Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-07-01
!. Subway Philosophy
By Frederic ]. Hsskin

upon man bis own unspeakhble and pre-
carious insiQnificancc.
Here IL a long, greedy gulIet swallowing
with noisy, ill-mannered speed an endless
string Of closely packed capsules. These
capsules 20 down this roaring throat Of
the city into its troubled bowels, where
they disntepate like quiuine capsules in
human stomach 10 produce various
changes.
And you, the subway rider, are one tiny
grain Of the medicine Of which there are
hundreds Of grains In each Of the thousand
Of capsules that endlessly course down
this hard, dry, Unsuitable throat. II you
were lost on the way, IL would not make
the slightest perceptible difference 70 this
huge organism which is the city. If the
whole capsule of which you pre such tiny
part were 70 20 astray, il would not make
much difference except that the way
Of other capsules might be temporarily
blocked
And when your capsule disintegrates
and sets you free in the fermenting insides
Of the city, you are Of even less calculable
consequence. You are as one Of the bacilli
among the millions that swarm in the
human colon. A drop in a bucket Of
water, or one grain Of salt in pound, is a.
thing Of individuality and Importance by
comparison with you
Much has been written about how little
a man feels when be is alone in a wilder
ness such as the Rocky Mountains or the
Painted Desert. This is because the
writers have usually gone from the city
TO the wilds, and therefore have been
acutely conscious Of their new environ
ment, but not aware of its ultimate effect
As a matter Of fact, if you stay in the
wlids you grow 70 feel bigger and bigger.
Stand on hilltop and you seem to be the
very center Of the universe. You are, for
the moment, the entire human race, and
everything else feils away from your feet
and cringes before you in the perspective
Of distance. Your individuality expands
here Just az inevitably as il contracts in
city That is why the visitor to a far
corner Of the country finds so many
quaint characters. 10 is only a way OF
saying that in q country where there is
plenty Of room, men are not al alike. Each
has developed in bis own way. Each has
his own point Of view, however crude,
and his own habits, however vicious, and
dares to wear his own kind of hat.
William Bonney was born on the Fest
Side Of New York, and il he had stayed
there he would have been a cor mon thug
and pickpocket, with no fame outside
Of police records. But he went TO the Fer
West and became Billy the Kid one Of
the most famous killers in the history Of
American banditry, slaying twenty-one
men by the time he was twenty-one years
old. Books and plays have been written
about him. He Is famous. He was nothing
but an East Side gInman turned loose
in a wilderness where he had room 70
expand and to develop his marvellous
talent for homicide.
PERSONALITIES ARE SCARCE.
In New York personalities run about
one 70 the hundred thousand Of popula-
ton, and those few are mostly importa-
tiOns. As you 90 upward in what IS
commonly called the higher social scale
you think you are finding real people,
but you soon find you are mistaken. You
find q millionaire with a house on Fifth
avenue, place on Long Island, and
yacht You say, here is a man who had
MS way Of the citv. But he IS only one
Of hundreds OF thousands that have exactly
the same things and use them ID the same
ways. He shows no more individuality or
imagination in the way he spends his
million than an east-sider does il the
way he blows in dollar at Coney Island
on Saturday night. Each OF them is only
one Of a class, operated sccordng 10 strict
rules and regulations.
The number OF classes OF types is enor-
nous. but the number Of indlVidualiti
incredibly small One East Side Jewess
IS SO ike another that you can hardly
tell them apart 80 Of all the other types.
After a little experience, you can spot
them all oD sight.
This dlsesse of uniformity infects deeply
even the arts where individuality Is sup
posed 10 be OF the essence Of the thing
One musical comedy on Broadway IS
similar 70 another, and the plays are al
most 81 Of q uniform and similar badness.
The movies grind out endless films which
are endless repetItlons OF the same ideas
with minor variations. The song writer's
write songs which are nearly al echoes
OF each other The artists paint pretty
girls who differ in the color Of their hair
and eyes, but not in the incredible vacuity
of their expressions. The ma gaines manu-
factured here sre Of several classes, but
those Of the same class contain slways In
effect the same stories. The same hero
and the same heroine, ,eternelly caper and
osculate through their pages. They are as
like as the couples that spoon on the
benches along Riverside Drive. 1t is the
city of inevitable similarity. If you don {
fit into 6 ready-made class, there is no
place for you here. and if YOU do. your
are IS easy spd inevitable as
those Of a ten-pin bali coming back to
balk line
There are q few who resist this incesSant
friction tending to reduce them all to the
same shape and size As pebbles are ground
and rounded in stream. There are a
few real writers, few real artists, and
few real personalities in all lines. But
most Of them got their growth before they
arrived here, and most Of them periodi-
cally depart for other regions where
there Is more room, more OF the oxygen OF
human Individuality
THE PROTEST OF THE FEW.
Quite q number there are too, of those
who madly react against this demand for
3 meaningless uniformity Here, for
example, is man who refuses to wear
q hat or a coat. A poor way to assert his
personality but q way none the less.
Everyone makes fun Of him The news
papers sneer at him. The human pack
turns on him as wolves turn on a bob
tailed wolf But he defes them and walks
bareheaded and coatess down Broadway.
And there are other men who wear their
hair long, and some who affect strange
gorbs There are all sorts Of freaks They
represent desperate, almost insane, re.
bellions against the grinding of the
mighty machine that seeks to turn out