Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1902-09-24
INIaUITIEs OF FOUR HUNDRED.

INIaUITIEs OF FOUR HUNDRED.
Henry WattersOn Reads Another
Scathing Lesson In Morals.
In a lengthy article which appeared
recently in his paper, Colonel Henry
Watterson made an attack on Newport
society, characterizing the Four Hun
dred at that swell summer resort as
"unclean birds" and severely scoring
the members of that social sphere for
their reckless abandonment and silly
pursuit of pleasure. The attack has
precipitated a storm, number of
newspapers f1ocking to the defense Of
the Four Hundred, others upholding
Colonel Watterson, while even some
members Of the smart set have rushed
into print to rebuke him.
Colonel Watterson, in the Louisville
Courier Journal, of Sunday, renews his
attack on Newport society, heading his
article: "The Four Hundred, the News
papers and the Truth" After review
ing history to some extent and the an
tecendents of those apes Of European
flunkeyism, Mr.. Watterson says:
With magical rapidity wealth had
already started to accumulate, fortunes
to be multiplied, millionaires to become
plentiful as ckberries-common; not
only common in quantity, but in quail
ty. Central Park was made to the very
hands of these. That they should build
their grandiose places near it was inev-
table.
In the early los Fiske stood for the
horrid example just as Devery does
now. The show was the thing. The
turnout as they call the -Four Hun
dred,' had come neither to their patri-
mony nor their protomic. But they ex-
listed in a crude. coarse way, express
ing themselves in bangtails and shirt
fronts and sinners; tribe too brazen
and noisy perhaps, but undeniably
rich. The men had not yet learned the
stony stare and the brutal swagger Of
the bucks of the Jardin Mabile and the
titled bruisers of the Argyle rooms.
The women were still women-God
bless them-a little vulgarized by so
much money, but ignorant of the
Pinchbeck airs and graces Of the demi
mondaine and the unspeakable dirt of
London and Paris.
Yet, then. as now, the best people.
no matter how rich, turned silently
aside and gave them the middle of the
road. The tragic end Of Fiske was for
time an object lesson. 1t let In flood
Of light and gave moments check to
ing its natural bounds and beginning
to make it's influence felt in dangerous
proximity to those regions where
wealth was recognized as paramount.
1t was this which secured the modifica-
tion Of the Stokes verdict from death
to short term of imprisonment.
The noxious weed, however, had
taken root. The bucketshop was to be-
come an institution, the stock gambler
a power, the market as familiar to wo-
men as to men. Mr.. Carnegie may give
all Of his millions to the noblest works;
the Messrs. Rockefeller may endow
thousand schools and charities, whilst
a dozen billionaires may shaw by their
wise and lavish use Of money how i'll
they think of it. except as the means Of
doing good; but as the poor are always
with us, so are the vulgarians, who,
given money enough, set up a voluptu-
Gus principality. call it the Four Hun
dred, and. having made sure Of its
boundaries and their isolation. proceed
to make their own moral code, hardly
deigning even to ask the rest of the
community. What are you going to do
about it?'
The sea-going palace; the modern au-
tomobile; the struggle for equivocal
notoriety: the strife for titles: the eat
ing from the tree Of forbidden knowl-
edge; the aping of the manners of the
foreign swell and the fancied great: the
marriage as an experiment and the
marriage as convenience: the hot pur-
suit of pleasure at home and abroad
in short, the constant striving after the
ostentatious display Of wealth inevita-
BILE to the sun worship of money-these
are among the features that distinguish
the Four Hundred from the rich people
| who do not need to affect anything, who
heartily despise such proceedings, who,
with fortune secure, and social posi-
tions fixed, live without scandal and
travel without adventure, but whom
the wantons Of the smart set describe
as "the Bourgeoise."
In separating the sheep from the
goats and properly ticketing the goats,
shall one be accused Of blasphemy?
There need to be no mistaking the
lines that fence in the Four Hundred.
Nobody can deny, nor in truth. through
all the expressions called out by our
writing do we find any contradiction
of the picture drawn by us. 1t is the
truth. not the scurrilous, that hurts.
At the same time it is fact even in
the better realms of luxury and wealth,
there is growing liberation of the un-
clean. Good people are not so shocked
as they once were, by moral infections.
1t is observable that men drink less, at
least at the table in the public COM
pany of women, than they did thirty
years ago. But what the men may
have gained in this respect the women
! themselves have lost by the evolution