The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1907-01-12
vULGARITY.

remarked TO one or her family partly
in loud, confident tone, They're
the same crowd 1 seen them people
at the station in New York" The
tone, the atrocious mangling OF the
English language, the dress and
manner elected the comment from an
old gentleman, How utterly coarse,
common and vulgar"
The guides and native hunters vio-
late all the rules of grammar in their
speech. They say, Hank hain't
got no terbacker in this coat" and
the like; and yet their rude and TN
couth speech does not strike any one
used to the words as vulgar. =
Rough and ungrammaticaI speech
from the lips of rough and unlettered
men seems rather natural, but there
is violent inharmony and inappro-
priateness in common and hideous
language from the mouths Of men and
women who, from their health, op-
portunities, dress and way of life,
may be expected to pay some atten-
ton to the refnements and elegancies
of life.
But vulgarity is not confined to an
obtrusive commonness of speech,
manner, habits and customs, nor to
any superficial and external manifes-
tation. 1t goes much deeper. The
old gentleman, who possessed appar-
emily all the attributes, qualities and
accomplishment which we immediate
ly associate with the kindly, just and
honorable man of the world, illustra-
ted unconsciously in his own person
the more elusive yet none the less
real vulgarity which is at the root of
more dangers than bad grammar and
vulgar dress and display.
He told the story of his wonderful
ly successful career with satisfaction
and the glow of pride. His name is
known in an honorable international
business from the Golden Gate to
Hongkong from Bombay to Lon
don from Boston to Buenos Ayres.
His carefully trained sons are pro-
gressive, energetic, intelligent young
men of good habits, who have been
started most successfully in their
fathers footsteps. 1t is very fine
family, and when it is considered
that this old man build his success by
his own endeavor from the day when
he was thrown upon his own resour-
ces at nineteen years of age, by his
father, a penniless German immi-
grant, the success appears as strik-
ing testimony to the youths capabil-
ity, and also to the opportunities in
the great republic.
The successful mans account of
his father, and his comment on that
unfortunate mans career, clearly tell
story. His father, he said, had
his head filed with the notions Of
liberty and with the idealism of I848.
He was publishing a newspaper and
conducting a printing business in
Dantzic during that troubled period,
and was under suspicion as fomen-
ter of rebellion. He was warned by
the government to cease the publica-
ton of pamphlets and articles of a
seditious nature, and finally he was
subjected to the most careful espoin-
age. In spite of the jeopardy in
which his business was placed, the
German idealist and liberty champion
continued, said the successful Ameri-
can business man, his son, to hold
intercourse with the revolutionists,
to print seditious matter, and to go
on in the most foolhardy and reck-
less way, without the "most ordinary
regard for his business or for his ca
reer."
Why, the prosperous son could
not conceal his contempt for his own
fathers rattlebrained folly he was
no business man he was utterly i'm
provident, reckless and reprehensi-
Bile. This well-fed, prosperous man,
whose very success was made possi-
BILE by the heroic labors and impul-
ses of the self-sacrifcing liberty low
ers like his father, had become cor
rupted at heart in the great funda-
mental ideas which uplift people
and a nation
"And stirring interests Stunned with desperate
! All trust abandoned in the healing might
! OF virtuous action all that courage dares,
Labor accomplishes, or patience bears,
| Those helps rejected"
The narrow ideas cherished and
strictly followed by the father have
left their impress on his sons. One
is a perfectly industrious business
man, who has no interest but busi-
ness and money-getting. He is so
immersed in his pursuit that he never
votes, takes no interest in his country
except in so far as his country's
course may seem to affect the current
of his particular trade. The other
son was so eager to get into bank
that he refused the opportunity Of
liberal education, and plunged into
work at the age Of sixteen.
They are all perfectly respectable,
clean, honest men ; but he is a dull
man, ignorant of the course of civili-
zation, who does not perceive that
from the grandfather, who could de-
vote himself to the interests of coun-
try and humanity, down to the grand
sons there has been a deterioration,
| and that country for its health's
sake can better spare, in the long
run, some of its eagerness to succeed
than its idealism, which keeps life
high and pure and sweet, and nations
noble.
The superficial vulgarities can be
eradicated in individuals by time,
training, association and education,
but the vulgarity of thought; aim
and aspiration, if it become atenden-
cy and rule, is a danger deep and
strong. Many people of dairty man
ner and irreproachable speech and
personal habits are irretrievable vul-
gar in the eyes Of high-minded men,
because their tone is vulgar, their
ideals common and low, and their at
| 1seo <o.--no o~.1 L. 49,