River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1882-01-12
What is Respectable Society.
PHILADELPHIA Ledger.

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We heard a man, otherwise intelli-
gent enough, lately sheer at another
because said he, one never meets
him in respectable society !" The
speaker did not mean, however, that
the person he affected to look down up
on was immoral, but merely that his
circle of intimates were not composed
of the fashionable and rich.
This notion of what constitutes re-
spectacle society, is quite favorite one
with that class of individuals whom
Thackeray has so significantly called
''snobs." Empty pretense always
makes its own characteristics a stand
ard by which it strives to measure the
responsibility of persons at large. In
community of mere money getters,
wealth is the test of responsibility.
Among the proud. narrow-minded,
effete nobility of the Fauburg st. Ger
main responsibility depends upon be-
ing descendants from ancestors who
have married their cousins for SO many
centuries that neither muscles nor
brains are left any longer to degenerate
descendants. With the dandy officers
who constitute a considerable po ton
of the American navy responsibility
consists in having sponged on Uncle
SAM" in wearing gilt buttons, and jiit
ing tailors. Every conceited fool
thinks himself in like way the only
man really weighty, the only person
who Is respectable.
But true responsibility depends on no
such adventurous circumstances. To
be respectable is to be worthy of re-
spect; and he deserves respect who has
most virtue The humblest man who
bravely does his duty, is more worthy
of respect, is more truly respectable,
than the covetous millionaire among
his money bags, or the arrogant mon
arch upon his throne.
The fine lady who backbites her
neighbor is less worthy of respect than
an honest wash-woman. The profit
gate noble, though he may wear a
dozen orders, is often not really as re-
spectacle as the shoe-black who cleans
boots. That Which exalts the world
exalts the one and despises the other,
but it does not make them respectable
according to the real meaning of that
word. Their responsibility is but a
hollow sham, as they themselves fire.
quently feel, and those who worship
| them bow down to Fetish, thing of
feathers and tinsel. The selfish, idle
drone, who wastes life, in his own graf
ification, and dissipatcs the fortune of
his progeny, is not and cannot be re-
spectacle, but the Woodworking, self
denying father, who wears out his life
to bring up his children, is, even
though he but day-laborer. Nothing
can make Dives fit to lie upon Abra-
| hams bosom, while Lazarus is well
coined there, even with the sores the
| dogs have licked.
This false view of life, which would
measure responsibility by conven-
tional standard, is totally at variance
with our republican Institutions. 1t
creates an "imperium in imperio,"
for. while the law declares all citizens
equal, it erects social standard which
endeavors to ignore that great truth.
The course, british, knavish profigate,
criminal-in short, all who fall short of
their duty to themselves and their fell
low-men-are those who are not re-
spectacle; and this whether they sre
rich or poor. While those who live
honestly, and strive to do what they
can, constitute in reality the respect
| able class, irrespective of the fact
whether they eat with silver forks or
| steel ones