WARSHIPS AND WARPAINT

Secretary Mellon in a recent article quoted by the Boston Transcript states that the nation's nine year naval program of $740,000,000 amounts to less than half the sum which the women of the United States spent on their cosmetics in the year 1925. He suggests, in defense of the navy, that there are times when gunpowder is more necessary than face powder.

Perhaps Secretary Mellon is right in this defense, but there is an angle of the question, which he has overlooked. Would the stalwart sailors fight at all for their dear ones at home (considering the dear ones in other ports) if those dear ones were deprived of their invaluable cosmetics? Or, contrarywise, would the women of the United States sacrifice their face powder to the lesser cause of gunpowder?

True it certainly is that many American women seem to have contributed overmuch to the $1,825,000,000 which go to make up the cosmetic bill, but it is as impossible to prove that to them as it is to prove to the Navy Department that $740,000,000 is an inordinate sum to spend on battleships; so perhaps it is advisable not to try to remedy either case. In a large navy we give the women something to powder for, and in the beautiful women the navy something to fight for.