The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-12-25
on the Edge Of the Future
The Submerged Middle Class, the "Strap Hangers"
OUT Everywhere

New York, Dec. 24.-The great Mid
die Class has a sob in its pocket for
the victim of every wrong. Whenever
a white man or a whiteish man sits
down on his black burden long enough
to mako it squeal, and the world
thinks it would be good form to shed
a cosmic tear over it, we are ex-
pected 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
1t would be a big contract to under
take to furnish sobs equal to the &C.
casion.
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 ichthy-
osaur or brontosaur or great aux. We
are being buried alive. We are SUBJ
merged under the rival masses of rich
and poor.
Being Crowded Out.
The big cities. which we built up.
are crowding us out. They have room
only for tenements or palaces. The
Middle Glass 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
kindness by the other branches of
the animal world.
The city has squeezed us out, and
forgets us totally. We are only re-
membered annually in the tax levies
Neither we nor anybody else fails to
look at US as the great source of pub
lie revenue. Nobody imagines that
we should\ get something in return
We don't Imagine it ourselves. We
are the habitual and hereditary tax
payers of the world.
Every year we pay the same taxes
that the owners of producing
city property do; then we pay these
owners office rent which, as they care
fully explain to us, has been made
extra high on account of the tax rate.
The Middle Class Pays.
We pay for the city's sidewalks,
and uncomplainingly form a suburban
committee to raise money to lay our
own. We pay for the city's police
and hire private watchmen for our
selves; we pay for the city fire de-
partment and form a volunteer fire
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 and
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 and
wrinkles his nose at the decidedly
Lower Glass odors that float in the
thick air, he takes a cab. There is
nothing for us between that cab,
which costs too much, lid that nickel
ride, which is n onopoliZed by the
poor.
Strap Hanger of Civilization.
The Middle Glass has become the
strap-hanger of civilization.
Nobody dreams of supplying 1t with
seats either in cars or anywhere else,
in health or illness.
Hospitals arise everywhere. In
them the poor get the advantage OF
every recoI-ss of surgical and medi-
Cdl SClcnC5s ODGCldllSlS anu OAPCA -
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 speciallsm.
We pay for schools and they teach
the children to cook and sew-things
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 advah-
tages 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 to-day either
offers a moral goulash made of odor-
Gus 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 de-
spite all the hot spices with which
II is loaded; or he produces an article
OF pathos and wit made wholly for
that large class which is bitter Middle
Class sufferer once called them
asses.'
If we want Shakespeare we may
manage to see one good play in a
lifetime by beggaring ourselves in
paying for seats; or we may go to see
persons who have taken to Shakes
pearian drama after having failed as
BARRIERS or pugilists.
When we enter a restaurant with
our wives, the naughty self-compla-
cency with which we trod the demo-
cratic streets leaks out of our craven
Middle Glass boots Immediately. The
head waiter stalks before us like Ger
manicus bringing in a triumphal train
or captured barbarians. The very
curve of his back is patronizing. He
gives US seats farthest from the win
COWS. The executioneer to whom he
delivers US makes patronizing sugges-
lions, which. as we know full well,
right down to the depths OF our cow
ardly souls, are really only poorly