New-York tribune., 1922-09-28
The Tower
JAKE SMITHS PLACE
copr.. New York tribune Enco 1879

ne tAlhS more !lquOT SHAn NV uhlhno|
! has referred no often to Jake Smith
and Jake Smiths Place that a great
| many persons have written to us ask
ing for further information. What,
and where, is Jake Smiths Place And
what of Jake himself?
Jake Smiths Place Ia from ten to
twenty miles outside the limits Of
every American city, situated near n
body of water with fsh in it, whether
creek, lake, bay, river, sound, bayou
or ocean. The village street struggles
toward II; then stops in Its march
doubtful 4yhether 1t can afford to ap-
pear too friendly and too neighborly
toward Jake. Jake's Place is neither
quite in the village nor quite in the
country; 1t does not know whether It
Is q roadhouse or an inn or hotel or
boarding house. At different times 1t
has called itself all Of these things,
but never with any strong and com
municable conviction. Once II Dragged.
feebly and transicntly, that it was a
cafe; but nobody believed 1t. There
is still faded sign which announces
it as Smiths Palace Hotel.
Beneath this sign is broken win
front cover torn from Sesrs~Roe-
buck catalogue; and beside the window
is the wrath Of goat, on what used
to be book beer advertisement, ca
pering, but capering wistfully, for the
rhythm in his feet Ia the rhythm Of
this plaintive verse, "All, all are gone.
the old familiar faoss." He re-
members that he is kin to Pan, but it
has been o long time since he saw
Bacchus or Gambrinus, though now and
then Ed and AL, the former bartenders,
still drop in.
When Jake's Place was built it
needed paint, but 1t did not get it; and
it has never had it since. The weather
has made it the color Of Jakes vest,
drably autumnal, no matter what the
season; maybe the sky has spilled stale
beer and tobacco ashes on the build
ing. And Jake has never sent either
his house or his vest to dry-cleaner.
We have never seen Jake with
coat, nor without vest, he belongs
to q race Of men who are slowly dying
out Of America, vest-wearers all, and
all strangely full Of sentiment regard
ing the pioneer days in this country,
though they may not have been pio-
neers themselves. You know them
long time, and wonder what they think
about, to discover finally that they are
not SO much thinking as brooding
Jake will sit for hours smoking hIs
pipe, with his feet on the rail Of the
veranda, apparently lost In thought,
and then he will rnurmur to himself:
"Oncet there .oos Injuns in tkis coun-
cncet there svas Injuns right ,Ohere this
When Jake gets some particularly
Hne fish, or quail out of season. or
extraordinary ducks, he does not waste
them on his guests, either his perna-
nent boarders or transient motorists
He sends word to Clem Hawley and
Ed and AL, and two or three more
cronies, and cooks them himself In
twenty-five years not dozen men from
# you have been one Of them you are
lucky There Is plenty to drink, but
II you think these affairs are drunken
parties" you are mistaken; they are
solemn gatherings. Jakes Place be-
comes a salon for the interchange, not
Of ideas, perhaps, but Of instincts.
For when the duck or the chowder or
whatever it may have been is all gone,
and the bottles are nearly empty, there
comes always moment when, after
long pause, Glenn Hswley remarks:
Where this house of yonrn setsi"
And Jake, after knocking the ashes
from his pipe, and rehlling it, says,
seriously: "Oncet there 4pos Imjuns in
this country all over this
country"
The women Of the village do not un-
derstand Jake's Place. None Of them
would be seen near it, and they look
down upon the motorists who some
times stop there and eat the bad food
which Jake thinks is good enough for
motorists. And the women of the VIII
lage are no doubt justified In their dis
like and distrust; Jake's Place has
never made for the security or refine
ment Of the domestic life of the vii
lage. He kept his bar open on Sun
days, in violation Of the law, before
Prohibition came, and now he is q |
bootlegger; "the boys" shake dice and
play poker there. do not know how
to explain 1t, but have always Felt
that Jake was at one and The same
time crook and as honest as the day
is long.
like Jake, but consider him g. |
Blot on the Community. and IL there
were movement on foot to put him
out Of business would be compelled
by that part Of my Moral Cowardice
which call my Civic Conscience to
put no obstacle in the way of the move
ment. Jake likes me, and he would
cheerfully violate any Law in my in
terests.. simply and solely because hc
does like me. Jake has no Moral
Cowardice, because he has no morals.
Il makes him wonderful to know, and
difficult to introduce.
Jake Is, it will be perceived, ons
OF the paradoxes coiled at the in !
wards Of democracy, which keep il |
always from being quite success
=. and do they also have some
thing to do with preventing it from
being quite a failure?
If my moral cowardice ever does
become SO strong that it convinces mo
that 1t is virtue, and turn informer
against Jake, l will feel as sneakine
as dog about my righteousness. II
will feel that l have been traitor TO
dozen things that cannot express
in the inch or two left of this sketch
which preceded what we call our civil
cation. and which may be, for all RI
know, better than our civilization. For
l know just exactly what .Yaka faoIr