New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-03-21
Sees Through a Glass Darkly
katherine Fullerton Gerould Surveys America
and Sees Little Hope for It

fort" fails in the mind Of the slave OF
the master
This. corroding materialism of the
working classes is evident not only in
domestic service, but in our whole in
dustrial system as we'll. Mrs. Gerould
speaks of economies with the joyous
assurance OF one who does not strain
unnecessarily after accuracy. "Thc
Pennsylvania miner making from forty
to seventy-fve dollars day L. day,
mind you'll buys an ACKNOWLEDGMENT
necessarily a Ford-which waits for
him at the entrance to the mine. His
wife. buys 6nery. Both buy the best
food they can GET says she bit
terly. This ultimate evidence of ma
terialism is the most disheartening
And so Mrs. Gerould faces the
moral and physical degeneration OF
the time-culture invaded by the mob
education threatened with reform
feminism, labor rampant-in a world
where taboos are threatened, where
poor folk aim at the same mark as
their betters and where the exchange
value of ancestry is heartbreakingly
low. 'In this mad world" says Mrs.
Gerould, zone may do or be anything,
but the man who has been brought up
to eat with his knife is the less likely
to respect a woman or not to break a
confidence" These evil days, she sees
as in vision, are q mere season Of
trial to which the Lord for His in
scrutable purposes has, chosen to sub
nit his select few. Since the prole.
tariat have so cheapened the refine
ments Of living, it is incumbent upon
chat little aristocracy Of the intel
lect and tho spirit (Mrs. Gerould is
very fond Of that phrase) to abandon
them and seek higher values" Labor
will have the motor cars and the deli
cacies of the table, the jewels and the
JOY rides; we must see to it that we
keep something else. We must" she
says, dramatizing her sainthood, "be
frankly ascetic. I have implied that
the combination Of plain living and
high thinking is difficult one. We
shall not sleep soft, we shall not live
high, and we shall do without external
beauty to Il painful extent We SHALL
l hope, ameliorate our lack of space
and privacy by a very perfectly devel-
oped courtesy and q capacity for ST.
lence. 1t sounds monastic, and at it's
best monastic it will be. Certain
things we shall have given up at the
start; certain ambitions will have been
erased from our tablets. We shall not
compete with or interfere with the
lords of this world. We shall do our
modest work and receive our modest
pay and by corresponding modesty
of life and temper we shall disarm, we
hope, the unsympathetic and uncompre-
bending. Our kingdom cannot be of
this world, and instead Of complaining
or criticizing we must apply ourselves
to realizing that our compensations can
be made greater than our losses"
1t is, therefore, distressing to find in
the next article but one, on page So,
backsliding from this exalted attitude.
IN "Caviare on Principle" she replies
to those who think it unreasonable that
luxury should flourish while there is
SO much poverty. care we really" she
breezily queries, Eat this late day go
ing to be duped by the mid-century
fallacy that plain living and high
are a natural combination?
Even if Shakespeare at New Place