CONGRESSMEN UPHOLD RIGHT TO WEAR SLACKS

By Richard F. Pourade,

The Union’s Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON, March 21 (Special)— California's congressmen have gone to bat for San Diego women in slacks.

Contending that at least 60 percent of the women on wartime jobs wear slacks or slack suits, the California congressional delegations, through a special committee, is demanding that the war production board revise its pending M-388 order to include as essential items slacks and slack suits and certain types of sportswear, such as men's open-neck shirts.

In an appeal to WPB Chairman J.A. Krug, the delegation stated that “in many instances the plants where women are employed demand for safety reasons that slacks or slack suits be worn.”

It was pointed out that the order set aside a considerable quantity of merchandise for manufacture of low-cost women's dresses, suits, shirts and blouses, considered essential for everyday living and working, in order to bring back the market in low-priced clothing.

But this order, California contends, will work a hardship on the west coast needle trade which has been built up around sportswear.

Furthermore, the delegation said, the addition of slacks and slack suits to the essential list will actually conserve rayon piece goods.

On the authority, it is supposed, of Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas, a member of the special clothing committee, the Californians averred that rayon would be saved because when a woman wears slacks she doesn't wear a slip, girdle or stockings – or so they say.

COURTESY PHOTO Slacks and slack suits were necessary for many ‘Rosie the Riveter’ wartime women factory workers.