Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-12-25
The new ENGLAND FAlLACY
BOSTONIANS NOT A PEOPLE
APART FROM OTHERS.
Two Regions Suffering From Acute
Definition and of Types
in General.

From the Boston Transcript
On his first visit TO Boston an Old cIer-
gyman from Enoch. H.. wrote letter TO
hi. home paper ''Alightng from the
train in the magnificent Back Bay sta
tion' said he Il could feel myself al
once in d literary environment Bookish
ness and learning were in the air. The
people going to and fro in the station. l
noticed had the look of a company OF
scholars Instinctively | should nave
known that | was in Boston and no
Mace else He Went on like that
If travelling salesman. hitherto ac-
counted sane, should float in one day with
the announcement. ION my last trip to
Saugus | dropped into the glue factory
and drew long breath of literary atmos
phere" he would be somewhat eXcusabiy
placed in restraint. And yet he would
only have said in substance what was
said by the clergyman, and what we are
listening to every day without CHALLENGES,
and stranger still, without surprise. Ihe
only difference, to adopt the salesman
idiom. is that we are used 10 one Inc ol
talk and not to the other.
Snow and Church.
THANKSGIVING is annually referred to
New England If any one doubts this let
maya zines Red farmhouses with gam
brell roofs, beli-crowned hats, shoe
buckles and blunderbusses, chilly white
meeting house interiors, with IMITATION
going on across the tops of the pews
while the parson belabors the Book for
ninthly; and If the designer is bold ana
Youthful land not a residenD deep snow.
trinity conventionalized. Inside the cover
we keep happening on remarks like TINS:
"Irresistibly at this season of the year
our minds turn to Plymouth Rock
turkey. one infers. being scarce ana
high. or references to sturdy New Eng
land character and the Brahminical
caste Of Puritan ancestry" To point the
moral, there is play now being per
formed in this city which rests on pre-
cisely this assumption-that New England
is a place apart. with people not as other
men, and recognizable by certain pecul-
iarities which have been catalogued for
decades under the convenient term or
New England conscience 1t befalls IN
the play that an aclduient Ola maid r s'o
on issues OF righteousness, and parson,
burving his mortal part under tons or
theology bear the tags of the New
England idea" while a rebellious young
female relative. who smoked cigarettes In
Paris comes home to scandaliZe the
community with 1.-The European idea"
Couldn't Tell the Difference.
Now, 1t is fairly safe to say that II you
were to drop any western lawyer or green
grocer in Haymarket square and steer
him clear Of Faneuil Hall. the old state
house and other landmarks familiar from
Illustrations of school histories. he could
wander all day. unoppressed by literary
atmosphere. untroubled by classical ira
dition butting his skull against BIRTH
places. to go to bed at night on Bunker
hill without once suspecting it OF a mon
ument. Barring an arbitrary use Of the
final .'r' (Which could easily be palined
off as due to burnt tongues and local
fondness for hot hasty pudding) he would
see no difference worth speaking of. And
is there any? The matter admits of
grave doubts. Fifty years ago Boston
CHANGED to be the dwelling place of a
group of literary people who have since
been denominated "a mutual admiration
society of mediocrities." One woe did
tread upon anothers heels. Some enemy
dubbed the city the American Athens,
and the city is still only just recovering.
Like New England, it is suffering from
acute definition