Evening journal., 1903-11-02
WATTERSONON SOCIETY
His Idea of What 1t Is and
What 1t Should Be.
THE "swAGeER SET" DENOUNCED.

Louisville Editor Calls Newport the
Apotheosis of boredom and Asks,
"Must the Monkey and the sweIl
he Accepted as interchangeable
Types of Human breeding and
Benutyfv
Colonel Henry Watterson, editor Of
the Louisville Courier-Journal, who de-
ayered his lecture on Society" the 9TH
er evening In Carnegie Music hall, Al
legheny. Pa, before an enthusiastic au-
dience. said IN part:
III any one has come here this even
ing under the impression that he or she
would be regaled by any pretended rev
elations, by any startling dissertations
and exhilarating diatribes touching
that curious exhalation Of polite society
known as the smart set-sometimes
calling itself the swagger set--I am
afraid l shall disappoint his or her ex-
pectation. Anyhow. and in the begin
ming. / must forestall that misimpres-
sion. l have no story to tell. no mys-
terry TO reveal. Assuredly / am not a
crusader either as TO manners or NOR
ais.
Something over year ago most
lamentable tragedy. taking for its mise
en- scene the very vesibule If the tenn
pie of fashion-the sanctum sanctorum
of the -Four Hundred-led me in the
line of my duty as a writer for the
press 10 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, pleasure seeking sich,
who set themselves as a law unto
themselves, who submit TO no restraints
except those fixed by nature ana the
surgeons knife, who have no intellec-
tual perspective except that the longest
purse brings down the biggest titles.
nor rule of conduct except that Inn
pelling them 10 eat, drink and be mer-
ry, for tomorrow it may be some one
else's turn; code which / am told be-
came altogether the rage in Babylon
some centuries ago.
They society? Has Caliban grace?
Is Tom Thumb manhood? Must the
monkey and the swell be accepted as
interchangeable types. as alternating
measurements Of human breeding and
beauty?
Indeed one would think so, reading
some of the reports that come to us
from the inner circles of that apotheo-
sis of boredom. that incarnation Of stu
pidity and affectation which takes its
cue from Leicester square and the
Corinthian club Of London, which emu
lates the demimondaine Of Paris, which
eddies round the abodes of luxury and
alimony at Newport and thinks no
more Of running down an ordinary pc.
destrian in its automobile than you and
l would think of brushing away q
/ spider or a fly.
'sursum corda Gift up your hearts,
1 at least have never wasted many
thoughts or nursed any serious fear
about such cattle, nor shall / do so un
til monkey dinners become as populai
in Pennsylvania as they seem to be IL
Rhode Island.
Il know that in each of our center,
Of population and wealth there is a lit
tie coterie of silly women and simper.
ing Johnnies which would initiate the
imitators, but they are too shallow and
too scattered to make much headway
I against society, and by society / mean
not merely those who by their charac-
ter, their genius and their good fortune
have earned the right TO dwell in great
houses without the suspicion of the os-
] tentatious display Of wealth, TO have
! picture galleries and libraries and
horses and carriages and, if they please,
yachts and automobiles but behind
them that great army of the well bred
and well TO do-that noble American
commonalty, clean of birth and clear OF
grit-those cultivated men and women
who live without scandal and travel
without adyenture-not rich indeed,
but quite able to pay as they go--the
rose and expectancy OF true manhood
and womanhood. the very buttress and
bell tower Of our free republic.
'These constitute what l call society.
Radiating from the home, thrice bless
ed in dad and mann and granny
yea in bill and Joe, Sis and Co. its
influence penetrates the dark and the
light, reaching from the fireside to 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 hearthstone via
the schoolhouse and the house Of God;
never a thought Of the divorce court
not so much as the shadow Of a noble
lord'-to disturb its serenity or to
frighten its dreams
"May that society be forever true in
its politics TO the lesson Of the greatest
good TO the greatest number, in its re-
Hgion to Christ and him crucifed."