These Americans — A Button Scandal in American Soldiers' Trousers

Let us reassure readers, first of all, that the scandal is not of the moral kind in the famous sense... It is a scandal dug up by Mr. Walter Norblad, the Republican representative for the State of Oregon, on the day he addressed a letter to the Secretary of the Army demanding that an end be put to a new scandal in the American army: the scandal of trouser buttons.

The honorable congressman declares that an inexplicable "anomaly" requires the trousers to have buttons for suspenders, while military regulations forbid suspenders — "les bretelles" — absolutely; and he puts at twelve million the number of buttons whose cost is squandered for nothing... that is, six buttons per pair of trousers, and twelve million buttons for two million pairs of trousers...

And the worthy congressman threatens to raise the matter before Congress...