Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-21
Measuring Up to. the Finicalness of
Women.
ERA OF THE WELL-DRESSED
Now the Ex-Prize Fighter Attends
Grand Opera in q Costume
Entirely o. K.
Special Correspondence of The Star.

Special Correspondence Of The Star.
NEW YORK, December 20. 1907
WI HAT has become Of the dude?
W. No doubt, If you have kept your
mental binoculars focused on such
little side issues Of sociology. you have
observed that the dude has passed from
our midst" The thing-the critter,
mean-not the name; although the name
itself rarely is used these days.
This disuse is of piece with the pass
ing, in other periods, of all of those more
or less fungus-like names that have been
set aside for describing the type which
We ourselves in another decade called the
dude.
Blood. buck. dandy, swell. exquisite.
squeak nor clipper left behind. The dude,
the last of the flock, is hardly adverted
to or animadversed upon, even in the
remote provinces, these breadthy days.
The answer is Of the simplest We've
all become, in a way, dudes. And we
can't all be ridiculed, scolded or indicted
Which denotes growth in respect of
breadth Of view. If this does not seem
Immediately obvious. take look back
and observe with the eye of memory
used to make. Not such a long look
back either. The duke was still with u.s.
in fact and name, so recently as, say, a
dozen years ago.
The present writer fell to cogitating
this when, while back, as he related
IN the green section of an issue Of The
Sunday Star. he saw former heavy
weight pugilist-not Corbett-in evening
clothes at the grand opera. This ex-
pugtlist in evening clothes was a fellow
toughest, the bone-headedest Of the heavy
weights. Twelve years ago saw him
fighting sailor in loft at Vallejo, Cal,
with some hundreds of picked men
o'-warsmen for audience
But now citizen and taxpayer of New
York. rich man and a sedate one, he
attends the grand opera in evening
clothes. Good evening clothes, too. Well
made, Of expensive material. of the latest
pattern. Not only that, but the ex-low-
brow carried them we'll: He was unafraid
and unashamed. He knew what to do
with his hands and his feet. and he
toted his crush hat with a certain air.
Z Now, supposing this chap had ventured
mad dared-to appear in such a rig ten
or a dozen years ago-what would have
happened to him? How would his pals
have regarded him? Wouldn't he have
been looked upon by them as a presump-
tuous, an impertinent dude? Wouldn't
they have tried to maui him about, and
rough him, and dance the ring-around-
rosey with him in the center. and per-
haps have split his affronting evening
ttogs from his back? I think they would
have.
So there was the genesis of the sugges-
tlon. inns ex-scrapper in evening raj
change in, the general view.
King Of His Tribe.
AS an out-and-out matter of square fact.
the dude never was anything but a fash
1onably dressed man. The wearers of
loud, flashy clothes weren't real dudes.
They were pinheads-or minstrel men.
All fashionably dressed men were consid-
cred dudes, and therefore were ridiculed.
They were laughed at or sneered at on
the streets. everywhere they went The
comic publications derided them, carica-
tured them, made chimpanzees of them.
You recall when E. Berry Wall of this
town had national name for being king
OF the dudes? Well, E. Berry Wall, in his
glowy day. was merely a perfectly dressed
man-and he is yet, for that matter. There
wasn't anything foolish or bizarre or, as
the millionaires say, ultra about the way
he diked himself out. His clothes, cravats,
hats, shoes and canes were new models,
that's all: and he had a lot of clothes and
things. Therefore he was a dude and the
king of his tribe.
Nowadays nine out of ten men of leisure
and means and taste array themselves far
more ornately than E. Berry Wall ever
dressed at the top of his fame as a dude;
and nobody calls them dudes. Their raj
ment attracts no attention whatever.
They don't look self-conscious. They
don't have to.
The way of it. looked into, is all very
simple.
The spirit which in the other time ami
mated the chaps who looked upon we'll
dressed men as dudes was spirit of fur
tive, unconfessed jealousy. Secretly they
admired the new-model toys and things.
but as they couldn't themselves aspire to
such raiment they exhibited very human
trait and privilege and r!diculed it.
On hitler scale it was manifestation
OF the age-o!d jealousy of the rich or the
well-provided on the part of the strug-
glers, the non-provided.
The lion with the straggly, NANCY name
,envies his rival lion with the luxuriant,
flowing mane-and fights about it. The
uncouth Goth and Vandal secretly envied
the Roman soldier his fine fittings and &C
couterments. The buck private today en-
vies the adjutant his spick-and-span uni
form; the adjutant feels abashed over the
lack of bullion on his full-dress uniform,
compared with that of the colonel-and
there you be.
The great body of males used secretly to
envy the so-termed dude his fine apparel
until the great body of males found that
they, too, could wear the ornate stuff, or,
at any rate, limitations of it; and then, and
then only, the fashionably dressed man
was allowed to walk his way in peace,
without ridicule or side-samming.
Now we find the prentice youth sport
ing at least as near an approximation as
he can make of the college youths make
up, vari-hued hat ribbon and all. The
prentice youth wants to attract attention
to himself. He likes it. He hopes he'll
be taken for a sad rake of a college boy.
He's offended If he isn't taken for one.
The store salesman has his frock coat
and his top hat for Sunday wear and pa
rading purposes with the girl. Never the
fear turks in his midrif that he'll be
taken for a dude. Rather his fear is that
he won't be taken for one. He wants all
hands to look upon him as a bowling
swell
Go into the little country towns. far re-
moved from any metropolis. In those
places nowadays you'll find the youngish
chaps diked out in toys that they couldn't
possibly have worn ten or a dozen years
ago. They're mail-order dressers. They
watch the back pages of the magazines
for new kinks in apparel. They vie with
each other in capturing the new stuff first.
An Evoluting Race.
The oldtime Sunday suit of clothes has
gone. Men working at the trades want
to look well all the time-on weekdays
Just as well as on Sundays.
Mayhap you've noticed, in recent years.
these gangs of men. working at various
trades-carpenters, ironworkers, plaster
ers, steamfitters, and SO on-coming away,
at knock-on time in the evening from
buildings upon which they're employed.
One can easily remember when such
gangs used to come away from their Jobs
hnfp rlyfr 41o