Show when women drop their friends by JEAN NEWTON THREE women socially prominent in new york stood in the witness box in a court of law and testified that they had cut a friend when she became involved in a scandal until her recent trouble they said she had been their friend and had been received in their homes the smudge on her reputation bow ever proved very damaging to her social status and subsequently she was cut in other words dropped she was no longer welcome in their homes all right each to his own way of thinking as they say my only objection Is that these women should not have used the term friend I 1 should have made no comment had they said this we are three prominent society matrona matrons mat rons with the accent on society the social thing is everything to us we have our own strict code and tt Is part of that code that anyone who gets herself involved in something unsavory in the public prints Is beyond the pale she Is no longer a credit to our set and social sets exist on assets not liabilities therefore she must be dropped that would have been a straight forward explanation of how doors that were once open may be shut in a woman s face but when these women use the term friendship to describe their relations with the woman they cut because she got into trouble from whom they drew away as soon as the relationship threatened to embarrass them when they say they were her friends they are complicating matters put ting the wrong slant on a quite obvious situation nad they been her friends really they would have flocked to her when she got into trouble instead of tak ing care to stay outside the shadow which oppressed her they would have brought to it the sunshine of their support oh they may not have approved of what she had done oh no but that has nothing to do really with their attitude toward her that would have remained loyal what ever they thought of her actions they might have told her in no uncertain terms but they would never have told tho world they would have bean too conscious of their responsibility as her friends for it Is in times of trouble that the cue Is sounded which calls out ones friends I 1 havo no quarrel with the matrona matrons and their viewpoint but I 1 do wish they had not called themselves that worn ans friend lal dall syndicate |