CHAPTER V. SOME REASONS FOR WRATH.
Had the spurious article, “American aristocracy,” confined its vaporings and exhibitions to secluded spots, it would have been tolerated by the American people, exactly like many other “isms,” shams, frauds, and delusions. Had the worshipers at the shrine of “caste,” and supposed social superiority, reserved their devotions to some secluded chapel, they might have worshiped in peace at the feet of the tinseled god whom they adore—“caste.” The American people tolerate almost any kind of “ism” for a time, provided the “ism” be not paraded before them, and flaunted in their faces in an insulting manner; but a determined people are the citizens of this nation, and when once aroused to a sense of outrage, they throw to the winds all consideration of law, danger, and consequence. The people of Chicago heard the howling of the anarchists with patience and amusement, Sunday after Sunday, along the lake front, but when the anarchists at Haymarket hurled one bomb among the citizens of the Republic, the day of anarchism was ended in Chicago. Innocent or guilty, the leaders of the movement must be punished. And they were!
Had the sham aristocrats of America been contented to reserve their exhibition of arrogance and presumption to those dervishes who worshiped at their own shrine—“caste”—and not to the general public, it is possible that their absurd “ism” might have been tolerated in a good-natured way for some time longer. It had certainly the advantage of anarchism, inasmuch as, when reserved to a few dervishes, it was excessively amusing. But, unfortunately for the champions of “caste,” their followers, possessing neither a great amount of brains nor courage (and in these particulars, even the anarchists have an advantage over the sham aristocrats), have absolutely delighted in trifling with and imposing upon the good-nature of the public. In little, mean, spiteful ways, they have exhibited a smallness of soul, and an attempt, in a cowardly manner, to impose upon those who, poor in pocket, or dependent in some way, were unable to resent it. Take the evidence of the clerks, employés, servants, of the sham imitators of English aristocracy, and, almost without an exception, you will find their bosoms filled with resentment and hatred for that class; born, not with any desire to possess the property of their employers, nor from any socialistic tendency, but entirely the result of mean, spiteful, scornful snubbing. They have been wounded in pride, for, God knows! they are entitled, as free American citizens, to the possession of self-respect and pride.
Do you ask, Madame, why it is so hard for you to secure and retain servants? The reason is given above.
An explanation of the cause for the dearth of good domestic servants was sought by a great New York daily newspaper. It opened its columns and asked for communications explaining why a young woman preferred to work in a shop ten or twelve hours a day, and receive therefor three dollars a week, rather than accept a position as a domestic servant, in your house, Madame, where she would have greater comfort in the way of food and lodging, and receive more dollars.
Read the answers received by the Recorder, of New York. In almost every instance, the writer of the communication would say that it was not a matter of food, lodging, and dollars, but a matter of self-respect. They were snubbed and sat upon when engaged in serving the rich.
Go to any fashionable restaurant, or saloon, where the would-be swells swill champagne. Ask the attendants their opinion of those who, with a supercilious air, throw them a dollar to fee them for their services. You will hear expressed, in reply to your question, opinions like this: “I feel like knocking their heads off. I am ready to work. I don’t want their money for nothing; but I am a man, and as good as they are.”
The workman was content, nor did it interest him if the rich should drive their Tally-hos. He had no desire to divide the money of the purse-proud devotee of “caste”; but when, weary from his day of labor, trudging along the road to his humble home, with tooting horn and flourish of whip the Tally-ho sweeps by him, and he has to scurry out of the road, he long remembers the derisive smile of the insolent, purse-proud occupants of the coach, and he objects—not to the coach—but to the manner and the smile of the occupants.
The heart of the shop-girl or the seamstress is not filled with envy because the fine lady (?) of fashion possesses garments of silk and laces; but the insolence and supercilious manner, when the fine lady (?) brought in contact with her, fills her soul with a sense of injured dignity. She knows she’s quite as good as a lady of fashion. Possibly her father is not a protected, petty manufacturer; and she goes to her home, resenting the assumed superiority in the manner of the fine lady, and preaches to father, brother, and lover equality and broad democracy. The fine ladies (?) of fashion have ever been most potential causes for victories by the people. No orator so eloquent as the wife, daughter, sister, or sweetheart; and her wrongs were resented November 8th.
“THE PUBLIC BE D——D!”
