Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-09-19
BETWEEN OURSELVES.

In the fullest and best meaning of the dis
tinction it is very fortunate to be q lady and o
gentleman. 1t singles people out for some of
the pleasantest and most acceptablelex
in life, besides comforting advantages and priv
ileges which all the civilized world values
about evenly. So desirable is this rating that
it is no wonder there are multitudinous coun-
terfeits and alloys which pass currently among
our American majoritiee, whose sensitiveness
in this regard is SO overweening that, genuine
or spurious, the claim of the whole population
is honored alike, and its'all 'ladies and gentle
men,"
Judge Hoar says. 'the sovereign people of
America are gentlemen and the savage adden-
dunn of Wendall Phillips is, that he hopes
before the next centennial comes round the
judges will be also.
Allowances are made for this epidemic of
national gentility and discrimination, snearly
adjusted emergencies.
Americans are conceded to be peculiar. and
the jerry name is occasionally talisman to
ward off penalties of one kind or another.
For instance, we read in London journal
about respectfully dressed man who was bois-
ferrous in the Westminster county court, and
was ordered by the Judge to leave, whereupon
he violently assaulted the officer sent to remove
him. Then he was sentenced to imprisonment
for seven days. The prisoners father came
into court to ask for mitigation of the sem
tence on the ground that his son had been a
long time in America, and had imbibed Ameri-
can ideas. The learned judge said he would
consider the subject, and on the second appli-
cation of the father, he granted the release of
the prisoner.
Now perhaps similar extenuation by
authority may be given to other American
IDEAS in time. Notably the excessive equal
ity which is preposterously rife at home, and
abroad so unsettled that it is sufficient
for titles and distinctions. Unsettled is hardly
the correct expression. for it is more than
probable that the solicitude for honorary
social degrees, is only the conviction of a per-
feet fitness, which calls for its premium,
where mere assertion of equality, unaided by
something of the Sort wouldn't be very con-
vincing. Zone of natures noblemen, did you
observe" says Thackeray to the commercial
gent" who has lost his wages, and promis-
sorry something at cards with my Lord Oinqbar
ibid nature give you balance at the bank
er's!"
With balance at the bankers Americans can
sometimes vie with royalty itself, thereby
showing fitness for those high social prizes
so.much in demand.
If prince Demidoff has salon bog for his
come American is sure to have two, filed
with diamonds and questionable women.
When princess and dukes are satisfied with
a suite OF rooms, our moneyed representatives
will hire whole hotel-more luck to them
We have the money for the splurge, but how
are we off for the other qualifications? 1t is a
solace to know when the display breeds or va
rieties of the race are disappointing there is a
great deal of satisfaction in the First families
of the people-the very first, as to origin.
With all the fourishing folly of the ages en-
gendered by money, engirt by titles, and ever
lastingly flush of 'ladies and gentlemen" we
know that tits the commoners, plebeians, or
pedestrians that keep the earth sweet with
domestic, and even heroic virtues. From these
sturdy ranks the worlds great men come.
In the patient struggle of humble homes the
glorious brains, and the immortal inventions
are born and nourished. The best poise of
greatness would seem to be low birth, land iron
fortune Without them success is often
stripped of it's most forcible moral.
In Difference to the prevailing weakness b.
ographers do their best to palllate the
forbidding facts of lowly birth and
poverty, but the world likes the truth
about its favorites, and listens to the story of
achievement amid hardship and discourage
ment with enthusiasm.
Who cares to trace whether DIsraei belongs
to the Princes of Judah, when he is the most
memorable of his tribe, and what difference
can it make to US in any estimate of Washing
ton to know that perhaps the name was ere
while the aristocratic De Washington?
There are times when the lower the parent
age the better the chances for some Presidential
aspirant. But the humility and Spartan SIM
plicity are only spasmodic. The political
ferment demands this periodical self-abase-
ment, and the ordeal is submitted to fer the
points in stump speaking to catch the SYM
pathies of the groundlings, who are thereby
encouraged to hope for some such dramatic
transitions in their own lives. And so the ar
rangement is polite on the one hand and
fattering on sthe other, and much
party triumph is fostered by a
skiIlful adjustment of popular
weakness, which is at bottom antagonistic to
its own slogan, when the equality dodge isn't
necessary or doesn't pay.
We are a vacillating people in our republi-
can attitude at different intervals. Political
ly we can be more tumble than Uriah Heep,
socially we are all ''ladies and gentlemen"
with the strong prejudice of caste, and conf
cal contradiction is visible to the shallowest OBJ
server. We know too that the best national
representation is recruited from the rank and
file of the people. We need no orators, no
physicists to set the fact before us. It shows
for itself, and it shows that the men who step
from obscurity and poverty with alert and Wig
orous minds ready for the best service, owe
their moral and intellectual strength to their
mothers. In the humble walks of life the wo-
men are nearly always superior to the men,
while the reverse is generally true of the upper
classes. Perhaps nature keeps the equipoise
in this way. It is the most encouraging phase
of the woman question, because the most in
disputable.
Jefferson in way steps in here as an au-
khoritv rT0N