"An army of hard-drinking, cigarette-puffing, licentious Amazons"

The Flapper Again.

The South is getting excited over the flapper again.
   We thought the flapper went out of style months ago.
   But the Rev. Charles J. Smith, president of Roanoke College, is all wrought up over the fact that the girls of his college—
   Drink.
   Dance.
   Smoke.
   Wear scanty evening clothes.
   And sit in limousines during intermissions.
   In fact the Rev. Dr. Smith says:--
   "The world has never known the turning loose of such an army of hard-drinking, cigarette puffing, licentious Amazons as walk our streets and invade our campuses today.”
   It sounds pretty bad, yet he admits that his college numbers among its students girls from the best families of Virginia, and it is a church school.
   It looks as if the modern girl has gone to the dogs again.
   But has she?
   Let’s give her a chance to show what she can do when her college days are over.
   What are the flappers of tow and three years ago doing now?
   They may still be smoking a bit and wearing their hair short, but    they are also serving quite capably in a variety of roles.
   They are teaching school.
   They are studying law or medicine.
   They are in business, helping run the affairs of factories or real estate firms or brokers or banks.
   They are artists.
   They are journalists.
   They are chemists.
   They are secretaries
   They are interior decorators.
   They are home makers.
   And some of them are even mothers.
   They are the modern girls, the flappers of a few years ago.
   And they make it very hard to get excited over the new crop of flappers that Virginia is producing.

[New York Evening Telegram, January 14, 1924, p.9]