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Show AN EDITORIAL BY I FLORENCE DAVIES - VARIETIES OF INDEPENDENCE. A very much prrns agentfd young lady 1s one. Miss Jan Burr, a novelist novel-ist unil poetess who lins recently started start-ed on a trip around the world to gather gath-er material for a new hook. Just what tho book is to be about doesn t seein to take up so much room In thf prc-ss notices a.s the fort that she Is to makv this memorable trip garbed In knickers I The purpose of this particular type of costume. It seems, is not to afford jhf-r greater facility in wending her difficult way through tho underbrush on the deck of an ocean liner, or of stepping more anily through the long Igra rf Picadllly Circus, or even Oi cllmblng thp great wall of China with greater agility, but rather, so her press i agents say. of demonstrating to the jwomen of foreign lands the Independence Independ-ence attained by American women. The fact that knickerbockers don't I happen to be In good form on the streets of London, or the deck of an ocean liner is neither here nor then The lady must wear 'em to show hi-r I independence she seems tn have overlooked over-looked the fact that there are any number of elmplcr and even less expensive ex-pensive ways to demonstrate independence inde-pendence She need not have gone to the bother both-er of getting a pair of knickers Sh might, for instance, have suddenly-taken suddenly-taken to drlnklnjr out of her finger bowl Just tO prove that he dared Or if that didn't seem quite Independent Independ-ent enough she could, without any excuse at nil, have taken to eating peas with n knife. Rhe might even (have worn h red bandanna hnndker- hi i tied around her neck, or come to dinner In her kitchen apron or igoodness me, for that matter, If lnd. jpcndencS Is her song, she might ren I have worn no clothes at all most hardily hard-ily Just to show folks that she was no slave. I Because of course knickers don't belong be-long on a trip around the world, any more than a sAtln ball gown lelongs on the golf links, but there Is a type of mind to whom Independence must bo visibly proved ;ind this seems to bo one way that Miss Burr Intends to prove hers. But Independence that has to be talked about and acted upon Is usually Just another name for nrrornnce or defiance. True independence Isn't janythlng that you prove; It's Just (something that you have and know you have. Kit her you are Independent or you aren't. If you are, vou know It anA don't have to demonstrate it and if you aren't you have to make a show of breaking the bonds that hold you. Feople as a rule don't conform to custom because they arc too subservient subser-vient to do otherwise, but because knowing that they aro free to do as they choose, they choose to take their places in a world which hu.t made some useful distinctions. I Wearing knickers around the world Just to prove to foreign women that American women are Independent Is la little too much like the little h,,-. who stands outside and screams Just to prove that he doesn't Itave to come into the house when his mother calls him |