Dorothy Thompson

Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader/December 27, 1920

The pale, pretty, eighteen-year-old girl who dressed my hair so beautifully in a fashionable hairdressing establishment on the Kartnerring helped me into a new coat, touching it caressingly: 

“You like it?” I asked. 

“Oh, it is so beautiful,” she breathed. Then she added wistfully: “I haven’t had anything new to wear since I was twelve years old.” 

She showed me then, pathetically, where the sleeves of her dress had been lengthened with a piece of different material, where the skirt had been lengthened with a piece of false hem added. The repairing was indescribably ingenious. The shop was closing for the day and she put on her coat. It was a little girl’s garment, cut after a childish pattern; it only reached to her knees and the sleeves ended awkwardly just below her elbow. Seeing my look she attempted a feeble little jest. “I used to put my hands in the cuffs to keep them warm,” she said. “But there aren’t any cuffs now, are there?” 

In Ridiculous Attire

Even the little round hat which she wore was too small. In my mind’s eye I could picture the little face with bobbing curls that first appeared beneath it. Now it sat on the top of her head above a face that still had the eagerness of youth, but was so wan. Like all the rest of the girls in Vienna she had the anaemic appearance that tells of too little food, and that poor. But somehow I was less moved by this than by the heartbreaking ridiculousness of her attire. For there is no hunger of youth like the hunger for personal adornment. 

She said: “I must have a new suit. This is a fashionable shop and the proprietor says that I cannot look like this any longer. But I shall not enjoy my new clothes because all my family must go without a meal each day until the clothes are paid for.” 

Nothing But Old Clothes

Her tragedy was of the sort not recorded by the great relief organizations. Indeed, these Viennese girls who work as stenographers, clerks, or perhaps in factories, are lucky, as luck goes here, for their six or seven hundred kronen a month, added to the family exchequer may mean meat to eat once a month, and half a litre of milk each day, if one is ill. But it is a tragedy just the same to have had never a new blouse, or a pair of slippers, or bit of ribbon through all one’s girlhood. Particularly I think of the girls whom I saw handing out exquisite garments or delicious perfumes across the counter to women from other lands to whom the two or three thousand kronen charged was nothing. 

For it is simply inconceivable what $50 will buy in Vienna today. 

$50 Is Some Money

Let us change it into kronen and go shopping with it. We will go to “Zweiback’s,” the most fashionable department store. We will find it as completely stocked as any Fifth Avenue shop, with models of beautiful material and the modes the latest. You may buy a handsomely tailored street dress of wool gabardine, tricot, or velour; a delectable little duvetyne hat to go with it, or one of the famous Viennese velours; a pair of fine silk stockings, antelope gloves, and walking shoes.

With the change we will go into another shop in the same quarter. There you will buy an afternoon frock of crepe meteor, heavily embroidered, a hat of velvet and fur; white kid gloves, another pair of stockings, and another pair of shoes—this time slippers of patent leather or suede. 

Then you will take your change and go around the corner to still another shop and we will purchase a blouse of fine voile with beautiful cross stitch Hungarian embroidery in rich colors, and another of heavy crepe de chine, and half a dozen handkerchief or cobwebby linen trimmed with embroidery and real lace.

And you will still have enough left to buy tickets to sit in the Emperor’s box at the Opera. . 

Speaking of Kronen

But stop thinking in terms of dollars and think again in kronen. At the rate of exchange prevailing in Vienna when I was here a few days ago, you will have spent 29,000 kronen. That is the salary of a Member of Parliament for seven months. It is as much as the average teacher, official or skilled worker earns in a year. It is as much as your little coiffeur, in her ridiculous clothes, has earned in four long years of dressing foreign ladles’ hair.  

And if you can wear your finery with satisfaction in Vienna, God have mercy on your soul!