The proscribed costumes went into the pot with proscribed positions.

Under democracy we can cook in silk petticoats and go to the White House in a cap and apron, if we will.

And we often will, that being a way to advertise our equality! Class costumes destroyed, the principles back of them, that is, fitness, quality, responsibility, were forgotten.

The old instinct for ornament broke loose.

Its tyranny was strengthened by the eternal desire of the individual to prove himself superior to his fellows.
Wealth is the generally accepted standard of measurement of value in this country to-day, and there is no way in which the average man can show wealth so clearly as in encouraging his women folk to array themselves.