"Grocers, Morticians. . . ."

The Army and Navy custom of wearing civilian clothes while among civilians has brought down many a gibe on officers with rumpled pants, stringy cravats. Most of the gibing has been done at officers in Washington, where wearing uniforms except on unusual or ceremonial occasions is distinctly bad form. (The custom originated as a supposed sop to pacifists and Congressmen with antimilitary constituencies.) Last week, awl-tongued Columnist Westbrook Pegler, an old Navyman, joined the chorus of gibers. Wrote he:

"George Marshall . . . a general who could go around with four stars on each shoulder, is so bashful that he doesn't wear his soldier suit regularly, and any officer who should dress up in the quaint costume of his trade in Washington, except for a fancy-pants party at the White House or a high-class scuffle at the home of some refined millionaire, would be accused of insufferable swank.

"General Tooey [Carl] Spaatz, of the Air Corps, recently back from London, goes around wearing some tweedy thing that he picked up over yonder, and the town is full of rank and importance and anyone less than a Major is practically an Okie. But they all go around pretending to be grocers, morticians. . . . The odd part of it is that . . . Army officers in mufti, as a rule, look as if they had just crossed the continent by day coach in a slow train and hadn't undressed for a week."

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