The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1903-11-07
.sSOCIETY,"
MIR. WattcrsOn's New Lecture,
Heard in I'ittSlDurg.

Heard in 1'ittSbUrE.
Pittsburg, Oct. 23.-Mr. Henry
Watterson delivered an address
on Society" at Carnegie Hall to-
night. In introducing his topic
Mr.. Watterson said:
If anyone has come here this evening
der the impression that he or she, would be
RECALLED by any pretended revelations, by
any startling dissertations and exhilarating
dia,ribes. touching that curious exhalation
of polite society known as the Swagger Set
sometimes calling itself the Smart Set
am afraid that / shall disappoint his,
her, expectations. Anyhow, and in the be-
ginning, must forestall that n,si,npression.
I have no story to tell, no mystery to reveal.
Assuredly, / am not crusader either as to
manners morals.
Something over year ago a most lament
able tragedy, taking for its mise en- scene
the very vestibule of the temple of fashion
the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Four Hun
dred-led in the line of my duty as q
writer for the press to say some exceeding
plain, and it may have been thought some
very harsh things, about the nouveaux riches
the idle rich-the God-forgetting, world
defying, Demonstrating rich-who set
themselves law un:o themselves, who
submit to no restraints except those fixed by
nature and the surgeons knife, even where
they submit to these, who have no intellect
ual perspective except that the longest purse
brings down the biggest titles, nor rule of
conduct except that impelling them to eat,
drink and be merry, for tomorrow it may be
someone else's turn; a code which am told
became altogether the rage in Babylon some
centuries ago.
They Society? Has Caliban grace? Is
Tom Thumb manhood? Must the simian
and the swell be accepted as interchangeable
types, as alternating measurements of hu-
man breeding and beautye Indeed, one
would think SO reading some OF the reports
that come TO US from the inner circles OF that
apotheoss of boredom, that incarnation OF
stupidity and affectation, which takes its cue
from Leicester Square and the Corinthan
Club in Iondon-which emulates the demi-
mondaine of Paris-which eddies round the
abodes of luxury and alimony at Newport,
and thinks no more of running down an Or
binary pedestrian in its automobile than you
and / would think of brushing away SPIDER
fly.
Sursum Cords! lift up your hearts! I at
least have never wasted many thoughts, or
nursed any serious fears, abont such cattle,
come as popular in Pennsylvania as they
seem to be in Rhode Island. know that
in each of our centers of population and
wealth there is little coterie of silly women
and simpering Johnnies, which would imi-
tate the lmitators; but they are too shallow
and too scattered to make much Roadway
against Society, and by Society 1 mean not
merely those who, by their character, their
genius and their good fortune, have earned
the right to dwell in great houses, without
the suspicion of the ostentatious display OF
wealth-to have picture galleries and hbrar-
les aud horses and carriages, and, IT they
please yachts and automobiles s. but behind
them that great army of the we'll .bred and
well-to do-that noble American common
atty, clean Of birth and clear of grit-those
cultivated men and women, who live without
scandal and travel without adventure-not
rich, indeed, but quite able to pay as they
go-the rose and expectancy of true man
hood and womanhood, the very buttress and
beethoven of our free Republic.
he hal I Society.
ating from the Home-thrice- blessed in
''dad'' and ''mam'' and granny, yea, IN
ssBill and Joe, Sis and Colts influence
penetrates the dark and the light, reaching
from the fire side the counting room.
from the counting room to the asylum and
the hospital, and, somehow, finding its way
back again to the roof-tree and the hearth
stone via the school house and the house OF
God: never a thought of the divorce court
not SO much the shadow of ga noble
lord''-to disturb its serenity, or to brighten
its dreams. May that society be forever
true in its politics to the lesson of the great
est good TO the greatest number; in its rell-
gion TO Christ and Him Crucihed!
Society, however, is very flexible term
There is political society as we'll as polite SO,
cety; there are the Temperance Society and
the Society of Science and Art and the So
ciety for the Prevention Of Cruelty to Child
rem and Animals; and one OF these days
when grow old and feel myself ready to
M GRITTY wlthal-1 intend to get mp society
for the cultivation of truth among the news
paper fraternity. Just 1 mainly
concerned about that Society which in its
vast reach takes in the whole circle of our
National orbit: the entity, not less Human
than Constitutional, which we decribe as the
United States of America; the Republican
, party; the Democratic party; nor yet for
getting the Populist party and the Prohlbi-
ton party, all, like the Free Masons and
the Odd Fellows and the Elks, coming un-
der the general style and title of Society.
What is the matter with ito How comes 1t
a, such cross purposes? Why can't all
agree about Expansion, about the Tariff; as
a matter of fact, about Free Coinage and
Negro Suffrage, as the older among used
10 do about the Ten Comma ndments, away
back in the twilight before ''the high wa.
tiers of '4o?' l shall not stop to answer
these questions, because, at the root of all
of them, one worm burrOwS-over each OF
them one specter throws its shadow-the
danger to us and fair fabric being the
corrupt use of money in public life and af-
fairs: in elections, in Our legislative as
semblies, in municipal governments, in
our very system of corrections and charities.
| am going to talk to you to- night, therefore,
upon the relation of money to society-to
public and private society-to the future of
the country and the moral of the
people,
The Ward & Wade big Minis
trel aggregation at the opera