Waterbury Democrat., 1902-09-11
SMART SET IS DENOUNCED.

Society leaders in Newport were as- founded the other day when they learned of the attack made on the four hundred by Henry Watterson, editor of the Courier-J Journal of Louisville, ky, in the editorial columns of the paper. While they were outspoken in combating MT Wattersons utterances in private, none of the prominent resi- dents would say anything for publica- ton.
 All, agree in saying, however, that the editorial was not based in any real conditions existing in the best society. The utterance of MT Watterson's which has aroused indignation is as follows:
 The term smart set was adopted by society to save itself from more odious description. The distinguishing trait of the smart set Is its moral abandon. It makes business of de- flying and overlapping conventional re- straints upon it's pleasures and amuse- ments.
 Being titled after rule, and either rich in fact or getting money how it may, it sets itself above the law, both human and divine. It's women are equally deprayed with it's men. They know all the dirt the men know. They talk freely with the men of things for bidden the decent and virtuous. They see the worst rench plays. The very question of sex becomes interchange able, and sometimes it is the society girl and always the horsey girl who kicks out of the traces and drags the set through the mire.
 'sThe women of this smart set no longer pretend to recognize virtue, even as female accomplishments. Inno- ie,o o I11y of the crude and raw, u deformity. which, if tolerated at all, must carry some promise of amendment, for among these titled Cyprians the one thing needful is to know it all!
 In London and in Paris. and at Monte Carlo in the winter and at Trou- vile and Aix in the summer, they make life one intending debauch; their only literary provender, when they read at all, the creeds of D'Annunzio and Bourget; their Mecca the roulette table and the race course; their haven the modern yacht, with it's luxuries and isolation. The ocean tells no tales and, as the smart set KNOWS no law in extremis, it can go to sea.
 The 400 in America take their cue from the smart set in Europe. Behold them at the horse show in New York. Behold them at swell resorts after the show. Their talk-that is, what can be heard-is of bonds, puts and calls, horses, scandals and dogs. The best society," Good Lord!
 It is true that we have come to beautiful pass if the simpering John nies and the tough girls that make Sherry's and Delmonico's hum, that irradiate the corridors of the Waldorf Astoria with the exhalations of their unclean lives and thoughts, emulating the demi-mondaines of the Third em- pire, are to be accepted even by infer ence as the best society, while the good and virtuous of the land. even though quite able to pay Ineir way at home and abroad must be reIegated to the middle class and dismissed as slm- pie bourgeoisfe.
 'tThe 400 are rotten through and through. They have not one redeem ing feature. All their ends are achieved by money, and largely by the unholy use of money. If one of them proposes to go into politics he expects to buy his way. and the rogues who have seats in congress or foreign ap- pointments to sell see that he pays the price. If. one of them wants to marry lord she expects to buy him, and the titled rascals who wish to recoup their broken fortunes see that she pays the price. Their influence is to the last degree dorruptive.
 Their hangers on and retainers are only such as money will buy. Nine out of every ten of the fortunes behind them will not bear scrutiny; when it was not actually got by foul means, it yet goes back to the grimiest antece- dents of the washtub and the stable yard.
 Must these unclean birds, of gaudy and therefore of conspicuous plumage fly from gilded boughs, fouling the very air as they twftter their affectations of moral supremacy and no one to shy q brick at them and say Seat, you devils s''