AS THE twentieth century grows older, more and more nar-
rowed becomes the freeborn American's ability to exer-
cise unrestrainedly his individual taste, however exotic or ec-
centric, in the choice of many lines of mercandise. It may
make for lower costs and higher efficiency, as Mr. Herbert
Hoover suggested when he was Secretary of Commerce, to
produce fewer kinds of monkey wrenches or shades of silk
stockings, but it is undeniable that this form of business puri-
tanism tends to wither the lushness of our national life. In
1905, however, when Mr. Hoover was an engineer (but had
not yet become the Great Engineer) and American taste had
not been constricted into the strait jacket of the assembly
line, the consumer who wanted a cow that could jump over
the moon could get one, because some enterprising manufac-
turer would make it for him. The limits of pampering of
consumers' tastes were the limits merely of the existing techno-
logical abilities of manufacturers. The worm of standard-
ization had not yet begun to canker the rose of individualism.
Nowhere were roses flung more riotously with the throng
than in the gold- and silver-spangled pages that present
Sears' watches for ladies and gents. Here, as in teeming
tropical seas, one is confounded by the richness, the coloring,
the variety of the species.

Where now, for example, will you find MOON CALENDAR
WATCHES, AT PRICES CUT AGAIN? Under their crystal cov-
ers framed in base or precious metal, one kept automatic tab
of the day of the week, day of the month, day of the year,
month of the year, and the changes of the moon. The stu-

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