Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-05-03

rHE Texas Liquor Control Board accepted
their job. on the understanding that II
j involved nothing but the control of the
sale OF liquor within the Lone Star State.
Now, to their embarrassment. they find that
they must also control the amount Of bare
skin to be exposed by carhops dispensing it.
A carhop is a lady who sells refreshment
10 motorists and, as every husband knows,
telling a woman how she ought TO dress is a
Job worth time and half double time.
II is all a question Of law but what is the
law? The one the pretty young carhops re-
spect is the economic law Of supply and de-
mand They have made the scientific dis
covery that a motorists demand for beer.
seems 10 depend considerably on how little
one of these indoor-outdoor mattresses wears.
And the first law Of craftsmanship Is that the
customer is always right.
The trainers of the Texas State Liquor
Law evidently assumed that drinks would
always be served by walters Of the modest
Sex whose clothing covers everything but
head and hands
Anyhow they forgot to mention any other
possibility However, the Board can appeal
to an old and general law requiring decency.
But what is decency, in this irresponsible year
of 1912?
Chairman w. ]. Townsend OF the Liquor
Control Board put a lot Of mileage on his
tires, investigating the situation in many
parts of the State
The deepest blush recorded was at busy
"drive-in joint" at Dallas, where he beheld a
carhop who was almost naked" Surely that
violates decency. he thinks. but does ii?
The carhoppers point out that in night
club women may prance around like that.
and achieve total nudity, strip-teasers.
Even a policeman in the audience would
applaud instead of reaching for his handouts
All but that is indoors" the moralists
reply sadly That is a show; shows are
supposed TO be art and. in the interest Of art
one can get away with most anything. If
one OF those artists should do a strp-tease
on the sidewalk in front of the club. the same
cop would have TO run her in
The carhops have answer 20 that. They
advise the Board TO go down TO the beaches
which are outdoors and see what they will
see There women may go about nearly
naked and wholly unashamed.
Their grandmothers may have been able
10 work fourteen hours day, bear and rear
huge families and do it swathed from the
chin down but the modern girls constitution
is not so strong II is a constitutional ques-
ton and therefore should be passed upon by
the United States Supreme Court.
Look at Mahatma Gandhi, the great
Hindu leader, VINO goes around IN noJhHg
but diapers.
So what?
The "beautifuls" simply refused to take
the matter seriously until the other day when
they learned that Henry M Griffin, cattle
man. aged As, had murdered one Of their
sister carhops, Mrs Maxine Long, only 10, in
Houston killed himself.
Even the most modern young person ad-
mits that murder is serious, or at least being
murdered. Just for that they rcconsdered
the question and have shown disposition to
compromise.
On this page is photograph Of carhop
in the arresting and what might soon have
become the arrested-in costume of Sivils
Drive-in Refreshment Emporium, at Austin
Beside her is another in the new compromise
regalia.
This is terribly important because Mrs
J. %. Sivils started the epidemic of lightly
clad carhops three years ago and now has
twenty in her attractive parade.
Nobody denied that the former costume
was the height of modesty, at both ends. The
tcad was topped with something worthy of a
Washington brass hat" Ankles usually cX-
posed to the public eye, were coyly buried in