The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-10-04
NEW YoRK,s PRovINcIALIsM.

4 NEW AAON
The newspapers and people of New
| York are fond of poking fun at Eng
lishmen for their lack of knowledge
of the geography of the United States
1t is regarded as a great joke when
! an Englishman expresses his intention
Of dining in New York and driving
over to San Francisco for tea. Yet
! the fact remains that New Workers
\ are about the most provincial people
J crassly ignorant with respect to
! their own country, that are to be
! found on the face of the globe. To
most of them the earth consists of four
sections-New York, Europe, the South
and the West. They are fairly famil-
| lar with the first section, that lying be-
tween the Battery and the High Bridge
| and fanked by the North and East
| rivers. Within that section is en-
| braced, according TO the New York
! idea, all there is that is worth while.
Europe is given a passing thought be-
| cause it has got Paris in it: but the.
South and the West are merely vague
| .generalties, conveying but the most
nebulous idea to the New York mind.
The New Yorker knows that merchants
Of the city send goods South and West;
that cotton and wheat are raised in
those sections, and that from time to
time shrewd men come UP to the me-
tropolis out of the South or the West
and set Wall street or Fifth avenue,
or both, by the ears with their trans
actions. Still New York fails to study
geography. She thinks that she's
who's who" in America, and she
wouldn't give a rap to know anything
further-and be disillusioned.
Maj Perkins Huntsman is from
the South" says the New York Com
mercial, beginning an item. That is
all there is to identify the place of Maj.
Huntsman's nativity, but it is enough
for New York. He may be a Virginian
or Texan. a North Carolinian or a
Tennesseean-the South is as big as
all out of-dCors" New York
doesn't care anything about that: the
statement that he is from the South
gives New York all the identification
she cares about. The Commercial,
however, is not alone in it's offending:
it is merely following along character
istic lines. Every paper of the city
does the same thing. If a new actress
makes her appearance and captures
the town, if a new cotton operator cor
ners the market and sends prices soar
ing, if a strange lawyer comes into
town and entrances the court room
with his e1oquence, the statement Is
made that she or he is from the
South and that ends it.
Occasionally a New York paper, writ
ing locally. attempts to lay some scene
in a particular Southern city, and gets
it all wrong. To illustrate: The Sun
a day or two ago had sprightly and
readable story about an English Lord
Something who had just ar
rived in that city as the conductor of
a touring party of notable English men
and women. The lord had been to
America before: had been obliged to
work with his hands to earn living
while over here, and had met with
many vicissitudes. The Sun has him
saying, among other things: About
a year after | came back to the states
and settled at Charlotte. N. c., where
1 turned fisherman. lost my boat in a
storm d" - No doubt the Suns
bright young man who wrote the in
terview pictured to himself the frail
craft of the lord being driven far out
TO sea Cor maybe it was in the Gulf
of Mexico, with the remainder of the
Charlotte, N. c., fishing fleet buffeting
the briny deep in gallant efforts to res
cue their comrade of the blue blood:
and all New Workers who were not
born in the South read the warn with
the same mental visions as those of
the bright young man who wrote it.
The country is proud of New York.
There is nothing else that compares
with it. Nevertheless the fact remains
that the big town is suffering from an
acute case of newyorkitis, the symp-
toms of which ailment, among others,
are an enormously swelled head and an
overweening egotism.