The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-01-12
SOCIETY IS COLD
 ID THE FAMILY Won't Take Up the Relatives of
 Its Friends CLIMBERS GET IN ALONE And Must Then Be content-out- siders Who Have Won Social Eminence-Men's Chances
 Are Best.
 
From the New York Sun.

new hotels tea room. "Why, Joe asked me up to his studio to meet his smart friends. They were all there and the party was really swell
 Would you believe that they scarcely noticed me, although Joe told every one of them that was his sister? They were just as snippy to me as If I was nobody, although the woman all gushed over Joe I couldn't believe they knew who I was'
 As matter of fact they did know. but they didn't take any interest in her. If she had been strikingly beautiful enormously rich or very witty her brothers friends might have found some- thing about her to lead them to take her up. too.
 AS it happened that she was merely well bred, without being striking in any particular not woman asked to tho tea party to meet her took the least in terest in her. The brother happened to be society's latest pet, and accordingly all of them showed their admiration for the young miniature painter
 Certainly she doesn't believe that we're going to take up all his family just be- cause we like him." said one of the women who had heard of this complaint
 How in the world can a woman be so foolish as to think that we want his family along with him?
 its some personal individual trait in a man that makes him liked by women in society. We have enough stufy rela- lives of our own without going in for other peoples families"
 That harsh statement embodied A fact that nas distressed more than one social climber in New York. Young men often attain heights of which they had never dreamed, but they do not succeed .n carrying their relatives nor even the members of their immediate family into any such raretied social atmosphere
 This IS especially true of men. It is much easier for them to make such an ascent. Women of undistnguished fami- lies rarely succeed in climbing so high. Yet New York has also known several instances of feminine success of this kind.
 .One of the greatest social successes mat New York ever knew.' said a wom- an who was discussing this phase of so- ciety, was won by the daughter of na- rents who never were seen during all the days of her social triumphs
 She was uncommonly beautiful. and With beauty of a very rare type She was discovered by a man of sufficient SoSidA to make her lmmedi- ate success. All she needed was the ac- quaintance of three or four women with position.
 She met these one day at luncheon. they invited her to their homes and they saw that she got invitations to the big subscription dances that still fourished decade or more ago. The rest had to be bility.
 They were equal to the task and she became very popular with the set that most young girls would love to shine in. Subsequently she made a very brilliant match.
 Yet during all the years of her great popularity in society nobody ever saw her parents or any member of her family. They lived somewhere in a boarding house on the West Side in the middle thirties.
 It was well known that the girl had made her own way and nobody cared about her family. Her father was in very moderate circumstances, being a designer in carpet factory The girl never made any attempt so far as any, body knew to get her family in too. as the saying was. She was satisfied with her own sueeess.
 Il can recall another girl. who was Just as unknown and just as pretty. who lived in circumstances almost as modest and was the only member of her family known to the fashionable people that took interest in her. She was just as indifferent to making them known and took all her enjoyment out of the admiration of the smart set that took her up.
 That was also enough for her fam fly, who were willing that she should have all the pleasure. She rewarded hn1f llxyu leo ,1r;,,
 That sort of thing happens less ire quently nowadays. Even 10 years ago society was much smaller than it is today. There are so many daugh ters of established families who have to be looked out for that there is less chance for the outsiders.
 Then there is no one power today, as there used to be. There is no one man who can say, I will put this woman into society," as there used to be, nor is there any one woman to say, I will make this man smart
 Society is scattered into too many factions for that sort of thing to be possible. In the case of women it has been accomplished in recent years only through bridge. None of the successes at bridge has reached the social heights of the two girls I mentioned.
 Twenty-Five years ago, when New York was socially as village com- pared to what it is today, it was a very simple matter to get into what used to be considered the most sacred circles. But the times are now very different. Eloquent enough of this change is the fact that these success full climbers of an earlier day carried their families along with them"
 There are today in this city several notable cases of social success altogether
 IL. of these men belongs to family that moved to New York, but none of his brothers or sisters has ever entered the same sphere.
 In another case a young broker went one summer to Newport to look after the branch office of his firm there. In the Newport avidity for presentable men he was very much in demand and came to know all the influential figures in society there and here. He was well bred, agreeable person. and society took him up with such enthusiasm that he now knows all New York. Yet his family moves in entirely different social lines.
 q don't say that they are not just as good" explained the authority of The Sun reporter for these instances, "but they are certainly different Then take the case of another New Yorker who went away to college and met some men of a social class he had never known in town.
 'They took him up because he hap pened to be good sort of chap, and