The Spokane Racket Over Male Attire

The racket made in Spokane over the intention of Alice May Harrah to assume a male part in an amateur production of the 'Chimes of Normandy' is a tempest in a teapot—a bit of prudery with which a broad and healthy mind can have no sympathy. An obscene look or attitude has no more business on the stage than it has on the street, but for a woman to wear male attire to personate a masculine dramatic part is not immodest or indelicate. The reason why the law causes the arrest of women wearing male attire on the street is because it is assumed that a woman who ordinarily wears a woman's dress only dons a man's dress for disguise, but when a woman plays a male part upon the stage, she does nothing immodest or indelicate. In the Greek and Roman drama, and even as late as the time of Shakespeare, female parts were personated by boys. The Spokane racket is absurd, and the lady who proposes to dress a masculine part is right in treating this ignorant, prurient prudery with contempt.