The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-07-21
GOTHAM GOSSIP
(Ry Francis Phillips. Copyright 191o. oy the National News Service. N. Y.)


 (Ry Francis Phillips. Copyright 1915. cy the National News Service. N. Y)
 New York. July 20--An unusual demand has developed within the last week or ten days from all sections of the country for copies of the admir- able address of the Hon. James Bryce, British am bassador to Washington on t.The Government Of British Cities" " Issued in pamphlet form by the City club. The address in question which vas delyered recently at dinner or Gience Interestingly reflects condi- ticns here and abroad and is regard ed as one of the best papers on the subject of, city government that has bs en written for some time. Speak ing of the government of American cities he said: Your administration .s hecoming more and more of bus mess administration, certainly in thls city, than ever before, and that IS generally true of cities all over the Union. Everywhere men are coming to see the importance of fixing re- sponsibi1ity upon definite persons. That is the meaning of the tendency to adopt the commission form. In that respect your forms of government are far better over the country at large than they used to be.
 i.It is often said that business en- fers too much into polftics-that IS b say. that. the interests as they are technically called, the men, and especially the corporations of great wealth. are too frequently trying to m anipulate politics for their own pur- poses and to use their power over po- ntica1 bodies to enrich themselves. That may be true, and, of course, Tn parts of the country it has been true. where railroads for instance, have practically gained the control of whole States But it is. also true that if business has too much encroached upon politics, there is a sense in which cities have thought too much of themselves as political bodies and too little of the business side of their work
 Adverting to the question of munich pal government in England, he add ed: "As country lives by it's traditions. in England we are exposed to ana great number of risks and temptations which have overcome virtue in some other countries simply because GUS tom has fixed standards from which men fear to depart. If it were not for our traditions don't know what would become of us. We are living under the shadow of the past. We seem to see the majestic figures Of the past rising above us in our House of Commons and House of Lords, re- minding us of what they were, of the standards of public duty that they tried to maintain, and telling us Tn vofcelees accents that we must. live up to the standards. and preserve the traditions they have bequeathed to us"
 "ours municipal governments and olfx cities have grown very slowly during centuries None of our cities. not even the place like Leicester and Northampton and Aberdeen and Car diff, which have been increasing very rapidly, some of them doubling with in the last thirty years-none of them has grown with anything like the speed with which cities grow in the United States; and when growth is difficulties arise for the people to grapple with, whereas, when cities in crease more slowly, as they usually do with us, there is always time to look about and anticipate trouble be- fore it actually arrive. And that is still more that case when you reflect that whereas here a very large part of the growth of your cities has been due to he coming of imInigrants from other oou6tries. many of whom are Hot famt1far with your insrftutionss, in our case our population is almost H. l geneous population, accustomed. to the same traditions, habits and ideas"
 - as "
 Both among the rich and idle and those who would like to be, the pub lication. last week of the posthumous arraignment of American women, written by David Graham Phillips, author shortly before he was shot and killed by a crazy youth from Wash ington, D. C., several months ago, as the former was emerging from the Princeton club. in this city. has pros voked a feminine tempest in a tea pot, As the writer's most caustic against the leisure-loving married woman, it is that class which is pro- testing most vehemently against the picture (which they say is an extrava- eant caricature) that Phillips drew of them The4 criticism they say is grossly unfair and co1ored by the morbid Imagination of the author, who being confirmed bachelor they naive ly suggest depended upon the most superficial of observations instead of actual experience for his material.
 The article begins by sta ting that we have to face in America a much more serious domestic problem than is presented by divorce. "This probl- 1em,s' says the Phillips article, 'is the rapidly widening gap between the American man and the American woman in sympathies, tastes, ideals. Every foreigner who comes to inspect us is struck by 1t, Is amazed that the beautiful, graceful, utility-a bhorring American woman, aristocratic in all her ideas, should be able to get along at all with the hardworking, common American man. tssyff;4f s!
 .sHe Sees a woman who is marrying into the foreign aristocracies; who is <z<vf N &yxoc tcA T fY7 f6o fni1 1- some American cities an aristocracy of idle playing about; who abhors the American gospel of work; who at the first faint opportunity abandons all the sordid cares of American work day life and devotes herself to fine rainment and visiting, to building cozy corners or palaces, to improving her mind by absorbing the oozings of aristocratic culture
 Our parasite class'' Mr. Phillips defined as ''the new American wom- an living in utter idleness upon her family, waiting for some man to come along and be beguiled by his passions and her pretenses Into undertaking her support for life.
 'sWho is responsible for this rare and gorgeous vistations, this Watteua upon the Kitchen wall? The loving American fatherr' Mir Phillips an- swered, adding: ''The American father wanted an exotic in the house, and loi we have the new American woman. She deserves no credit for being what she is-, She got the