Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-24

Written for The Evening Star by Julius W Muller
The great middle class has a sob In its
pocket for the victim of every wrong.
Whenever white man or a whiteish man
sits down on his black burden long enough
to make il squeal, and the world thinks it
would be good form to shed a cosmic tear
over it. we are expected to do the shedding.
We always do. We are helplessly ready
at all hours Of the day and night to weep
over other people,
Yet our own tragedy is such that it would
be big contract TO undertake to furnish
sobs equal to the occasion.
our very name is beginning to sink out
Of sight The ichthyosaurus and the great
aux are mentioned oftener than we are. Yet
they are extinct. and there are more of us
than ever. Our fate is sadder than that OF
ichthyosaur or broutosaur or great aux. We
are being buried alive. We are submerged
under the rival masses of rich and poor.
The big cities which we built up are
crowdng US out. They have room only FOR
teneuents or palaces. The middle class has
had To hunt cover in the woods. We have
escaped in hordes to the suburbs. where we
are still treated with some measure of kind
ness by the other branches of the animal
world.
The city has squeezed us out. and forgets
us totally. We are only remembered an
nualy in the tax levies. Neither We nor
anybody else fails to look at us as the great
source of public revenue. Nobody imaSlntS
that we should get something in return. We
don't imagine it ourselves. We are the
habtual and hereditary tax payers of the
world.
Every year we pay the same taxes that
the owners of revenue-producing city prop
erty do: then we pay these owners office
rent which as they carefully explain TO u.s.
has been made extra high on account of the
tax rate.
The Middle Glass Pays.
We pay for the citys sidewalks, and un-
complainingly form suburban committee
to raise money to lay our own. We pay for
the ety's police and hire private watch
men for ourselves we pay for the city
fire department and form volunteer fre
company to save the suburbs.
In suburb and in town, the middle class
sees its tax rate go up steadily to pay for
lovely sanitary tenements for the poor and
Fairgrounds for the poor and parks for the
poor and bands of music for the poor and
art galleries for the poor and asphalt ana
macadam for the automobiles of the rich.
Our trains are all day coaches. Our cars
are all crowded. When the rich man sees
a line of packed cars ard wrinkles his nose
at the decidedly lower class doors that
float in the thick air, he takes a cab. There
is nothing for us between that cab, which
costs too much. and that nickel ride, which
Is monopolized by the poor.
The middle class has become the strap
hanger of civilization.
Nobody dreams of supplying it with seats
either in cars or anywhere else, in health
or illness.
Hospitals arise everywhere. In them tho
poor get the advantage of every recourse
of surgical and medical science. Specialists
and experts do it all without pay for the
poor. When they treat a patient who is
able to pay their charge calls for rich
mans purse. There is no middle class
tariff in surgery and specialism.
We pay for schools and they teach the
children to cook and sew-thngs that the
children of the middle class learn at home
The whole system of American education
aims to reach the children who have no
home advantages whatever. If we don't
like that for our middle class children, we
can send them to private schools that cost
just about what our average salary is.
No Theaters for Them.
We are crowded out of the theaters, too
The playwright of today either offers Il
moral goulash made of odorous materials
TO please the blistered taste of the elect
and our wives hold their noses at the scents
which arise plainly from the steaming dish
despite all the hot spices with which it is
loaded. or he produces an article of pathos
and wit made wholly for that large class
which n bitter middle class sufferer once
called them asses
If we want Shakespeare we may manage
to see one good play in a lifetime by beg
caring ourselves in paying for seats; or We
may go to see persons who have taken 10
Shakespearean drama after having failed as
BARRIERS pugilists.
When we enter a restaurant with our
wives the naughty self-complacency with
which trod the democratic streets leaks
out of our craven middle class boots imme-
diately. The head waiter stalks before US
like Germanicus bringing in a triumphal
train of captured barbarians. The very
curve OF his back is patroniZing. He gives
us seats farthest from the windows. The