Hot Argument

MANNERS & MORALS

New York's gum-chewing Daily News took time out from huffing at Harry to return to a hot-weather editorial battle it has been waging for years. Subject: men's summer wear--too many, too heavy and too hot. Said the News: "We've never . . . blown our editorial horn for any nudist cult . . . Where do you put your change, cigarettes and matches? [But] we've urged outright rebellion against any and all social edicts which say a guy has to pull a hot jacket over a carcass which already, probably, is steaming like a 1908 Maxwell. Down with any heartless females and etiquette fanatics who'd still like to see us looking like boiled lobsters and feeling like steamed clams." The News confidently headlined it: WE'RE

WINNING THIS ONE, GENTS.

Actually, the battle is far from won in New York City, one of the nation's strongholds of the summertime coat and tie, where many a stuffy restaurant owner keeps a supply of odd-size jackets on hand to make sure that customers can be made socially acceptable on hot afternoons. But this week the Gallup poll reported some encouraging returns. Seven out of ten U.S. women, said Gallup, now look with approval on shirt-sleeved males.

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