The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-24
Slavery To Fashion Is After AIIPledsdnt
 Slauery
People ask very often and very vocal

strange stroke of luck, they happen to get it, they find themselves more often than not very seriously embarrassed by the acquisition. For freedom is diff cult, is arduous; it demands from those who possess it the practice of many virtues. Slavery, on the other hand (provided always that it is not called by it's proper name and that it is not too intolerably harsh), is easy and agreeable and demands from the slave the exercise of no virtue but that of ohedief ce. \ slave can be an automa- tor but a free man, if he Is really to enjoy his liberty, must be an indi- vidual human being. The task, as we have said befor,, is arduous.
 That is why, with remarkably few exceptions, We are all, in fact if not ;n rl,, .y.e, sieves Even those who have every opportuL ty of being free prefer Q ,be slaves lrefer the exercise of individual intel igence and taste an al- mogt a5ject obedience to conventions and rules of ether peoples making. Man is born free and everywhere he is iu chains"---few generalizations have less truth in them than this of Rous- sean's. Man is not born free, and he generally finds the chains a great con- venicnce and a helpful support.
 Chains, then, are a comfort and al- most necessity. The aim of the so- cia, reforner should not be to abolish chains--he could not do it if he tried ---but rather 10 see that human beings arc proviled ,,ith pleasand and pie stcesque em cty of fetters. Plenty of chains of it. rent patterns are needed if the worid to remain tue interest ing and dong tful place which. in spite of everi':h M it has always been.
 Now, | i precisely this pleasing va- ? riety iu nc yltterns of chains that we seem no~a 1s to be losing. Chains in oua rJa n world tend to be of star d. : "a tern. Democratic educas, tion, rotary printing machines, fast trains, telegraphy, the camera-these products of human progress are rapid- ly given to the universal slavery of man sameness, an air of uniformity. Consider, for example, that delightful slavery which is called fashion. Ease of communication has brought 1t about That practically all the men and wom- en in Europe and the two Americas dress exactly alike. Local and distinc- lively national dress has practically vanished from our western world. The distinctive uniforms of classes and trades are disappearing under the in- fluence of democratic ideas.
 Where\ is the English peasants smock, the carpenters square cap? La borer and artisan dress in shabby imi- tation fo their richer brothers. There are still countries in Europe where women of the lower chaser never wear hats. But, even in France and Italy, the custom is beginning to die, and cheap and tawdry millinery will soon be as common there as it is here. Even the distinguishing uniforms suitable to the different ages of women seem now when one could distinguish at a glance and from a distance, by the clothes alone, the grandmother from the moth- CT and the mother from the daughter. Today, we have changed all that; grandmother and granddaughter wear the same sack frock on the same slim figure, the same round hat pulled dis guisingly down over the eyes.
 But it is not only in the world of fashion that we have arrived at uni formity in slavery. All our conven- tions of tho"ght, of social habit, of pleasure. are become standardized. Gone, for example, are the local dances, the peoples songs. The gram ophone has imposed on the whole world the same foxtrots, the same American tunes. Past is the time when Er<lnd was regarded as eccen- tric in its love of sports. Today the French, the Germans, the Italians, all the peoples of Europe, play football and golf and tennis, box and run races sports are everywhere the same, and everybody is equally enthusiastic about them. The cinema gives us all one brand of. drama, the penny press one set of ideas. Providentially, we still speak number of different languages otherwise, the whole of Europe would 5 be reading only American literature.
 This is q melancholy state of things the more so, since there seems, so far as one eau see, no possibility of rem edying It Nicient means are wholly unsuccessful. Russia, for example, has certainly got rid of most of the politer European slaveries; but none will en'-v her the native brand of slav- cry wh ch she has substituted for them. A consciously cultivated nationalism might dc something to variegate our chains; put tie dangers of nationalism are tn be seen only too clearly in Ireland, er, icn eed, in almost any of the smaller new countries of Europe. IL is tettsF to have uniform chains thap hausds aud wars. No, it looks as thougi we have got to reconcile ourselves ,o this uniformity of slavery; we must make the best of our Ford chains. The worst of it is that the world r.aJ come to look dreadfully dull