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Show Horace Greeley i By ELMO SCOTT WATSON jj"RE whiskers about to stage a come-back on the face of r IT American manhood? Wait, V I now, before you give a I V scornful reply to that ques-RjV ques-RjV J tionl'.Kor there are cer-taiu cer-taiu s'ns to indicate that J J 'he idea is not so fanciful as it may appear to be at the first superficial thought Do our newspapers accurately re-! re-! fleet contemporary American life? Consider, then, two newspaper items. One reads as follows: . Apropos the rumor that whiskers are about to do a come-back as a companion i piece to bustles, also reported to be I staging a come-back, this should bring about a revival of the pottery industry j by stimulating trade in mustache cups. Auxvasse (Mo.) Review. The other rops Into the eiihiept more exhaustively and says: Taffeta and ruffles have been worn before, and still there was no wide outbreak of whiskers. We had the long- skirt for a while, too, and few whiskers returned. But it will be a surprising and an unhlstorle thing if we can have black mitts for evening and billowy skirts that sweep the ground and these coy puff sleeves and lace bonnets and now long-skirted bathing suits, even and never a burn-side burn-side to go with them. The wax models mod-els in the windows of shop and shoppe alike cry out for bearded company. A woman in such apparel not only needs an escort to the soiree; she needs a doughty blade with whiskers. Therefore, There-fore, he will appear, and the motion j picture doctor will no longer be alone . In his Van Dyke. j There are portents, political and mu-1 mu-1 eical. A Paris dispatch informs us i that "the , present French - cabinet, I which consists of 22 ministers and sub- ministers, shows not a single shaven ; member,"- and in addition, four chief I representatives at the London parley j brought mustaches, while the fifth has ' a beard. Locally, every one is aware i of Chief Justice Hughes, Mr. J. Ham Lewis, Louis Graveure, Doctor Britton of the New York botanical garden and Ernest Boyd, critic incarnadine, and finally several tenors have appeared in those mustaches which we associate with barytones. Inevitably we must return to our mutton chops if the spring fashions continue back toward 1830. The short bodice, the sprigged frock, the chignon chig-non and the genteel black glove look timid with no protective whiskers above them, yet here they are. And when whiskers come back, mark your grandfather's words, so will chaperons. New York Herald Tribune. There you have It from both the rural and the metropolitan press, representing rep-resenting both the country and the city I However true it may be that the safety-razor-using, smooth-faced American appears to be in the majority ma-jority today, is it beyond belief that he may choose to return to the be-whlskered be-whlskered glory of the past? History hows that the facial adornment of the ruler of a nation usually sets the hirsute styles of the citizens of that nation. Now, of course, in a democracy democ-racy such as ours the citizens are not likely to Imitate the example of their President as are the subjects of a monarchy to follow the mode set by their king or emperor. But the fact remains that during most of our history Americans have In general followed the style in regard to whLskers or no whiskers as set by our Presidents, although that may have been only a coincidence. Our early Presidents from Washington down to and Including Buchanan were all smooth-faced and most Americans of their times were, too. Abraham Lincoln was the first President with a full beard and during his administration administra-tion the goldea age of whiskers began. Not the least of the elements which made the Civil war so picturesque wers the magnificent mustaches, beards and sideburns which adorned the generals and statesmen, both Union Un-ion and Confederate, during that peri- od. A Civil war general, or even a : colonel, a major or a captain without j whiskers well, the picture simply i Isn't complete, that's all I ! Lincoln's successor, Andrew John-' John-' eon, was smooth-shaven, It Is true, . but Ms sncocssors more than made up j for his deficiency In carrying on the . tradition. With the Inauguration of Grant whiskers came definitely Into their own and for the next thirty years they were much In evidence In both the White House and the Capitol. Grant, Hayes. C.nrfleld ar.d Harrison all wore full beards. Arthur wore a , mustache and sideburns and Cleve-I Cleve-I land wore a mustache. MeKinley's ! smooth-shaven face marked the end of ! the beared era. hut Roosevelt nnd i Taft symbolized a sort if a hang-; hang-; over with their mustaches. 1 The present smooih-slKivon era begun be-gun with Woodrow Wilson ar.d has I continued through the administrations if ' Ex-Kais ei YVilhelrrl of Harding and Coolidge down to the election of Hoover. Now that we have had nearly twenty years of smooth-shaven smooth-shaven Presidents is the pendulum about to swing back again, and give us another bearded President to set the style for his fellow-Americans? And if whiskers are to stage a comeback, come-back, what are to be the most popular styles? Look at the portraits of the be-whiskered be-whiskered notables shown above and pick out your own style. The full, flowing "chest-protector" beard worn by Edwin M. Stanton, secretary of war in Lincoln's cabinet, is not only typical of the style most popular in the American golden age of whiskers hut it is one of the oldest styles. As will be seen by data presented later in this article, it goes back to very ancient an-cient times. If, however, it would overtax the patience of the average American to wait for the growth of such a luxuriant crop, the hairy collar col-lar style, with the ostrich plume effect, as exemplified by Horace Greeley, the great editor, might be less trouble to cultivate. Many Americans may not remember the services of the gallant Gen. Ambrose Am-brose Everett Burnside during the Civil war, but they are not likely to forget what he contributed to American Ameri-can facial adornment. They are sometimes some-times referred to as "mutton chop whiskers," thereby depriving the general gen-eral