The New York World, of November 20th, 1892, publishes an article in connection with New York society, that, having received a place in that great Democratic journal, because of its undoubted truth, is worthy of a place in this volume. In speaking of the death of Mrs. Belmont, the World makes use of the occasion to express some remarkably forcible facts with regard to New York society. It says:—
“In the social history of New York it will be a lasting distinction to Mrs. Belmont that she was a conspicuous figure in good society before good society had been vulgarized. I have no quarrel with the society of to-day, which has merely followed the law of its evolution. I merely insist that the New York society of thirty years ago had all the good features of to-day, and was conspicuously free from certain faults which are now conspicuously prominent. The society which accepted the leadership of Mrs. Belmont had birth, and breeding, and culture, ample means and true refinement, and it had also that last test of a genuine aristocracy, that it held its rank by unquestioned title. It had so little fear of the security of its position that it freely admitted strangers of equal social rank.
“It was possible for a rich merchant to permit a clerk to visit at his house, and even scholars and educated people were not considered detrimental. While it had the respect of ingenuous youth for the older aristocracies of Europe, it did not abase itself in comparison with them, and was incapable of servility before them or before anything human. It was singularly free from scandals.”
Then, thirty years ago,—that is, at the time of Abraham Lincoln’s great popularity, succeeding by two years the great uprising of the Common People, the “mudsills,” of the North and West,—a wealthy merchant of the North would receive his clerk, as a social equal, in his house. Then times have changed, and manners with them, within the last thirty years! The rich merchant of to-day has forgotten the force of the argument which resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln,—“Americans enforce Equality.” Two years was not enough, thirty years ago, to enable the rich merchant to forget that the first man of the nation, the President of the Union, had been a laborer, rail-splitter, clerk in a grocery store, and was, while chief of the nation, still a man of the “Common People.” No, two years was not enough to bring about forgetfulness of these facts; but thirty-two years was.
Hence, the overturning of the aristocratic party (or that party to which the aristocrats belong) cost what it might in dollars to the “Common People.” It is not a new economic doctrine that they demand; it is a new social system. While the assumed aristocracy of thirty years ago may have had respect for the older aristocracies of Europe, it most certainly did not abase itself, and was not as servile to them, as is the sham aristocracy of to-day.
Quoting from the Koran of that high priest of the “smart set,” McAllister, who utters the sentiments of the most exalted in the holy of holies in swelldom:—
“It is well to be in with the nobs who are born to their position, but the support of the swells is more advantageous—for society is sustained and carried on by the swells, the nobs looking quietly on and accepting the position, feeling that they are there by divine right; but they do not make fashionable society, nor carry it on.”
The “nobs,” then, of this temple of “caste,” feel that they occupy the high places by “divine right.” The phrase, “divine right,” sounds queer to Anglo-Saxon ears, to us, the descendants of a race who elevated Charles Stuart to the scaffold as a result of a “divine right.” It sounds strangely in the ears of a nation that furnished the example of Liberty and Equality to the world, and which, when followed by the Frenchmen, caused Louis XVI. to kiss the guillotine by reason of his “divine right.”
The meaningless, senseless sentences in “Society as I Have Found It,” would be entitled to not the slightest attention, were it not for the fact that they give words to the sentiments of the “smart set,” who have allied themselves—or rather stuck themselves on, as a piece of mud on a marble column—to the Republican party, and, hence, in the minds of equality-loving Americans, the Republican party became besmirched by that mud.
Quoting further from the New York World, and believing that the writer of the article knew whereof he wrote, the following is inserted:—
“I am writing about a period now thirty years gone by, and, consequently, beyond the personal knowledge of the great majority of my readers. But New York society of to-day is known to all readers of Sunday papers. They know it as an institution in which the prevalence of gigantic fortunes has made its atmosphere uncongenial for all who are not conspicuously rich. And while the valid claims of birth and breeding and culture have thus been crowded out at one gate of the social arena, the influences which have forced an entry at the other end in company with the mere millions, have all been vulgarizing influences. Society is no longer certain that it is the genuine article. If it were, it would not swagger so much, nor give so much thought to the effect it produces on the outer world. It is insolent, but not courageous; ostentatious, but not brilliant; it splurges, but does not shine; no glimmer of intelligence relieves the dullness of its boredom. It abases itself before the peerage of Great Britain, and the taint of corrupt living is unpleasantly frequent on its gilded exterior. Measured by the tests of a true aristocracy, it is below the standard of thirty years ago.”
