The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-09-20

were those of the artist class. painters.
authors. musicians. the demands of
whose work prevented their entering
into the social life of the town to any
great extent who would gladly have
been admitted had they sought entrance
He meant that there were just about
Four Hundred families that had the
means and the tastes and the time and
the inclination and the savoir faire for
social career. To be in society is a
profession in itself. Lots of people are
barred not because they are not good
enough but because they have some
thing better to do.
The newspapers are responsible for
the vulgar exploitation of the rich and
fashionable and the snobbishness of
their readers make this sort Of thing
essential. The newspapers print of the
doings of the Vanderbilts and the AS
tors and the Mackays and the Bradley
Martins not because the Vanderbilts
and the Astors and the Bradley-Martins
like newspaper notoriety but because the
people, the plain people, like to read
about Them The majority of people are
toad-eaters. They profess to scorn the
rich and fashionable while secretly
envying them. They hold up their
hands in horror and repeat absurd tales
of the wicked doings of the smart set
although they would gladly be of 1T If
they could. They believe the most RI
who have money and of whom they
know nothing but they would be eager
to make the acquaintance of these
moral lepers'' if the opportunity Of
fered.
There are not more divorces, more
scandals and more sensations of a dis
graceful nature in fashionable society
than in other classes. but such events
merely attract more attention. The
divorce of Vanderbilt would natural
hOd carrier. But no one class has a
monopoly of the virtues.
Miss Duer's reply to Colonel Waiter
son follows:
1T is more disagreeable than difficult
to reply to Colonel Watterson's attack
upon people whom certain newspapers
designate as the smart set Disagree
able because one seems to be dealing
with man to whom the ordinary con-
ventionalties of social intercourse are
all unknown-a man who might posi-
bly, shake his fist in the face of OPPOSE
ton.
"One is tempted to ask if the colonel
has ever known any of the sadly i'm
moral persons he denounces. Whether
his ideas of them are not gathered from
a certain class of lurid railway l.tera-
ture. Whether his simple bluegrass
confidence has not been grossly abused
by some mischievous comrade. Who
could have been telling him the disting-
uishing trait of the smart set was its
moral abandon; that 1t made a business
of defyfng and overlapping conventional
restraint upon it's pleasures and amuse-
ments; that it set itself above the law,
both human and dfvine:' that its swo-
men were equally depraved with it's
men, no longer pretending to recognize
virtue, even Jas female accomplish
ment? Virtue referred to as an ac-
compishment should have put Colonel
WatterSOn on guard against the cynical
informant) That in London, Paris and
Monte Carlo in the winter. and at
Trouville and AK in the summer they
made life one unending debauch: their
only literary provender cprovender,' ac-
food for beasts) the creeds of Annunzio
and Bourget?'
'sIt is not fair to take a creducous
man and fill his head with stuff like
this. In Colonel Watterson's part OF the
world, and to Judge from his editorial
one may well believe. it requires moth
ing but a well bred. courtesy to achieve
ones ends Unfortunately in less ITO
plan places all persons even the bad
and Indifferent must, both at home and
abroad, pay their way along with the
virtuous and good and those who pay
best, most light heartedly. most gener-
ouSly, most humOrOuslv or most pic
turesquely have been made to occupy
rather unnecessary prominence in the
columns of the daily. papers for many
years. There is an aristocracy of mon
ey and the people like it, The people
want to think that their millionaires are
as good as the princes of other nations
and they want princes of other nations
to think SO. too. The people want to
gasp and shut their eyes at the ex-
travagance, the splendors, the lawless-
ness, the eccentricity Of society.
If Colonel Watterson should ever find
himself in the midst of the poor. rich.
unfortunately nicknamed -Four Hun
dred devils. he would find them really
very much like other people. 1t Is the
American character to be extravaganza.
The smart set are like the rest of the
world. except that, being placed by cir
cumstanees beyond the necessity of
working for their daily bread, their
temperament obliges them to work q
little for their daily pastime. The wo-
men are rather more afraid of conven-
tionalfty than their western sisters. They
are In no sense depraved. Neither are
the men. Not one woman in hundred
is capable Of talking or thinking, to say
nothing Of behaving, as the colonel
boldly declares they all do. There are
black sheep in the -Four Hundred, but
no one who breaks the law of the herd
has too good time of it,
Kansas Avenue Notes
The dark blue wear rolls on Triumph
antly, and at least seven out of every
ten OF the new street gowns seem to be
blue with RED, green or orange and e bit
tunately the vogue for peacock blue comes
In with that Of the dark blue, and while it
is not quite the glaring blue known under
that name years ago. It u distinctly trying