St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-04-08
WHO'S CHARLES D. WARNER
A Gentleman of St. Paul Who Would
Make His Acquaintance.
A LIBELER OF THE WEST.
"Social and Economic Studies" Which
Have Only Very Little Truth
in Them.

10 the EdltOf OF tne GlODe.
have been attempting for some days
to find time to call upon you and ask
the privilege of looking into your latest
encyclopedia and looking up in the last
volume of that valuable work under the
theletter wv" who and what Warner,
Charles Dudley, is, but since the street
railway has diminished its service on
the hill line | have not been able to
catch car, and as the next one down is
not due until the middle of next
month, rather than "burSt in ignorance"
| write to you for the information. OF
course, ] would not think of asking you
to lend me the book, for l know how in
dispensable it is to you, and as have
also heard somewhere that newspaper
information can only be kept authentic
by concealing it's source, shrink from
anything that might shake my conf
dence in the enlightened press. But of
your charity, tell me who is Charles,
and from what source did he obtain
those
IMPRESSIONS OF THE WEST"
which he is now delivering through the
medium of Harper's Monthly? / think
the course must surely have been eclec-
tic, for in the April number of the Month
ly he suddenly appears lat the proper
hour at Chicago lunch counter, and
Immediately after arrives with undi-
minished appetite) at st. Paul and
Minneapolis for dinner and tea. | have
heard it said in China that it is not
good taste to accept hospitality and
then abuse your host, and if Charles
should visit China it is to be hoped that
he will observe that rule, but he has
certainly broken it with us, or has been
most unfortunate in the persons he has
met here, if his ''Social and Economic
Studies" of our cities and states repre-
sent what he really found. Indeed he
sums up his experience by saying that
those of US who have visited the East,
being
QUICK To ''CATCH on"
have little polish, but that even those
are unused to-, or uneasy in, their COM
Portable homes, while money is the sole
requirementfO for social position and liter
ature, and the professions are but little
considered. What an unfortunate man
Charles must be, and what eXtraOrdi-
nary people he must have fallen in
with. Here is a man who poses as an
educated, refined man of letters, an
American of to-day, presumed to have
the power OF observation and the capac-
ity to describe what he has seen in Ian
guage fit for publication, that is, in terms
which will be both agreeable and in
structive to the general reader, add it is
to such a Barmecide feast he bids us.
Even his design, if one he has, is OBJ
Scure.
FOR WHAT READERS
did he prepare his essay? Was it to in
Struct the West or to amuse the East?
For the first purpose it lacks truth, for
the second, wit; so neither is fulfilled.
He maligns our cities and carps at the
table manners of his entertainers.
What nice manners they must have at
the East if this is the result of their
social culture! And yet there is so
much he might have seen, so much he
might have written, of that won Id
have been at once truthful, interesting
and instructive; for he visited the cities
where yet dwell the men who have
Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the ter
ritories of Dakota, Montana, Idaho;
who within little more than quarter of
a century have added to the strength of
the republic millions of acres of cult
waited land, millions of bushels of bread
stuffs, millions of gold and silver. and
millions of sturdy. law-abiding and
worthy citizens; and all these men
were Self-made men, that is, they
WROUGHT THEIR FORTUNES
and created their communities alone and
unaided, either by Eastern capital OF
Eastern refinement. Well, they have
only demonstrated fact which Charles
does not seem yet able to appreciate.
that neither of those aids are necessary
or required to found or build up states.
And now that the work is done COM
plete, from turret to foundation stone,
this chrOnicler of Eastern clam-bakes
comes along and carps at their manner
and speaks of their Sudden riches"
Now, there may be men of useless lives
and because thereof of narrow fortune,
who, having quickly gained great
wealth by no merit OF effort Of their
own, present to the beholder only the
flash and dazzle of their riches: but
these are not the Western men of for
tune, for here the wealth, though great,
must be fairly earned, and each partici-
pant is a cOnqueror, not suppliant of
fortune. And so l recur to
MY ORIGINAL QUESTION,
"WhO is the man who looked upon this
scene that have limited at, yet saw it
not; who talked with the men who Gre
ated it and marked only the accent, not
the matter of their words; who thinks
that men who have builded great states
and cities can not be at home at their
own firesides: that men who within the
vigorous portion of their lives have
planned, created and completed the
Western empire and crowned every hill
top with the school, the college and the
church, and filled them all, must needs
depend on some precarious visit East to
gain the polish that shines so lustrously
from Broadway haberdasher to make
them worthy of the approval of our crit
ical guests. Pray tell me who? Oh,
who? is Charles Dudley Warner, who
writes for Harper'S Monthly?
MARK WEST.
Mistaken in His Man.