The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-09-28
OUR ARISTOCRACY.
Royalty and Peerage of Dollars Not a
Question of SnObbishness.

Harry Thurston Peck. in Ainslee's.
The few enormously wealthy American
families of which the head enjoys an as
sured annual income of more than a million
dollars may be regarded as representing in
the American republic what the royalties
represent In England Popular phraseology
indeed gives tnem a;,e with unconscious mt;
kings money kings" and mining kings"
Most of them live as few real kings can
afford to live; and they receive from their
immediate encourage something of the OBJ
sequious Difference which in monarchical
lands is given to those who are of the royal
blood Coming down grade, We have the
somewhat larger group of those whose in
to a hundred thousand These individuals
as a class, are our equivalent of the British
peerage-the observation-disclosures dollar
magnate having. let us say, the relative
rank of a duke, while the others represent
a descending scale of dignity, and are re-
spectively the equals of marquises, earls,
viscountS and barons. Then come what
we may style, in British Technology, the
upper middle classes'-persons with in
comes ranging from hundred thousand
dollars a year down to twenty thousand.
Social classification ends with the final
group of families whom we may collectively
describe the lower middle classes
having incomes or not more than twenty
thousand dollars and not less than five
thousand
This is, think. approximately a reason
able grouping, and one that is fairly true to
the IdclS VI lie lO-Qdy. MOTE
over, these facts are not to be made sub
ject for regret or for demagogic ranting
since. on the whole, the classification has
social raison detre, and, therefore, a sort
of Justification. II is idle to say that many
men and many women who do not enter
into even the lowest of these classes are
more refined, more clever, and more ac-
complished than some of those who belong
to the financial peerage. or even TO the
royal group. That is the sort of remark
that could readily be made, and that, in
fact is often made with reference to the
English system also. Many an English ter
rae fIius has all the marks of gentle breed
ing while many a peer is louche a faire
fremir The vugarity of an English duch-
ess, when an English duchess happens to
be vulgar, exceeds in offensiveness the vul-
garity of any 'Arriet on a bank holiday
The late Queens uncles were startling
specimens or uncOuth clowns; while one
might search the streets all day without
finding anywhere so perfect and precious a
combination of blackguard and buffoon as
was George Nv. Yet all this is irrelevant
and the instances are sporadic. 1t stands
to reason that one who, either because of
his birth, or because of his money, has
been surrounded from childhood by every
possible refinement of art and training, and
who has the consciousness of power with
the habit of command-it stands TO reason,
cases out of ten, possess gifts and qualities
which will justify his position of superior
ity in a purely social sense
Finally this division of our people into
classes and this practical separation OF
class from class is not an arbitrary and
unnatural thing. IL is not forced IL Is
not the result nor the accompaniment of a
snobbish feeling of 'exclusivenessg' 1t is
simply inevitable, and comes about OF it,
self. There is very little real snobbishness
among our plutocrats-at least among the
men. II the family with the fifty-thousand-
dollar income does not usually have intt-