Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-02-20
IS OUR U. S. FREE FROM
SO CALLED VULGARITY?

America and American women have
been criticised very frankly by nu-
merous foreigners who have accepted
the hospitality Of these shores and then
Seen tit to hold up to scorn our faults
and foibles.
Recently an Indian poet who had
spent some months lecturing in this
country took his departure, but not
before he, too, had expressed a most
untlattering opinion of us. We are
hopelessly vulgar, if we are to believe
this sage. Now just what is meant
by vulgarity?
Nulgarity in the freedom of CONVEX
sation means what most Of US don't
like If YOU want to say something
unpleasant about a woman or frock, a
picture of party, and cannot at the
moment hit off n precise accusation
YOU talk about vulgarity. But we are
not to suppose that the wise allow
themselves this looseness of speech
In a general way we use vulgar as
label for the people whose manners
are bad. who eat let Us say, peas with
knife, who have a shocking accent
who wear alarming clothes. But OBJ
Viously this is not the vulgraity which
is most objectionable: men and women
may have such faults as these and
yet in essentials be very far from
vulgar.
Wordsworth cut books with a but
terry knife; who would accuse him of
vulgarity? Johnsons table manners
Were distressing and his shirts not
always clean; we should know what to
think of anybody who called him vul-
gar And on the other hand, you can
easily recall people whose manners
are blameless who are vet of an in
durable and detestable vulgarity. OBJ
viously the fault is something deeper
than behavior at a dinner table or in
a drawing room.
The vulgar boil, the learned roast
an egg" says Pope somewhere, and
that suggests another notion of vul-
gartY. as the way of the majority,
not in itself a bad way, but different
from that of the elect SO you find
people who think it vulgar to like
beef and beer, and a proof of refine
ment to live on nuts and watercress,
vulgar to enjoy 0et us say Handel
and a sign of true culture to run after
the last and most weird musical ex-
plosion. And yet thing is not vul-
gar because it is popular.
II is not denied that what the crowd
does may be vulgar enough. Crowds
used to go to see a man hanged. That
was, we are now agreed, vulgar and
disgusting taste. Crowds still go to
stare at the man accused of some blood
curdling crime, or the central figure
of a notorious divorce case. A very
vulgar curiosity. But it is not vulgar
just because a great many people feel
it while the few are disguised thereby
In its origin and associations vulgar
people the uneducated. the unrefned.
who only enjoy coarse pleasures. This
doubtless is what most of our emf
nent critics graciouslY impute to the
nation when they idiot it for vulgarity.
What most troubles them, it seems, is
the way we take our pleasures, the
character of our entertainments We
prefer, as nation, roaring melo-
drama or a tragedy, or a romp Of
pretty chorus girls in pretty frocks to
that feast of reason and flow of soul
TO be found in plays of pure intellect
But it is not only our pleasures which
betray us. We are swayed by preju-
dice and catchwords rather than by
argument. We worship the god Of ma
terial success rather than an ideal or
a principle, or a worthy cause. And
the pastors and masters we elect for
are those who will preach
this vulgar creed and use these vulgar
methods.
But the truth is that people like be-
ing cheated. 1t saves so much trou
BILE. Better cheer a catchy phrase than
bother to think for yourself. Better
take your good where you find it. en-
joy your evening of jolly, comelv non
sense. anC not bother about high art
But let US be fair even to ourselves
We are not quite perfect yet Suppose
we allow that there is a good deal ~
in this country Is If IN
America only? What if the indiot-
nent is really, like a satire Of Swift's
an indictment Of the whole human