Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-02-05
"J'INERs" OF HIGH DEGREE.
The Craze for Revolutionary an
MOnarchicn1 Pedigrees.


MOnarchicn1 Pedigrees.
From the New York Commercial Advertiser
Every town has it's group of men known
as timers" They are the amiable fellows
with a craze for joining every society that
Is formed They all belong to every secret
fraternal and benevolent society in town.
Each Elmer" has a lodge meeting nearly
every night. The lodge is, outside of his
family, the great thing about life. Poll
tics, religion, society. literature sport, all
are secondary things to the lodge in the
timers mind. and it is good thing that
most of the lodges require their members
to sit up nights with sick brethren and con-
tribute to the funeral expenses of the dead,
because it is only in this way that the con-
firmed jiner's' duties as a citizen and
member of society catch up with him.
The ''j'iner' is ordinarily feature of the
smaller communities, and fourishes most
in the humble walks of life. But he is
spreading, and the craze for timing is
now rampant among the wealthy and So
styled upper classes. The craze has taken
them in a different form. The lodge of the
Amalgamated Order of the Grand Panjan-
drum and its compeers have the avowed
object of promoting the mutual benefit of
its members. But the new brood of
J fners are too fine for lodges like these
Their lodges must be aristocratic So thew
base them on their ancestors. Societies of
descendants of participants in the revolu-
ton and colonial wars, all of them started
with the respectable purpose of keeping up
patriotic memories and diffusing acuuaint-
with American history, have been made
ridiculous by pretension and display on the
part of those who have transformed them
into mutual admiration societies. Grand
fathers who wore homespun and whose
ha eli 1aSf
democratic Won be astonished could thew
see the airs assumed by their descendants
The fathers of the republic were for the
most part plain people The revolution was
fought and won by the common people of
the colonies. The best society" of the
time was tory. Except d few great fami-
lies like the Schuylers in New York and
the Randolphs in Virginia the names con-
spicuous in revolutionary history had been
obscure all through colonial history. The
way in which their names are now used by
their descendants for their own glorifca-
ton would strike them with amazement
And the way in which the sons, daughters
DANES anu queens are now squabbling over
precedence would disgust them at the
thought of their honorable and unpreten-
tious struggles being made material for
such absurd child's play and childish
wrangling.
Still, with all the follies that attend them,
there is something to respect in any at
tempt to commemorate the work of ones
complimentary as this can be said of So
cieties devoted to exploitation Of claims to
descent from early English kings and
barons. Such claims of descent are usual
ly frivolous guesswork. Except where his
family has been in continuous possession
OF a country seat or an hereditary title, not
one Englishman in hundred can trace his
ancestry three hundred years back. OF
Americans who are forming societies on
every hand to advertise themselves as de-
scendants of thirteenth century barons or
sixth century kings. not one in a hundred
can trace his ancestry one generation back
from the first American settler of his name
Nothing is easier to buy than a genealog-
ical tree. Scores of London dealers in fam
lily trees will sell any American who has
the price a genealogical tree connecting
him with any family he chooses. Societies
based on such genealogies can depend on
one thing, they will excite more ridicule
abroad than even at home. Their value Is
better known where they are made to Or
der for the export trade.