To each he pointed out that the noble cause of charity must be advanced. Also an American standard of perfect beauty would be established for all time, their decision being unappealable. The artists instantly approved the plan, the method being artistic and therefore strictly logical. The president of the Suffrage League at first demurred. She objected to sex being dragged into the affair, and, besides, mere physical beauty too long had been accorded a disproportionate importance in social and political matters. It degraded a sex fit for higher things than to be man's plaything. H. R., however, earnestly pointed out that it involved the recognition of the superior salesmanship of women—not saleswomanship, but salesmanship, for while man was no better than woman in the conduct of the government or anything else, woman was infinitely the superior of man in many things. He finally induced Mrs. Vandergilt and the others to serve on the commission.
But the damned newspapers, he warned them, would print names and would, alas! devote much space to their deliberations.
They said that the regrettable publicity would not stop them from doing their duty.
He returned to his office and prepared a series of questions for the papers to ask him. This is the most intelligent form of newspaper interview because it is always printed. Answers to the reporters' own questions always appear in the papers when the reporters themselves have to supply them.
These were the questions—which later on the Public Sentiment Corps answered with judiciously varied ayes and noes.
1. Were there one hundred Perfectly Beautiful Girls in New York?
2. Would there be a second Judgment of Paris?
3. Was the Public Beauty Commission really competent?
4. How many points for complexion and coloring? For teeth? For figure? For hands and feet and hair?
5. Would not a uniform garment, on the lines of Annette Kellerman's bathing-suit, be the only fair way?