Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1904-09-01
THE SOCIAL SIDE OF BOSTON.
With Right Great-Grand-Father, Even
Wealth Can't Keep You Down.

A Leader of Boston ociety in Aims
lees Magazine .-Congeniality rather
than wealth marks the lines of cleav-
age between the groups OF social Bos-
ton, Fifty thousand year without
culture won't admit you to Partisan
Boston, and yet thousand year
plus genius has been known to serve
as a very highly effectual open sesame. I
Among our charming Old New England
Bostonians money is never the stand
ard-likeability is. Cultivated sojourn-
ers from west or south are not whiting
v or unwittingly excluded-they are
simply shut out Of our ken by the null
tiplicity of nearer interests; they may
come with princely wealth or with lit
tie or none-it matters not; in city
as completely and as definitely organ
lied as ours, their personal existence
becomes an affair of supererogation.
We have, perhaps, small talent for
forming new ties, but we certainly
have still less talent for breaking old
Iones Says the impulsive westerner:
"a sudden thought strikes me; let us
swear eternal friendship" He drops
you as easily, they tell me. In Boston
we abhor this rash and brittle sort Of
alliance as intensely as our New Eng
land ancestors would have abhorred
the cynicism of the cold-blooded diplo-
mat who observed: Treaties are like
Japanese handkerchiefs-very pretty
when new, but liable to tear" We are
by nature tenacious, by instinct pru-
dent. This, of course has it's advan-
tages; your funeral may cut short your
period of probation. In Cambridge,
which is Boston to the nth power, the
wife of a German professor, having en-
joyed twenty years of Cantabrigian
cordially, returned to the fatherland,
whereupon a Cambridge lady OF an
cient lineage exclaimed: "I'm so sorry
she went away so soon; had been in
tending some time to call upon her"
In Cambridge they say that mere
wealth can never keep one out of good
society,"" and in Boston also Except
ing, of course, bourgeois Boston, the
joke has its points. If you still sis.
pect that money rules our social insti-
buttons as it rules those of most
American cities, or at least as Mr.
Harry Thurston Peck affects to think
it does, pray observe what we do (and
don dol with our money Money we
have in great plenty; Boston is still
the richest per capita of our large
cities; and Boston loathes and abomi-
mates display. Along "Millionaires'
Row. simplicity stalks unchecked.
At the opera, at the symphony, at
private view," noticeable modesty
and restraint in the dress of our wo-
men bespeaks our repugnance for vul-
gar show. The fashionable avenue of
New York impresses us as Florodora
turned loose.
Furthermore the sound morals of
our moneyed families point-am not
right ?-to something very different
from the cashocentric philosophy.
Towns there are where money cover
eth a multitude of sins, where divorce
becomes a popular sport and intrigue
a pretty pastime, and where all is for
given the mult1-millionaire; mere par
venus defy the code of common de-
cency till a clever humorist writes:
me heart beats high, Hinnessey, whin
behold thin palatial homes iv luxury
and alimony." You might, therefore.
expect to find somewhat similar con-
dition in Boston. For good houses
in Boston have been good houses for
several generations; the old East In
dia trade, the building of western rail-
roads and the capitalization of vast in
dustrial enterprises long ago made
them rich; so that, were dollars the
basis of social dominance, we might
safely venture upon very Roycrofty"
line of ethical eccentricity. Instead,
you find us VIGOROUSLY, almost bla-
family, neral. We have to be, and be-
sides we prefer to be- 1t seems to us
that Mr.. Oliver Herford outlined a
rather sensible way of life when he
babe us ''be good and all that sort of