The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-08-20
NOT ALL FANCY PAINTED THEM.
New York Snobs Are Not What the Wild
Westerners Imagined.

tnleS come to New York he often hndS
his exuberant senslbilities somewhat
trampled upon and his native and ten
der feelings hurt That has been the
case with several democratic politicians
who have recently left their Texas
Alabama and Missouri homes in order
to pay visit to this hard and unsym-
pathetic metropolis.
When the rounder or the habitual
city man, the only provincial who some
how is not aware of his narrowness,
Dreceives the moistened eyelashes of
the Texan who has been in New York
only a few days, he laughs at him for
a "softy" and a sucker" But, after
all, the poor westeper not only seems
to himself to have a grievance. but his
grievance is one that can be understood
by the sympathetic, even if the sympa-
thetic happens to be an unsympa thetic
city man and also "a bit of cosmopoli-
tan.
Imagine a good westener. He is a
man who in his boyhood perhaps in
small log school house in a Missouri
town, has been conscientiously taught
to be an American-that is, not to be a
snob, to be hosptable, accessible, not
mistrustful and to love the common
people, among whom he proudly clas-
SITES himself. AS he grows up among
the hearty people of predominating cut
door life, the spontaneitF naturalness
anu SODu 1ulllOT u lI1t log SCiloOl louSe
are fostered and developed He calls
his neighbor by his first name, gener-
ally Bill" at first sight. He goes
buggy ridin " with his girl without a
chaperon. He wears flannel shirt
and when he dresses up in his best
dons rundown collar.
He is taught to hate dudes like
''pisen'' and to express his sentiments
without vague suggestiveness or cir
cumlocution. Honesty, directness, the
habit of chewing tobacco and showing
the world that he is not ashamed of the
habit, a familiarity with everybody,
complete, if not easy; a warm hospital
ity and hatred of suppression, cold
ness and tall collars-these are charac-
teristics distinguishable to the passing
observer in the hotels on the avenue.
When the westerner first gets to New
York his eyes eXude benevolence and
joy in his kind. He wants to embrace
everybody he meets, see all the sights,
tell everything he knows, and, If he Is
a politician, to tell the absolute anu
Uncompromising truth.
But even at first things come up
which freeze and repel him. He sees
men, and meets them, too, who wear
tall collars and have blue veins in their
ears, who have a hesitatinS way OF
speech and who seem not at all Eager
to answer fully the bubbling questions
thusiastic over a political or moral SEN
timent or the skill of a trapeze per-
former at variety show and looks Tor
sympathy to his city companion, ne
meets only fish-like stare or Two
| words expressive of carping crltlcisrn-
not intelligent criticism, usually, but
the instlnctively disillusioned criticism
of a faded and bored person. RMS
dampens the good western mans pleas
ure and he wonders if his city TREND
isn't laughing at him.
If the westerner is a politician he
doesn't need to wonder: he soon knows
for sure that he is being laughed at.
He talks frankly at first about polttics
and about other things in which he is
interested He is hattered to find him
self surrounded by number of atten-
tive young men, who put questions TO
him but seldom contradict what ne
saws or contribute much information
of their own. He likes this attention at
first; expands genially and tells stories
about Texas. about what Bill satd TO
John and John said to Bill, talks about
Bryan as BILLY" and contides to you
his most recent Chicago experience
But soon his nature begins to con-
tract. He sees little paragra phs or per
haps long interviews creeping INTO the
public prints which he does not always
clearly understand, but which freeze
The suspicion grows in him that the po-
lite young men who have been taking
to him so smoothly Cor listening so po-
litely) are insidiously telling the public
that he is different from the people
who are born and bred in New York
and intimating, too. that II Is rather
ridiculous to be different in this par
ticular way.
The elevator boy at the hotel, the
clerk at the desk. the bloodless dudes
in the restaurants, the very hall boys,
seem to criticise him. They may be
scrupulously polite, but they seem con-
scious of him-seem to talk about MN
or look at him like an inanimate thlng
or something not entirely jibng with
the human species such as they know
it. He felt this criticism in the under
eXpressiveness of everybody. Even
the interviews in the newspapers Whlch
seem so unfriendly to him he finds get
their effect by not saying enough, by
inst picking out from his ungarded and
ingenious talk those things which hit
off the difference between him ana the
city.
He is told that this is New York hu-
mor-something interesting and mar
acteristic. At first he doesn't under
stand and thinks that what is meant Is
that the atmosphere of New YORK Is
damp and of a peculiar kind of damp
ness, but when the refined and intel
lectual meaning of the word ''humor'
is explained to him 1t adds to his dis
tress. 1t seems to him cold, COM
pressed kind of fun. 1t hasn't the
shaking of the sides in 1t, the good old
physical laugh 1t is only a cold grin,
with a touch of unkindness in it.
Before he leaves New York he be-
comes so biased that he sees a snap
and a bite in everything. Some morn
ing, his heart breaking, almost sonbing
but saying nothing, the poor westerner
the backbone and heart of our land
packs his trunk and goes back TO his
wife, children and hearty neighbors.-
New York Commercial Advertiser.
The Miners Union Picnic at Anaconda
Ann o0Ih. lS0H.