923-09-01
The Old Spirit Rises

The great American republic was founded
upon revolt. Remonstrance against regulation by
a lot of aristocratic n%onenties at a distance,
against taxation without having a sitting mem
Der Of the board, against the prescription OF a
certain brand of tea when we preferred some
thing else, against having a lot Of hired soldiers
quartered upon us, and a thousand other large
and small ills under which we, having for a
time enjoyed n certain freedom from regulation,
had deemed onerous, uniting and altogether
repugnant to members of the wellknown human
race, of which we were Individual units.
From the day upon which we decided to no
longer conceal our views with respect to those
who were directing what they conceived to be
our welfare and to offer criticism of their at
titude toward our business, our morals, our
pleasures and our general daily walk and de-
pertinent, the spirit has lived in the descendants
of those old heroes and been handed down as a
precious heirloom and cherished as the spirit
of 76."
Ever and anon, from most unexpected portions
Of this broad and prosperous land, this same old
spirit becomes manifest When in the course of
public events in acts of legislation, of public,
quasipublic or voluntary, bodies, groups or
blocs, seek too infinitely to prescribe our morals,
our fashions, our appetites, our religious and
political faith, the color of our hair and pat
tern of our socks and neckties, the spirit Of rs
is bound to rise, and a new Declaration of hide
~pendence is promulgated, and the autocratic
hand of the self appointed and self Amounted is
rudely brushed from the shoulder upon which
1t has been laid.
The latest instance Of the old spirit comes
from the town of Somerset in the land of viii
liam Penn. The spirit was revived on the filing
of a petition to the school board by the Parent
Teacher association of that thriving community,
the object and prayer of the petition being to
forbid rolled stockings and sleeveless dresses In
the public schools. 1t mattered little that the
petition represented but a small minority of
the parents and scarcely any of the teachers, 1t
was an inyidious invasion of American rights, an
encroachment upon the liberties Of both school
teachers and school girls and therefore contra
vened the constitution Of the United States.
The school teachers and high school girls were
not seeking to enforce their notions Of fashion
upon the Quakerish parents of that organization.
they desired simply to exercise their c~onstitu-
tional rights in the pursuit of life liberty and
the exposition Of pulchritude.
In the campaign and public discussion that
ensued and in which most people took part to
determine an outcome favorable to their own
view in the premises, a high school girl of poetic
tendencies contributed this couplet as defining
her notion of her sacred American rights and
liberties:
I can show my shoulders,
/ can show my knees;
Pm n free-born American
I can show what 1 please.
For a complete and accurate expression of the
Spirit Of T6 you may go far to find a better.
For the very large number of Americans who
are disguised with the present domination by
an assortment of moral oligarchies it could we'll
serve as a national anthem. 1t expresses an
ideal perhaps not perfect, but deserving of con.
siderable praise.
But for the present It expresses nothing but
an aspiration. The young women, who are, OBJ
viously free-born Americans cannot show their
shoulders and knees in the town Of Somerset for
the school board has sided with the minority and
placed a ban upon the show. And thus has an
unwise public body created a large crop of rev.
olutionists or bootleggers in ARM and knees.
|