The readers of the papers, who are the people, know that society is an institution, as organized to-day, created by gigantic fortunes, which have been accumulated within the last thirty years, and, in many instances, by men of low and vulgar instincts, of mean origin, poor ability, who have become rich as the result of accident, and the result of the necessities of the nation while engaged in the war for the preservation of the Union. These very men, who had not the courage nor patriotism of the commonest soldier who shouldered his musket at Abraham Lincoln’s call, and vindicated on the field of battle the right of the people, in a republic, to equality, and to the control of the government by the majority, who are beneficiaries of Protection and the exigencies of the nation, would assume a superiority over that common soldier whose courage and patriotism led him to risk his life in preserving the Union—for the fighting soldiers of “’61” were of the “Common People.”
Society is not only no longer uncertain that it is a genuine article, but it knows it is a sham and a fraud, and seeks to make up by impertinence, insolence, and arrogance what it lacks of the genuine article. It does swagger; it does produce an effect upon the outer world, and that effect was evident by the overwhelming vote of the people, who said to it and to its successors in office, November 8th, last: “Thus far and no farther thou shalt go.” It abases itself in such a disgusting manner before that peerage of Great Britain, as to cause feelings of indignation and contempt to arise in the bosoms of the descendants of those old Continental soldiers, who, more than a hundred years ago, said to Great Britain and her aristocracy: “We have had enough of you. This shall be a land of freedom, equality, and liberty; though it should cost the last drop of blood in our veins.” And how effectively they demonstrated their determination to produce such a result, many a lord and lordling now mouldering in his grave, who sought these shores to impose the yoke of “caste” upon the colonies, could attest.
The tuft-hunting, and absolute courting of English titled adventurers, by the inheritors of the wealth taken from the people, has filled with disgust the breast of every manly and womanly citizen of this country. The people are not Socialists. Mrs. Hammersley is entitled to all that she inherited. Her right to it would be protected and defended by every good citizen of the Union, and there are few, very few, who are not good citizens, among the people. She may marry whomsoever she will. It was her privilege to select (or be selected by) the Duke of Marlborough, descendant of—not the over-honest, but original—soldier of fortune. She had a perfect right to prefer the position as wife of a divorced duke. She could take the money amassed in America and refurnish Blenheim, for the benefit (after the death of her divorced duke) of his first wife, who was still living, and will now be enabled to enjoy the fruits produced by the waters of American dollars poured upon the somewhat decayed and degenerate house of Churchill.
Mrs. Hammersley has the right to utilize the fortune of her deceased American husband under the wise provisions of his will (clever American he must have been!) as she chooses; but when she and her acquired (by purchase or otherwise) title is flaunted in the faces of American men and women, as something which entitles her to a more eminent position than she possessed as an American woman, the “Common People” object. Every time that the lady was spoken of, or written of, as “the American Duchess,” as “Our Duchess,” it aroused resentment. We have no American Duchess.
As an American wife, Mrs. Hammersley was a queen; as a duchess, by the exertion of great pressure and influence, she gained the privilege of kissing the hand of another, called Queen, because of the accident of birth.
Doubtless, Mrs. Hammersley was not responsible for being dubbed “the American Duchess” by the newspapers; but men of the Ward McAllister stamp, and the “smart set,” indicated so plainly the kind of desire that seems to pervade the members of the sham aristocracy, to acquire by some method, and at any price, a title, that it was pardonable that the newspaper men assigned the peculiarly objectionable title of “the American Duchess” to one of America’s daughters. The columns of our papers, day by day mirroring, as they do, the prevalence of this servile abasement of the dignity of the American woman in the “smart set” seeking alliances with a degenerate and unworthy offspring of a decayed and odoriferous aristocracy existing in Europe, have brought the subject to the attention of the people all over the land.
What a relief it is to manly Americans to turn from a picture like that presented by the coroneted “Duchess,” whose title and coronet have been purchased by the wealth of a common American citizen, an account of which is here printed, taken from the New York World of November the 13th:—
“A fine old illustration of the Duke’s financial ability was shown in the way he obtained a dot of $500,000 with his wife. He made the Duchess borrow this sum in England and, to secure it, insure her life to that amount. She then returned with him to this country and here confessed judgment to her London creditors for the amount mentioned. They took the matter into the court, which directed that the trustees set aside annually from the Duchess’ income $50,000 a year to pay the interest on the debt she had incurred in England and the principal. This money the Duchess gave to her husband. She also bought and gave him a house in London.”
