woman who devises a garment that follows the lines of the figure instead of the lines of the fashion-plate, is likely to be photographed by the newspapers and "written up" for those who think that gossip is news. And there are still people in the world who shrink from association in the public prints with murderers, "crooks," and the venders of quack remedies!

After many years of abstention from wearing collars, Jean Paul Richter posted a note on the official bulletin-board in Weimar announcing that, as he intended to oppose the world on essential matters, he would save his strength by conforming in non-essentials and henceforth wear a collar! The wearing of collars is in most cases a matter of good taste, and even when the question of taste is not involved and the collar is merely a convention, the people who dare omit it are few, and ought to be few; for the collar or its equivalent is a sign of civilization. The individuality which expresses itself in eccentricity of dress is not an adventure for freedom; it is either abnormal or it is a bid for notoriety. It is not a defiance of convention, but of good taste. Shabby clothes are sometimes cheap bids for popularity, and an evening coat is often more democratic than a negligée shirt.

There is plenty of sham democracy in the world, and hypocrisy in dress is one of its most popular forms. The man who wears working clothes as a means of winning the vote of every class of workers is a hypocrite of a very mean kind. The candidate for Governor in a State election who went from a dinner at a club to a meeting of workingmen and took off his evening coat and spoke

in his "shirt sleeves" insulted his audience and lost the election. An evening coat is, in certain places and at certain times, as much a working dress as the dress of a man who plows or lays railway ties or carries a hod. A well-known public man who is noted for his skill in "keeping his ear to the ground" was traveling toward his home in clothes of a strictly orthodox fashion; as he neared his "district" he excused himself, retired to his stateroom, and presently reappeared in a negligée shirt, a loose coat minus a waistcoat, and a slouch hat. He had dressed for his part as a "man of the people." It is said in Italy that Radical deputies are often observed leaving Rome in first-class carriages; but when the train makes its last stop before reaching the town where the deputy is to be met by a delegation and welcomed as a defender of popular rights, he changes to a third-class carriage and becomes one of the people. An eloquent politician who is a noted "friend of the people" reproached a little group of men who had bravely announced their opposition to the platform of a popular candidate. He declared that they had needlessly jeopardized their popularity because the man could not be elected; and he laid down this fundamental principle for their future guidance: "Always give the people what they want if you are sure they can't get it." These men are sure in the end to be discovered and sent to the rear.

In dress, as in ways of living, honesty and sincerity are essential to good taste, and appropriateness for the occasion and a due regard for what is becoming and attractive are the evidences of self-respect and respect for others.

I

HAVE been in Washington for four days in attendance upon a Conference called by the Secretary of the Treasury to consider ways and means of meeting the problem presented by interruption to the export of cotton, tobacco, naval stores, and the various agricultural products other than foodstuffs, through the sale of which under normal conditions our annual indebtedness

abroad is paid. For the past four years the average annual balance of trade in favor of the United States has been about $550,000,000. During the same period the average annual value of the cotton and tobacco exports has been about $600,000,000. For the same time our net exports of gold and silver have averaged only $25,000,000 annually. These figures make it clear that

it is in cotton and tobacco that we pay our debts to Europe, and that any depreciation in the value of these two great commodities means a corresponding impairment of our debt-paying power, the impoverishment of a large portion of our agricultural population, and widespread loss to the Nation.

Just how the emergency has been faced and met I shall endeavor to explain in detail in a subsequent article. It is sufficient for the present to say that it has been met, and met without any departure from what is considered conservative finance, and without any concession to the semi-Socialistic demand that the Government should follow the disastrous methods adopted by Brazil in "valorizing" coffee, and interpose the National credit to sustain the price of our more important agricultural products. Only those who have been in Washington upon such occasions as this can appreciate the relentless importunity with which the Government is besought to extend its paternalism to protect people against their own mistakes or against misfortune.

That these demands have been resisted is greatly to the credit of Congress and the Administration, and particularly to the credit of Secretary McAdoo, upon whose department most of these wild proposals insistently converge.

One cannot but be impressed with the public spirit of the Government officials in Washington, who are now at their desks night and day, Sundays and holidays, patiently listening to the impossible suggestions of people from all over the country, who come here obsessed with the idea that in the present emergency it is the duty of the Government to assume or avert the loss and interruption of business which must inevitably fall upon nearly every one in business in a European war that is wasting the world's wealth at the rate of $100,000,000 a day.

If the conference that has been in progress here for three days had been otherwise result

less, it would have been worth while for the sympathy it has established between the business men of the country and the Administration, and for the words of financial soberness and sanity which Secretary McAdoo has spoken.

In reply to the repeatedly urgent request that the Government should in some way so increase the issue of currency that unlimited borrowing would be possible Mr. McAdoo said:

"There is enough currency authorized by law to-day to wreck the United States of America, and the danger in this situation is that by ill-considered views and ill-considered actions we may put out so much inflationary paper money that we will ruin the country. You gentlemen must remember that this currency is not Government money. The Government has not got money that it is going to hand out to anybody. The only money in the Treasury of the United States to-day is the gold fund, the surplus over and above its liabilities, amounting to about $130,000,000, and that is none too much to enable this Government to carry on its business, and to take such reasonable measure of protection for the general interests of the country as the use of any surplus part of that fund may enable it to do."

The effect of these words upon the hundred and fifty men present at the Conference was to reinvigorate their self-confidence, reawaken their courage, and send them home with the optimism that is always born of self-dependence.

A committee of the Conference appointed by Secretary McAdoo has submitted a report making certain recommendations that are most interesting. Meanwhile the hysteria that has led to mistaken reliance upon the hope of Government relief has passed, and people have gone home with renewed confidence in themselves, the Nation, and the sane beneficence of our Governmental institutions.