The Washington herald., 1920-11-13
APING RICHES,
LATEST FANCY
Greenwich Village Poet.
Drag Entire Following
To Meal Tickets.
by o. o. M'INryRE.

New York. Nov. 1z.-There is aI
strange and distinct lass of so-l
ciety In New York. born Of an over
whelming desire to ape the rich.
They provide meal tickets for the,
army OF cheap poets, bum sculptorsl
and devotees Of every brand Of ism
in exchange for tawdry adulation.
A shallow cloak model marries a
paIvenu. She reads of Mrs. De
Puyster-Puyster entertaining al
Tagore in her Fifth avenue man.
sion. And SO she goes aneld for a
poet. They are not hard to find.
Every Greenwich Village coffee
house bulges with them.
You can tell them by their long
hair and soulful looks. In his cir
cles he has arrived. His ode THE
Birth Of Passion" has been used as
a filler at the tail end of story In
filthy sex magazine. He is in
vited to dine at the home of the
newly-rich.
He speaks of his friends. Gadsky.
the Russian free love advocate.
Nina, who writes free verse. Free
because not one will buy 1t. Paul,
who makes fnandolins of cigar
boxes and thrums parodies thought
up right out of his own head.
At the next visit the poet brings
his brood of wastrels. The poor
husband listens to talk of the gods
making merry on Olympus. of Hera
weeping, the Eternal Balance and
a smattering Of learning they have
picked up and made useful in their
business. II fairly suffocates hubby
and wiley reclines on her chaise
Tongue wide eyed with astonish-
ment.
Soon the home becomes a hang
out for the professional art cad
gers. Husband begins to realize
that his wife is looking upon him
as a filthy little tradesman. He
feels all out of place. Eventually
he awakens to the fact that his
homo has bacome an asylum for
parasites and he kicks them out
but not until his wife has de-
nounced him and perhaps gone
away with the family jewels and a
uesiTe tor tflal marriage.
There Is one man l know, a
mighty fne fellow who has made
his money by hard work. His wife
had a poem printed and aspired to
higher things than little domestic
duties. Every Sunday her house is
filled with these hangers-on. She
provides food and drink and the
weekly outlay is about 800. The
husband is tired of 1t but he loves
his wife so he endures it.
The so-called Master Mind" Of
the liquor traffic in New York has
been arrested. A few years ago he
was $50 a week clerk. Now he
Is millionaire. When prohibition
came he secured a 100000 permit.
which allowed unlimited removal
from bonded warehouses of whisky
and other liquors for medicine. II
Is charged that he was getting
away with il so nicely that he sold
to all comers-and then a prohibi-
tion agent came with marked bills
and he was arrested. Broadway is
nlled with bootlegging million
aires. They may not have their
millions-fortunes are always ex-
aggerated on Broadway-but they
have fine cars. country homes and
are living easy lives.
i was in the foyer of a hotel one
day this week when Mary Garden
came to town. She arrived in a
private motor. heavily veiled and
even an elevator was waiting to
rush her to her apartments. The
formality of registering was dis
pensed with. All of that had been at
tended to. Most of the celebrities
these days travel incognite. 1t ap-
peals to their vanity and then again
1t makes the newspaper folk more
anxious to interview them. When
Charlie Chaplin came to town he
registered as Sydney Spencer. But
the news-hounds found him. He
admitted that one night he drove
all around the city in a taxicab un-
I'll o'clock to dodge process sery-
ers. Then the taxicab driver took
him home. At breakfast he an
nounced who he was and the lady
OF the house almost tainted.