Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-16
AMERICAN
CHAR CTER
Continued from Page a

ban of public opinion. One sign of an
acuter sensitiveness is the recent outcry
against the acceptance of tainted
money for the support of good works.
Although it is always well to give a good
deed the credit of good motive, yet it
is impossible sometimes not to suspect
that certain large gifts have an aspect
of conscience money" seeming to be
the result of desire to divert public
attention from the evil way in which the
money was made to the nobler manner in
which it is spent. They appear to be
the attempt of social outlaw to buy
his peace with the community. APP
parently there is many rich man among
us who, having sold his honor for price,
would now gladly give up the half of his
fortune to get it back
Candor compe1s the admission also
that by the side of the criminal rich there
exists the less noXious but more offensive
class of the idle rich, who lead lives of
wasteful luxury and of empty excitement
When the French reporter who talked
with TOlStoi called us Americans avid
of pleasure" it was this little group he
had in mind, as he may have seen the
members of it splurging about Paris,
squandering and self-advertising. Al
though those idle rich exhibit themselves
most openly and to least advantage in
Paris and in London, their foolish doings
are recorded superabundantly in our
own newspapers; and thus their democrat
izing influence is spread abroad. The
snobbish reports of their misguided at
tempts at amusement may even be a
source of danger in that they seem to
recognize a false standard of social
success or in that they may excite a
miserable ambition to emulate these
pitifu1 frivolities.
But there is no need of delaying longer
over the idle rich; they are only few,
and they have doomed themselves to
destruction, since it is an memorable fact
that those who break the laws of Nature
can have no hope of executive clemency.
Patience little; learn to wait,
Years are long on the clock of Fate.
The second charge which the wander
ing Partisan journalist brought against
us in his talk with To1stoi was that we
ignored the arts and that we despised
disinterested beauty. Here again the
answer that is easiest is not altogether
satisfactory. There is no difficulty in
declaring that there are American artists,
both painters and sculptors, who have
gained the most cordial appreciation in
Paris. the capital of the arts, or in draw
ing attention to the fact that certain of
the minor arts-that of the silversmith
for one, and for another, that of the
glass-b blower and the glass-cutter-fou
ish in the United States at least as richly
as they do anywhere else, while the art
of designing in stained glass has had a
new birth here, which has given it
vigorous vitality lacking in Europe since
the Middle Ages.
1t would not be hard to show that our
American architects are now undertaking
to solve new problems wholly unknown
to the builders of Europe, and that they
are often succeeding in this grapple with
unprecedented difficulty. Nor would it
take long to draw up list of the con-
Certed efforts of certain of our cities to
make themselves more worthy and more
slightly with parks well planned and with
public buildings well proportioned and
aDDrODriatelY decorated We might even