The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1906-07-13
A SATURDAY sERMoNETTE.

Onite naturally the morallsts ana
tho preachers are using the Thaw-
White affair as text for many ser
mon And we'll they may. 1t is rich IN
IFS lessons. 1t shows how inexoraole
fate is in it's dealings with the pronl-
gate and the debauchee. 1t points out
TO men and women the periis OF lie
of excuses and dissipation. 1t sends
the warning echoing through the world,
"Behold and beware."
The moralist of the Chicago Chroni-
Gle draws a lesson from the episode
worth needing. Love your home;
that is the lesson, in a nutshell:
"He did not care much for home
life" This was the careless remark
made concerning Stanford White, the
day after Harry Thaw shot and killed
him. by a lifelong acquaintance in
New York
1.-THE man who made it gave no sign
that he appreciated what he was say
ing. He said White did not care much
for home, with the same nonchalance
with which he would have said that he
did not care much for dress or for driy-
ing. He evidently felt that mans
attachment or want of attachment to
his home was as much a matter of
taste and therefore as indisputable, as
a taste for oysters or for polo.
Gould there be a worse augury for
American society? A decent man al
ways forms an attachement for some
home even if he has none of his own.
If he has a home of his own, however,
humble and does not care for it. he is
a man who will bear watching. # he
has palatial home and an innocent
and interesting family and abundant
means of living and does not love his
home, it is safe to say that he is in
one or more ways bad man.
THAT this was the status of Stan
ford White was one of the very first
developments of the tragedy. He did
not care much-that is, he did not
care a straw-for home life. He had
his lodgings in New York and his wife
had hers in a country home on Long
Island He had hopeful son in early
manhod who should have been his con
slant companion. but he only seems tC
have been in the way of his father
They would take their luncheon al
some restaurant and their dinner al
some club. When night came the ia
Their would make some excuse to the
boy ana HE away to one roof garden
and the lonely boy betake himself tt
some other
"This was the programme on the
night of the shooting. The father
could not enjoy himself in the company
of his boy. He had important bust
ness which called him away. and hi!
important business appears to have
been a revelry with number o
chorus girls in a roof garden vaude
vile.
"If White had cared much for hom'
and had been at home that night, h
would not have been killed. 1t was hi
appearance at Madison Square Garden
where the play was one he had seen
hundred times and did not interes
him at all, and where he made fire
uuent trips behind the scenes, that In
famed the mind of Thaw and led t.
the deadly assault. When the matte
is sifted down to it's elemental facts
he was killed because he did not car
much for home life
The love of home is a saving vii
tue, indeed. But it is a rare virtu
among some of the very rich of Ney
York They have the money to spend
they must spend it on needless pleas
ares, and so they get in the habit o
staying away from home and haunting
places where their money will bu
liberties and riotous enjoyments
There are many Whites in New Yorl
There are also many Thaws. Me
who maintain questionable apartment
and spend their leisure in wicke
pleasures are common. Young fellow
who are spoiled by wealthy and il
dulgent parents, as Thaw was, are a
most numberless. Both kinds are enc
mics of home, just as both are affli'
lions on society.
Money is sometimes curse, Just a
poverty Is sometimes a curse. TIL