Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-05
MATRON OF WEST POINT Il
CALLED BILL" BY CADETS
Mrs. Harriet C. Rogers Moth
err, Sister and Pal
of 200.
Chaperoning Not Like 1t Used
to Be, but Just as
Arduous.
BY JANE DIXON.

BY JANE DIXON.
Being a mother, big sister and con-
f1Gential pal of twelve hundred or more
young men is MT the easiest Job in
the world, but it is the jollieSt.
So. at any rate, inSi is Mrs. Harriet
G. Rogers official chaperon and hostess
for the United States Military Academy
at West Point
Somehow the idea has gone abroad
in the land that the chaperon business
is about as lively today as the rubber
tired carriage business or the manu-
facture of high laced shoes for ladies'
street wear. Suggest something of the
sort to Mrs. Rogers Of West Point and
she will favor you with one of those
merry, tWinkling smiles which have
made her the Sweetheart of the Cadet
Corps She spends the better part CT
sos days a year doing the very thing
the extreme nlodernists contend is not
being done at ALL Suggest aboliShing
her post and TIE corps will hold a
rally on the drill pain, shouting their
leather lungs out in protest against
such a calamity
Il was delighted" Mrs. Rogers says,
when the superintendent of the Mill
tary Academy Gen. William R. Smith,
asked me to come to West Point and
be sort of an official mother-I suppose
you might call ito the cadets. Their
lives are very circumScribed, you know.
They have little home influence aside
from the written word during their
four years at the Academy.
In certain situations a man, es-
pecially a young man, needs the SYM
pathy and the counsel CT a woman
an older woman in whom he has con-
f1dence. He simply has to get what is
bothering him socially or emotionally
of his mind, or explode. My duty at
Wet Point is to prove to the cadets
that am trustworthy repository for
their condolences, that understand
and am in sympathy with their prob
lens and that / can help them find
a satisfactory answer to those prob
lens.
Not Old-FashiOned Way.
These duties are not fulfilled
through the tight-lipped, sharp-eyed
duenna methods of the old-fasnioned
chap2ron. On the contrary, they are
accomplished by a capacity to project
ones self backward into ones own
youth, to actually feel young and to act
young. And at the same time to be able
to supply youth with the wisdom Of
experience without making expert nee
seem like disagreeable medicine"
Tact and good humor are the first
requirements of the modern chaperon.
Mrs. Rogers has both in abundant
quality. She needs them when she has
to convey pretty and poppy girl hav-
ing the "whirl of her life" at a cadet
hop that miss may not dance until she
has donnsd stockings-limbs au natural
being against dance regulations at West
Point.
On the matter of the propriety of
clothes, Mrs. Rogers decides when the
limit has been past by girls visiting the
Point-the Official chaperon is most en-
phatic
II am occasionally amazed" she says,
"at the abandon of girls, especially as
concerns evening dresses. Girls are
not fair to young men when they dress
so. do not believe such an ofense
against good taste is deliberate on the
part of most girls who commit it.
They Just don't think, and if they do,
they imagine they are being daring and
dashing.
This attempt of girls to be alluring
in a way no really considerate girl
would venture is especially Grass at
West Point, where the young men are
so punctilious in dress, their Slim
wasted gray coats buttoned tightly
over their chests, brass buttons shined
to mirror smoothness, chins held high
above outstanding collars, white gloves
immaculat2. The cadet girl is, as a
rule, the smartest and most modestly
dressed girl on any college campus.
Those who offend once seldom make a
like mistake on their second visit. Cor
rect department is part OF the Acad-
envy curriculum. Girls sense this and
either conform to it or go elsewhere to
practice petty wiles."
Like a Real Mother.
All the things mothers do for fledg-
lings about TO try their wings in
new and glittering world Mrs. Rogers
does for the cadets and the young
women-"femmes" in cadet language
who visit the Academy.
A girl from some remote village re-
ceiveS an invitation TO spend June Week
at West Point The cadet who is
dragging" entertaining the girl takes
his problem to Mrs. Rogers. She writes
to the girls mother and offers to take
over the task of seeing daughter Will
receive the proper care. If advice Is
sought she will give valuable informa-
ton on what daughter will need by way
of wardrobe. she will be waiting Tor
daughter when the girl arrives and VIII
make the young prairie flower feel as
much at home as though the visit was
being made to favorite aunt. Sne
will inform daughter on important mill
tary regulations governing cadets, regu-
lations that otherwise might make the
conduct of the young squire seem
strange and ineXplicable.
AS To Mrs. Rogers status with the
corps itself the fact great number OF
its members, who have reason to know
her adequacy TO their needs, call her
Bill" should give a concrete notion
of the ccmaraderie existing between the
official chaperon and her gallant young
charges. An interesting point is that
Mrs. Rogers doesn't look in the least
like Bill" She is medium height, dis
tinguished in carriage. frosty-haired and
a real beauty of the matron type. Her
blue eyes are warm and smiling even
when her lips are serious. She is the
/ picture Of your mother as you would
! have her lock at the times you want TO
he most y,ro,4d Of her She knnWs In