The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1900-08-26
DEFENDING AMERICAN
HOME LIFE.

! AT the celebration of New Hampshire's
Old Home Week." at Concord last week,
Mr.. Thomas Nelson Page made a speech in
which he took issue with the Newport
preacher, who set his congregation by the
ears by reproaching them, and society at
large, for the vices Of a number of idle So
ciety people. Mr.. Page said:
Il have always been struck by the sim
certify which l have found in the American.
Unfortunately for our reputation, the phase
Of home life which Is most frequently
brought into public notice Is one which. II
1t can be called home life at all, is certainly
not representative of American home life.
1t is that which is found in certain pc
culiar circles of certain large cities In this
country. This is the home life which Is
most frequently referred to and advanced in
the public prints, possibly because 1t is the
most extraordinary form that domestic life
has ever taken in this country. Unhappily
for US. it goes abroad as being a constitu-
ent part of our home life. and very ridicu-
lousy 1t Is imagined. perhaps because 1t so
lmagines itself and asserts itself. to be the
highest form of our home life. I thank
God for my part that 1t Is not only not the
highest form of American life, but that it
Is no part whatever Of American home life.
1t Is only a counterfeit presentment OF
what 1t esteems to be a form OF foreign
fashionable life. It has not even the virtue
of having its vices sincere.
"A preacher, and I have no doubt q good
preacher and a good man, preached the
other day before this people, or that seq
ment of them that goes to church, a sermon
calling their attention to their duties in
plain and vigorous language, for which he
has been much and justly praised In the
newspapers of the country. But the Rev.
erend Doctor Hamilton Is the rector Of a
New York church, and the New York in
which his church is situated is not the least
provincial section Of this country. 1t arro-
gates itself to be a sort of sacred and for
hidden city within the outer city of New
York proper.
The major portion Of the congregation
which he addressed at Newport the other
day belongs to that New York and to such
sycophants as can buy a holding within
Its borders: and the reverend preacher, in
order to make his sermon go down with his
congregation. used an argument which, In
the Interest of American civilization, I
must repudiate. He told them thai they
must remember that $1,000, 900 of American
citizens had their gaze fastened upon them
and looked to them as their exemplars,
applying their energies and spending their
lives IN endeaVoring to emulate them. I
Know not how to characterize such nom
sense except in the plain vernacular. With
Sucn 1nsensate hattery pouring Into their
ears no wonder that little set Of gflded imi-
tators lose their bearings. become blinded
and fall into the ditch Of folly and prof.
legacy.
Il make so bold as to assert that there
ara not only not 5O,O 900 Of people in this
country who sit with envious, IL not ador.
ing, gaze fastened upon that spectacle Of
divorced and doubly divorced men and
women and their %sycophants and parasites,
but that outside Of their own circle there
are not $4,000 people in all America who do
not reprobate and deride their arrogance.
1t Is true that their doings are chronicled
and doubtless read by millions in the week.
~ journals: but so are the acts Of freaks
and malefactors. including characters who
are uncomfortable.
And the reverend preacher doubtless has
lived so close to the sources from which
these reports have enanated that he has
become dazzled and lost his bearings: but
If he would go abroad, and when I say
abroad. I do not mean to other countries.
but abroad in this broad land, and see the
American people in their homes, he would
find that those to whom he addressed him.
self on that occasion were far from being
held In the esteem he stated. They mis-
take notoriety for fame, brazenness for
splendor and prominence for exaltation."