"The other is the newly exploited 'shifters.' The 'shifters' are an organization of mushroom growth among high school girls and boys which is spreading through the eastern States and winning converts among youngsters. It is described as the 'flapper Ku Klux,' and its emblem, if worn by a girl, according to high school teachers and children's society leaders who oppose it, to be nothing more nor less than an invitation to be kissed. "To call it an organization even is exaggeration, for the 'shifters' are better described as a secret understanding without any responsible head. "From being a seemingly harmless group whose emblem was originally a brass paper clip fastened in the coat lapel it has developed by rapid strides. Manufacturers of emblems are coining money by the sale of hands, palm outstretched. The significance is take what you want or, as the motto of the order says, 'be a good fellow; get something for nothing.' One of the principles is to 'do' one's parents, referred to as 'they.'" The second item is an Associated Press despatch: "ST. LOUIS, March 10.--In reiterating his statement that a girls' and a boys' secret organization requiring that all applicants must have violated the moral code before admission was granted, existed in a local high school, Victor J. Miller, president of the Board of Police Commissioners, tonight named the Soldan High School as the one in which the alleged immoral conditions exist. The school is attended largely by children of the wealthy West End citizens. CHAPTER XXXI SEX AND THE "SMART SET" (Portrays the moral customs of those who set the fashion in our present-day world.) We have discussed what is happening to our young people; let us next consider what our mature people are doing. Having mentioned conditions in England, I will give a glimpse of London "high life" two years before the war. As a visiting writer, I was invited to luncheon at the home of a woman novelist, whose books at that time were widely read both in her country and here. Present at the luncheon was a prominent publisher, who I afterwards learned was the lady's lover; also the lady's grown and married son. The publisher looked like a buxom hunting squire, but the lady told me that he was very unhappy, because his wife would not divorce him. The lady had just come from a week-end party at the home of an earl, who at this moment occupies one of the highest posts in the gift of the British Empire. Things had gone comically wrong at this country house party, she said, because the hostess had failed to remember that Lord So-and-so was at present living with Lady Somebody-else. One of the duties of hostesses at house parties, it appears, is to know who is living with whom, in order that they may be put in connecting rooms. In this case his Lordship had been grouchy, and everybody's pleasure had been spoiled.