Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1911-04-04
We ARE A SOBBiSH PEOPLE.

The Des Moines Register and Leader
finds serious and justified fault with
alleged snobbishness in the linked
states navy. 1t says:
Read this bit OF news from Ananap-
OILS and -et your righteous lnuiSua-
ton boil over and prompt you to join
In a demand for the framing OF real
men, not snobs, at the nava4 academy:
New York, April l-"Snould girl
be barred from so-caIled good society
because she takes an interest III house
hold duty ana ACTS as governess:
The question has been raised today
as the result of a reprimand given by
an officer of the United States naval
academy at Annapolis to a cadet be-
cause he brought Miss katherine Beers
10 a dance at the academy. The repri
mand was given on the ground that she
was an empioye in an officers house
hold Miss Beers is the daughter of
Prof. Henry A. Beers OF Yale Cnivers-
ity faculty.
In the name of decency and democ-
racy there ought to be a complete in
vestigation, not merely of this partic-
uiar affair but of the alleged general
snobbishness of the navy. 1t is be-
coming a more and more unpleasant
place. according to those who know,
for the plain young man Of the COM
mon people who wins his way to
place in the academy and in the navy.
The army long ago opened the way to
a commission to the ambitious and cap
able young man in the ranks: the navy
obdurately keeps the doors closed, and
for social reasons, say those who
know.
The navy is the peoples navy. Let
them bestir themselves to keep It so
democratic that it will be a mighty I'M
comfortable place for every snob in it.
The Register and Leader is right.
Some writer of repute lately asserted
that most army officers and nearly ali
naval officers are snobs. The item
quoted by the Register and Leader is in
it's way corroborative of the assertion.
1t is well enough to condemn snob-
berry in the navy but the genesis Of its
snobbery is not in the academy. The
snobbery there is simply the accenua-
ton OF the general snobbery of Ameri-
can society There is this much to be
said of the Annapolis incident: the
young woman was of excellent social
station as daughter of a Yale profess
scr. The rule was put in force against
a. person of more or less powerful con-
nections as it would have been against
some frendless and helpless girl.
There is much snobbery outside the
naval academy. The girl who takes up
domestic service no matter how high in
character and intelligence she may be
puts up the bars. She is limited in
association with her equals in character
an Intelligence by reason of her en-
ployment. The domestic is the extreme
instance. 1t works however up thru
the gradations arbitrarily imposed. It
works in Des Moines as in annapolis.
Women of low intelligence and Of gen.
eral low scale find entree where other
women of finer and better nature are
tabooed. Men of low morals, small in
telligence and general low character are
welcomed in the place of better men.
The academy at Annapolis is not
seriously at variance with the tendency
Of the American people. Snobbshness
is our besetting sin, the snobbery Of
m oney, of education, of place and posi-
ton and of intellect. We are snob-
bish people.