Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1902-09-15
Henry WattersOn Writes
Searching, Sarcastic
Criticism of the
Selected Few.

the attack upon the -Four Hundred, >
which he recently arraigned severely in
his newspaper. the Louisville Courier
Journal, Mr.. henry Watterson will pub
fish tomorrow another article on the same
subject, which the Herald reproduces in
full
At the same time Miss Caroline Deur,
of this city, presents in response to the
Herald's request, her answer to Mr.. Wat
tersons first attack.
Mr.. Watterson's article in part follows:
when Henry Ward McAllister, a
rather absurd, but yet a well-born gen.
tleman. invented the Four Hundred, it
one part flam-to pay kind of obeisance
to certain families supposed to be rich
enough TO form court circle in the
great and growing city of New York
THAT was five and twenty years ago.
There were many who laughed both at
him and his conceit. There were some
who seriously accepted the homage in
tended to be conveyed. Perhaps very few
thought that the imaginary lines thus es-
tablished in the minds eye of a rather
solemn bon vivant, who lived high and
died poor. would come to be the boundar-
les of an actual territory, a newly dis
covered country as fantastic as Wonder
land, with laws of it's own inhabited by
a people marked. quoted and signed for
deeds of strenuous frivolity, an aristo-
cracy without a pedigree, a coterie de
rambouillet without wit or humor.
Mr.. Devery leads the four hundred Of
the slums. Who leads the four hundred
OF the upper crust? 1t matters little, but
wherein shall we seek for any moral
difference in point of immoral influence
that does not lead to the side of Devery?
Wealth Was BugIe Call.
'It was all on account of moving up
town It began with the sudden wealth
of which war is the progenitor. AS long
as the average New Yorker had to work
for his living and got his riches by the
sweat of his brow. money had both a
character and a value. In the early sew
enIies Ask stood for the horrid example
Just as Devery stands now. The show
was the thing-the Turnout" as they
called it, The four hundred had come
neither to their patrimony nor their pa
tronistic. But they existed in a crude,
coarse way, expressing themselves in
bangtails and shirt fronts and sinners, a
trifie too brazen anu noisy perhaps, but
undeniably rich. The men had not yet
learned the stony stare and the beautiful
swagger of the bucks of the Jardin mo-
billie and the title bruisers of the Argyle
rooms The women were stiIl women
God bless them--a little vulgarized by so
much money, but ignorant OF the pinch
brigade and graces of the demimondaine
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 Fisk was for time an
object lesson. 1t let I'm a flood of light
and gave a moments checks to the orgy
of license which was exceeding its natur-
al bounds and beginning to make its in
fluence felt in dangerous proximity to
those regions where wealth was recognize
ed as paramount. 1t was this which Sc
cured the modification of the Stokes YER
dict from death TO a short term of i'm
prisonment.
"The noxious weed, however, has taken
root, the bucketshop was to become an
institution, the stock gambler a power,
the market as familiar to women as to
men. Mr.. Carnegie may give all of his
millions to the noblest works. The Messrs.
Rockefeller may endow a thousand
schools and charities, whilst dozen bill
lionaires may show 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 vOluptuous principality, call II
the four hundred, and having made sure
Of its boundaries and their isolation, pro-
CNNNNf
ly deigning even to ask the rest of the
community, What are you going to do
about it?'
All the Pleasure Made.
''The sea-going palace, the modern au-
to. the struggle for equivocal notoriety,
the strife for titles, for eating from the
tree of forbidden knowledge, the aping
of the manners of the foreign swell and
the fancied great, the marriage as an ex-
pertinent and the marriage of convenience,
the hot pursuit of pleasure at home and
abroad, the constant striving after the
ostentatious display of wealth inevitable
to the sun worship of money-these are
among the features that distinguish the
four hundred from other rich people, who
do not need to affect anything who heart
ily despise such proceedings, who with
fortunes secure and social positions 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?"
Mr.. Watterson here quotes extracts
from various newspapers, and then COM
ments upon them:
There need be no mistaking the lines
thar fence i'm the Four Hundred. Nobody
can deny. nor, i'm truth, through all the
expressions called out by our writing, do
we find any denial of the fidelity Of the
picture drawn by US. 1t is the truth, not
the scurrilous. that hurts. At the same
time il is a fact that even in the better
realms Of luxury and wealth there is
growing liberation of the unclean Good
people are not so shocked as they once
were BY moral infractions. There is not
conscientious man nor a thoughtful wo-
man in the society of our great centers
of population who does not mark with
serious apprehension the lowering ten
denotes of the time, the multiplication of
frivolous marriages. the dissertation Of
the marriage tie, the increasing number
of scandalous divorces. directly traceable
to the spirit OF lawlessness in excessive
wealth and the bad example of the infa-
nous but prosperous rich. Yet, If we read
our critics Alright. we must not speak of
these things except in decorous, half-ex-
cusing whispers.
Not Know That We Know.
1--WE must not call a spade a spade. If
we do we at once become Indiscreet and
sensational. getting our information at
second hand or else the subject OF some
'piaue' or resentment, or, at the very
least. ignorant and 'underbred.'
In certain circles. where money rules,
and the presence of quality is indicated
by the absence Of all else, the one un-
pardonable sin is conviction. Whatever
else you are, or are not, you must eschew
enthusiasm. You may deal in vulgar
double entendre; you may backbite or lie
outright; you may make love to your
..-gf. - FwrrofgIa hfe HanUhfar