THE UNINHIBITED FLAPPER


[Illustration: Helen Bullitt Lowry watching Puritanism set the
Flapper free.]

HELEN BULLITT LOWRY

Two generations ago the girl was "damned." One generation ago she was
"ruined." Now, according to the best authorities and her own
valuation, she has just played out of luck.

So that for the reformers and prohibitionists, the censors and the
woman's club resolutionists! Their bi-product is Miss Twentieth
Century Unlimited, the one uninhibited creature in a Volsteaded
civilisation. Controls--of liquor and of birth--have given us The
Flapper. The official reformers, reinforcing the sagging inhibitions
and corsets of the nineteenth century, were just the final impetus
needed to drive her out into the open.

The flapper is released from the strangle hold that is throttling the
rest of us. If somebody makes a law for her, she promptly and blithely
breaks it, the pocket flask for the moment being the outward and
visible sign of the spirit--and spirits--of her wide-flung rebellion.
It is the milepost between the time that was and the time that is,
that flask, and to it we owe the single standard of drinking.

A half generation ago the sub-debs did not indulge in anything more
relaxing than coca cola. And even first and second year debbies did