The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-02-04
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

bookplate.
But nonetheless the writer thinks
Mr.. Wilson's move on the inaugural
ball was an unfortunate one.
1t is the one big, general. democrat
ic function of the nation.
1t is the one time in every four
years when anybody who will and can
pay the price has an opportunity to
mix cheek by jowl with the gilded
diplomats.
To attend with the first gentlemen
and ladies of the land.
To see and, it may be, to be seen.
Mr.. Wilson's scruples were regard
ed as democratic.
Not Democratic.
The impression Is that he regarded
the ball as not consistent with our al
legged democratic institutions.
And we we'll say alleged"
For they are certainly little needed
nowadays.
There is no country in the world, in
short, where snobbery is more ram
pant or social lines drawn closer than
In the United States.
nifty in the land.
Everywhere you will find set of
persons called society"
They may or may not be the best"
people of the town.
It's according to what you call
best" of course.
But they exist.
And are played up in the local pa
pers as society"
erage American community, is large
ly a creation of the society column.
And the average society column
merely follows the rules as promulgat-
ed by Mr. William Randolph Hearst
when he started out on his sulphurous
journalistic career.
It was the Hearst papers that first
nucleusized and placed false value
| on Society as it is interpreted in
this country.
He recognized the Importance of
seeing your name in the paper
He knew the average human entity
could not resist the lure.
The latter might pretend he didn't
like it.
Storm, rage, denounce.
And then send the office boy round
the corner to the newsstand to buy
twenty-five copies which he carefully
marks and sends to his friends.
Hearst knew this.
And played on the vanity and ego
| tism of men and women.
Especially women.
Hearst in his yellow journals start
ed the society pace as it is now known
in every local paper from Maine to
California.
| And which frequently makes our So
cial activities Amusing and more or
less ridiculous.
But, no matter what a paper may
news columns, the paper has to play
to the artificial taste created.
1t is an artificial taste.
And fed on artificial pabulum.
| For society" as it is in some instan-
stances and as it should be in the rest,
does not exist save outside the soci-
ETY. columns and the imaginations of
their readers.
To return to the inaugural ball.
If Wilson really wanted to display
his democracy-not political but so;
cial-he would not have asked that
this great national dancing party
should be omitted.
| Here, as just said, meet the citizens
of the country from the four corners
of the United States.
Go there arrayed in their "glad
rags" more or less fearfully and won.
derfully, and hand down to posterity
the tales OF the grandeurs of the inau.
gural ball which they attended.
There they see the social leaders
of the average community from Ore
gon to Florida.
For it is these that go to the inau
gural ball.
1t is the wellto-do person of the
smaller city that betakes himself te
the festivities of Inauguration.
Hence its democratic character.
1t may not look democratic.
But 1t is.
And this person can hand it dowr
the years that she went to Wilson'S
inaugural ball with the British am
bassador and the French legationist.
The ball is rather scorned of the
exclusive Washingtonian.
And the social stellar attractions o
the metropolises are rarely seer
there.
1t is the social rank and file thar
attends and supports the Inaugural
ball.
Social leaders" from Maine anc
Minnesota there rub shoulders.
Beaux from Omaha dance with
bellies from Alabama.
Danes from Schenectady can vhis
per with dowagers from San Antonio
Legal lights from Waukesha cal
stand up against the wall with thos.
from Kokomo while their wives. il
confecbons from the department
stores in Chicago and Indianapolis
tread the terpsichorean measure witt
the congressman from their respective
districts.
Pshawf