of credit which properly belongs to him. For, as everybody kuows, the right nnme for them is obtained by reversing the name of the man who made them popular and calling them "sideburns." Similarly, his Imperial and ill-fated majesty, Napoleon in, made popular in France the combination combina-tion of sharp-pointed mustache and lower-lip whiskers, or "goatee," which goes by the name of "Imperial." It is doubtful if the average American wonld care for this "foreign invention" inven-tion" preferring one of the "made-in-America" brands any more than he would care for the sharply upturned up-turned mustache of the ex-kaiser of Germany. One fault of the latter type at least, there Is a tradition to this effect is that It requires too much attention, at-tention, such as putting It In a cloth framework at night so that it will not sag, droop or otherwise lose Its perky uprightness. The United States, however, is not the only country In which there are signs of a whiskers come-back. From France comes word that a well-known arbiter of styles on the Parisian boulevards boule-vards has started a campaign for the return of the beard which he regards as the "outward sign of a mature mind." Thus Is another historical cycle compleled, for in early times the beard was considered by all nations as a sign of strength and manhood, carefully cherished and almost regarded regard-ed as sacred. More than that, Its removal re-moval was considered a particularly degrading form of punishment In the second book of Samuel tn the Old Testnment Is related the story of the servants which King David sent to Hanun, ruler of the Ammonites, to comfort him for the death of his father. fa-ther. Their reception Is described as follows : And the princes of the children of Ammon s.iid unto Hanun their lord, Thinkest thou that David doth honour thy father, that he hath sent comforters comfort-ers unto thoe? hath not David rather sent his servants unto thee, to search the city, and to spy it out and to overthrow over-throw It? Wherefore Hanun took David's servants serv-ants and shaved off the one-half of their beard, nnd cut off th.Mr varments in the mirMie, even to their buttocks, and sent them away. When they told it unto David, bo sent to meet them, bcnu'e the men were greatly n ?hrnter : and the kin..-said. kin..-said. Trry at .Ier;cho until your beards be grown, and then return. rVE,. 'Burnside Among the Moslems the beard was also held in great respect and the strongest oath that a Mohammedan could utter was, "By the beard of the Prophet !" People of this religious belief be-lief took great care of their beards, habitually carrying combs to comb it and keep it in order. It wag thuir custom cus-tom to do this after prayers, while still on their knees, and if any hairs fell out they immediately picked them up and preserved them for burial with their owners. They also dyed their beards, usually red, not only because dye of that color was easily obtainable, obtain-able, but because It was nearly like the golden yellow, the color recommended recom-mended by Mohammed, who hated black, the color which the Persians dyed their beards In France and Spain the wearing of beards followed the styles set by the monarchs of those countries. The beard was commonly worn In France until the time of Louis XII, who, being be-ing young and beardless, set a new style and the fashion changed. In Spain the loyal Spanish courtiers removed re-moved their beards when Philip V, who was unable to grow a beard, came to the throne. In Itussla Peter the Great issued a royal edict compelling his subjects to shave or pay a tax on their beards in proportion to the rank of the wearer. wear-er. Henry VIII of England attempted a similar tax in England, but found it difficult to enforce the law and later gave It up. As a result the reigns of Elizabeth and .Tames I were characterized by the wildest extravagance extrava-gance In beard growing with some men clipping their beards Into as many formal shapes as the old-fashioned box hedges. Under the reign of Charles I the Van Dyke beard, named for the famous painter, became popular, popu-lar, only to be followed by a smoothfaced smooth-faced era during the Eighteenth century cen-tury and down to the days of "our dear queen," Victoria, whose royal consort and whose son, later Edward VTL brought back the pointed beard as one of the glories of the Mid-Victorian days. If, indeed, there Is a whiskers comeback come-back and beards once more 'become popular, they will bring with them vexing problems. One of them is: what to do with the beard when It Is not In usri taking It for granted that a beard can be put to use, such as stroking It as an aid to cautlouB thought and tweaking It, either one's own or nnother's, to suggest violence, determination or aggresiveness. How serious tills problem may be Is Indicated Indi-cated by the following Incident related re-lated recently by a writer In the Boston Bos-ton Herald: Some years ago a certain eminent man of New England wrote a letter to another eminent New Englander whose title to eminence is substantial and whose beard is celebrated throughout the land. It is a beard in the fullest dimensions of old New EDgland. In the letter to this bearded New Englander Eng-lander the friend asked this question: When you retire at night, do you tuck the beard under the sheet, or do you leave it free outside and above the sheet? This, we are told, caused the wearer of the beard much dlstrees. Until the matter had thus been called te his attention, he Is reported t have told his friends afterward, he had never given this problem any thought. He had retired at night as other men do. and had fallen gracefully Into sleep, untroubled and unprrploxed. It never had occurred to him that there was anything complicated or puzzling about the performance. Since that letter and Its question, however, he had hardly had a comfortable nieht's slcn, for th moment he put out the l.ht and porntd Into bed he had betun to debate de-bate which d:F-posa.l nf his t,e:ir4 h might the more cotnfnrt-iMy make above the shcM or bene-'h t'. fly thi v.e larn thnt the tu-ard. I ke mLiny another luxury 'n life, crsrri-s with it responsibilities and pel ylexities. |