A cartoon ran in the Rochester Journal and Post-Express on July 6th, 1926, and it tells you everything you need to know before you read a single word of the article beneath it.

Headline: Girls to Censor Own Bathing Suits Here. A sign on the beach, posted by the chief of police: Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide. Three women in bathing suits stand beside it, apparently unbothered.

The chief's name was Quigley. He had just been informed of the recent rulings of the Federation of French Sportswomen and, the paper reports he, "refused to get excited over them."

The Rules

The Federation of French Sportswomen, headed by Suzanne Pavillon — described by the paper as "France's most militant sportswoman" — had issued a set of regulations governing what women could wear while competing in sports. The rules were specific. Bathing suits must not follow the figure. Trunks must be worn four inches below the knee. Sleeves of sport dresses must cover one quarter of the arm. Abbreviated running trunks were banned. Sleeveless tennis dresses were banned. Skin-tight swimming suits were banned.

"Back talk" was also banned, which the paper noted without further explanation, and Chief Quigley declined to comment on.

The paper summarized the French position in three words: "Lady, be good!"

Atlantic City Had Officers for This

What makes the Rochester story land is the contrast it sets up. Atlantic City, the paper noted, had policemen actually assigned to the beaches that summer to measure bathing suits. Chief Quigley acknowledged this and allowed that those officers "must have a pleasant job of it." He was not going to replicate the arrangement in Rochester.

"He gives Rochester young women credit for a lot of common sense," the paper reported.

What he actually said, when asked about the bare-knee question, was: "What's a bare knee or two" — and let it go at that.

The thing that gets me about this story isn't the French rules or even the Atlantic City tape-measure officers, as remarkable as both of those are. It's that the rules were being pushed by a women's sports federation. Suzanne Pavillon wasn't a male politician or a church official — she was, by the paper's own description, France's most militant sportswoman. The most prominent female athlete in French sports governance in 1926 was the one demanding that bathing suits not follow the figure.

Chief Quigley, cop from Rochester, was the one who put up the sign: let your conscience be your guide.

Some weeks the newspaper hands you everything you need.

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