The Topeka state journal., 1903-04-25

David Graham Phillips, who is a
newspaper man and has worked on
metropolitan newspapers in most of the
principal cities of the United States has
written novel eTnbody ying some of his
observations of the American smart set
and entitled Golden Fleece: The Ad-
ventures of a Fortune Hunting Earl"
The hero is the head of an Impoverished
English family of noble blood and some
encountered remnants of former mag
nlflclent baronial possessions who
comes to America on the marriage-for-
revenue-Only principle, because some Of
4 his British friends have made a .'strike's
\ in that way in the states and because
/ 1t really seems the only thing left for
him to do. AS he is in love with a
young English woman a neighbor, and
/ knows her to be in love with him when
he starts on his noble quest it really
seems quite right and fitting that he
should get what he goes after: a girl
! wiling to sell herself for a title and the
principal disappointment of the book is
that he goes home without her.
/ 1t seems to be the authors idea to
make his hero rather a, good sort and
he succeeds to this extent that there is
no record in the book of his having
snubbed the people whose hospitality
4 he accepted. He is good natured, as ex-
ceptlonally dense persons are likely to
! be, and he is very tolerant of the Amer
4 lean FOUNDERS who entertain him in
their homes and lend him money He
meets and lays siege to the fortunes OF,
! v, K,
ing to and Chicago girls. The two
first accept him because they think it
would be rather fun to be a countess
and because their wealthy fathers are
willing to pay the BILL but afterwards
think better of it on account of the love
of SuitorS from their own country. The
! Washington girl daughter of million
alre senator, first spurns him for an
Italian prince who is more handsome
and romantic and a very adept lover,
4 but is inclined to look with favor upon
/ him when the Italian proves a fraud.
BY that time, however, her father has
made up his mind to become a candi-
date for vice president and knowing
4 that the union of his daughter with a
titled foreigner would hurt him with the
| Plain People refuses to countenance the
marriage until after his election. AS
his lordship needs the money he de-
cides not to wait but goes on to Chicago
4 to see if there's anything doing there.
\ He didn't care much about the senator's
daughter anyway. She was homely and
had big feet.
IN Chicago. the earl who is looking
for job, /. E.. a lady of means. meets
two girls either of whom would do a a
pinch. One is the daughter OF a pork
! packer (of course: there is always a
! Chicago pork packer in a story of this
sort) and the others father has a big
retail store covering acres of ground.
The first girl looks as though she had
stepped out Of a FlOrodora seXtette. She
wears loud clothes and exaggerated
coiffures and talks shocking American
slang. The Englishman himself and his
sister and his English sweetheart all
use British slang and say "aint" in ev
cry other sentence but the Chicago
! girls slang. jars on him terribly.
1t must be admitted that it is pretty
bad, because she is always threatening
| to throw a fit" But he thinks of his
/ ancestral possessions and how r1acn
they need new fences and roofs and
things and rushes hard This is because
he sees that he simply can't get Nelly
/ Barny," the other Chicago girl with
whom he falls genuinely in love Nelly
is the kind of girl who wears her hair
smooth and goes in for philanthropy
and is interested in Movements. She
runs an Industrial training school, en-
/ doWed by her father, in the sluns and
is in love with the SUPERINTENDENT and
can't do a thing for the earl although
she treats him with sisterly affection
Che is guest at her fathers house,
There is another nice sort of American
girl in the book who declares in the first
chapter that she will never marry be-
cause she has been Tilted by an Eng
lish younger son. but at the end the
author has her reconsidering in
favor of Nelly's brother. a fine young
college half-baek and it is easy to see
her finish
In the end the F,nglishman goes back
to his tight little isle without an Amer
lean bride but all well behaved review
ers stop just before they reveal the de-
nouement so Just why will not be ex-
planned.
The author seems to have had some
conventional notions of life in these
American cities and wanted to put them
IN n book Perhaps he had a faint idea
of writing the American novel But an
his girls are as alike as two peas,
whether they live in New York and play
polo or in Boston and go in for spiritu-
aHsm or in Washington and make fun
of the western congressman.
1t is altogether doubtful that MI.
David Graham Phillips knows anything
more about the smart set IN New York,
washington Chicago and Boston than
any regular reader OF the Illustrated
Sunday papers, SUCH for instance, as
the deDOnent, who has always mag
ined that this mysterious term was one
applied in general te people prominent
for their wealth. family connections or
friendship with other people who had
money or position. and that it includes
all sorts and conditions of people. not
any one special variety In small
western town the smart set. or what
might be called the smart set. is made
I'D of various cliqueS and sets: there IS
what YOU could describe as the fast
set people who go to one another S
suppers, who play poker with a twenty
FIVE cent limit, and the women OF
which, when they want to be especially
wild and reckless, smoke cigarettes.
Their next door neiShbors, often their
good friends or their kin-folk. who are
Just as surely Of the Best People and
belong quite as unalienahly to the
Smart Set. are staid. quiet. church
going. a-conservative. Mingling
With both at all the large functions. ex-
changing visits and related to them by
marriage are the people who go in for
culture, or who are prominent political
". and thus form cIicues by them
selves. The author OF "The Golden
Fleece" could have found culture fad
} dists in New York quite as readily as
in Poston. and the fast set in Boston
is doubtless just as prominent as IN
New York Philadelphia people are not
really any slower than Chicago folks
in spite of the newspaper jokes. In z
cosmopolitan American city you can nc
more pick out one characteristic set OF
one characteristic family than you. car