Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-20
The Worthless Smart Set.

The effort to give Henry Watterson's ar
raignment of the Smart Set a political twist
Is a bit Iudicrous. 1t bears no such inter-
probation. The famous editor has no ap-
pearance of playing politics with that sub
ject. The tariff is no more the mother
OF the Smart Set than it is of the trusts.
Party lines do not run in either. Democrats
and republicans make up the trust direc-
Il ries as they do the Smart Set There Is
no politics in monopoly. nor in spending
great wealth foolshly.
The folles of the Smart Set present no
new subject, but 1t has remained for Mr..
Watterson to describe them in way to fix
the national attention. In a style striking
for color and raciness, he has set before
the country picture of the silded loafer
which has made that worthy squirm. He
has described his vacuity and his bump
tiousness in terms that stick and smart,
and has left him an object of contempt in
sober minds everywhere. And in doing this
he has performed public service. 1t Is a
contribution to the better thought OF the
day. 1t makes for re-rating OF the Idle
rich in the latest light of their enormous
accommodations and the waste of their OPP
portunities. Never objects of admiration
In this country, they have fewer claims to
consideration now than ever before except
as they illustrate something to be avoided.
The republic Is opportunity but oppor-
tunity to be useful and Industrious on lines
of high endeavor.
Those who champion the Smart Set claim
for them the right to do as they please, and
complain that the notice they attract Is I'M
welcome to them. Nobody is hoping to re-
form them. 1t is within their province to
rla thair 10 ,,if ocalS PIf
they do not court seclusion. The key to
their character-if chat word may be applied
to such people-is noise and notice. They
are advertisers after the heart of Mr.. Bar
mum himself in his palmiest days. and so
contrive to get and to keep themselves be-
fore the public They are therefore legitl-
mate subjects of discussion in the matter Of
pointing morals and adorning tales. They
are public property when anybody goes in
search of example to show what life
should not be to those whom wealth and
station both have favored. 1t Is said that
they do not really mind such an excoriation
as Mr.. Watterson has given them SO
much the better then. The public minds,
and is instructed by II.
The vices of the Smart Set are equaled
only by their absurd professions to social
superiority. They affect to despise plain
people They have adopted the lingo OF
snobbery. They speak in scorn Of trade
and tradesmen. In a country where founda-
tons have all been laid at comparatively
recent date In honest effort by plain men
the very salt of the earth-these their de-
scendants hold their noses at the bare men,
ton Of honorable occupation. Not a dollar
Of their vast piles but was gained by their
ancestors in some sturdy fashion. The men
and women who started America on her
pathway, and those who have advanced her
to place among the leading nations of the
earth, had no loafer blood in their veins
nor any coward spirit about their origin or
endeavors. They wrought in the open, in
touch with the world and one another and
their only misfortune was in building in
few instances for those so thoroughly I'M
worthy of their inheritances.