The morning news., 1888-06-17
POLITICAL FADS.
Some of the Features of Homely Lo
cal Life,

OOno Oh tno foaJuroS OF E1Om6ly LIZ
cal Life.
New YORK, June 16-Perhaps you do
not believe in political fads Don't let us
try to explain them. Let us recognize
them. The bandanna fad is here. It ls
enough to know that Mr.. Thurman, the
democratic nominee for vice-president, uses
bandanna handkerchief, and TO remark
that New York has famed out with red
silk. The furnishing stores literal y blaze
with them. The bazars on Twenty-third
street all have signs up, "Bandannas. The
men at the Manhattan and the HOFFMAN
house carry them in their side pockets.
The caper is to pull them out and flourish
them at the slightest provocation; 10 walk
down Broadway with the red flag In the
right hand tiauntiugly and then make
show of wiping the face with at intervals.
Later IN tae campaign we shall see process
SONS on the same street--every man wear
ing pocket handkerchief.
How these tricks Of homely local life roll
back on the metropolis. Years ago when
Gen. Harrison was the popular favorlte
they had log cabin on Broadway, and the
political beaux of that day took to drinking
hard cider. Whatever brings to this cos
mopoGtan and heterogeneous town the in
bred and distinctive color and character of
locality is seized upon, because we have no
local color or character ourselves. There was
old Josh Whitcomb came down from Swan
zey, in the New Hampshire hills, bringing
with him the homesDun and granite of that
hard, homely and indGmitable race of
giants and New York fell desperately in
love with him, honored from the opera, the
circus, tho ballet, and rushed on masse,
night after night, to seq this old New Eng
land type. There's Buffalo Bill an idol
through all the summer, making Erastina
fashionable resort with his unsophisticated
wild west.
The tendency of the whole of social Ameri-
ca is to get to New York and into the swim.
The Fifth avenue is lined with bonanza
kings who were chieftains on their native
heathS, but who have been lost sight of
here. Broadway at o'clock is a panorama
of bellies from every school district in the
union, and who were never quite satisfied till
| they reached the metropolis and were lost
in the Roman mob. We digest them all.
reduce them to the uniform complexion of
| ladies and gentlemen, and kill every bit of
distinctive local character they had. If we
want some ono who is unique independent,
unconventional, with a lot of the sand of
conviction and stub and twist of personality,
where do we go for him? To the Hoffman
house? To the Union league club! 70 the
Seventh regimentf Do we look in the uni
form glitter and polish of the pageant on
Fifth avenue, or dive into the shallow sea
of selfishness on Wall street, or search
among the peas III the pod Of fashionable
church! Nonsense! We look along the
Wabash, and up among the giant trunks of
Maine, or part the blue grass in kentucky,
or follow the trail made by some boy who
went barefoot to the village school, and
studied his Bancroft and his Virgil on his
stomach O nights before the blazing pine
knots in his fathers chimney.
There is agenuine loyal admiration in
the American heart for its Solon Shingles,
its Joshua Whitcombs, its Walt Whltmans,
it's Blaines,. its Thurmans and its Cleve-
lands, and all its hardy types of character
who, nursed and hammered outside of the
Vanity Fair, have preserved as a asouvenir
of our Golden Age something of the infiexi-
ible LONELINESS and honesty of our fathers
Mr.. ROsenquest, of the Fourteenth street
theatre, told me the other day that he in
tended to open his season in September with
a new American play called blue Jeans"
Great Scottl What lot of significance
that name will have for millions of sue
cessful men whose fathers and grandfathers
along the Ohio, the Wabash, the Susque-
hanna, the Muskingum and the Cumber-
land dug and drudged and fought and
prayed and left their fiber and their faith
behind. They were the salt of the earth.
They wore homespun. Their hands We're
horny, but their hearts were stout. Put
that type of man on the metropolitan
boards, and the giddy ephemera of our
to wn pauses in admiration of a staunchness
and distinctness that are not engendereI
in Vanity Fair NYM CRINKLE.