And then to gaze with admiring glances upon that model of the American wife and mother, the late Mrs. Benjamin Harrison. To read of her, in the columns of a paper like the New York Herald, politically opposed to the party represented by President Harrison, that this good woman, Mrs. Harrison, representing that which is most queenly to the minds of the “Common People” of America, “was a model wife and mother;” that “during her husband’s early struggles she helped him in many ways, and her wise counsel was often a great service to him.” “She reared and educated her children thoroughly and sensibly, and made their home always attractive to them. * * * * She was also a skillful housekeeper, and few women were more adept in the art of domestic economy. * * * To do good works was her delight, and she was for many years one of the managers of the Indianapolis Orphan Asylum. * * * * At no time a woman of fashion. * * * In all the honors that came to her husband, she remained just the same consistent, helpful woman that she was the first day they were married. * * * * The domestic life at the White House has been something that all the world might be better for knowing of. Mrs. Harrison was the queen and centre of it all.”
Of this good wife and mother, endeared to the hearts of the “Common People,” by the possession of those same qualities and virtues that make the helpmates of the poor and lowly so dear to them, was said, in the editorial columns of the New York Herald, October 25th, the following:—
“In this hour of his affliction, the sympathy of the entire nation will go out to President Harrison and his household.
“The people of the country had only to learn of her worth to recognize and appreciate in Mrs. Harrison the virtues and graces of a noble womanhood. As mistress of the White House, she won the affection of all, as she endeared herself to her home circle by her qualities as wife and mother.
“Her brave and serene spirit through long suffering, and the President’s tender devotion, have touched the heart of the country. Her death will be mourned as the loss of a good, lovable woman.”
MRS. BENJAMIN HARRISON.
The sorrow occasioned by her death inspired even poets to place a wreath woven by their art, upon her tomb. It is well for the country that the President’s wife should have been one furnishing such a noble example to the women of America, that of her could be written what James Whitcomb Riley wrote of Mrs. Harrison:—
Now utter calm and rest,
Hands folded o’er the breast,
In peace the placidest,
All trials past,
All fever soothed; all pain
Annulled in heart and brain,
Never to vex again,
She sleeps at last.
She sleeps, but, oh, most dear
And best beloved of her,
Ye sleep not, nay, nor stir,
Save but to bow
The closer each to each,
With sobs and broken speech
That all in vain beseech
Her answer now.
And lo, we weep with you,
Our grief the wide world through,
Yet, with the faith she knew,
We see her still,
Even as here she stood,
All that was pure and good
And sweet in womanhood,
God’s will her will.
The sympathy of the whole nation went out to President Harrison when he sustained the loss of that example of virtue and womanly excellence in the death of his wife. It was so deep and strong, that had the “Common People” not seen the party he represented through a glass clouded by the smoke and soot of sham aristocracy, he would have been re-elected.
By that bedside, the people saw the chief of their nation with bowed head, shedding tears for that lost love who had shared with him his joys and sorrows, his hopes and disappointments, ambitions, and his failures. No tenderer sympathy or kindlier feeling ever filled and moved the hearts of the American people than that felt for that good husband, good patriot, good citizen, Benjamin Harrison. He was bereft of a helpmate who by his side had fought the battle of life, the early struggles in Indianapolis when he was a young lawyer, hewing his way through the forest of difficulties, which, like the forests of Africa that surrounded Stanley, in American life present themselves before the struggling, ambitious men of our land. And when, at last, bursting through the maze and underbrush of obstacles, like Stanley, he came upon the open plain of success, her voice had been first to join his in a prayer of thanksgiving. The bowed head of the aged chieftain of the nation, upon whom the heavy hand of sorrow had been laid, was an object to occasion even the most partisan political opponent to pause and shed one sympathetic tear. How full must his mind have been of the recollection of the hours anxiously spent by this loving American wife and mother, while he was exposed to hourly danger in defence of the American Union. How each sad hour must have been recalled to him, and how slight had been the recompense, accorded in the harvest of time to the faithful heart that had beat in rhythmic accord with his.
BENJAMIN HARRISON.
President of the United States, 1889-93.
The sympathy of the nation was deep, broad, and strong; and had Benjamin Harrison represented anything else but what the people knew was the aristocratic party, on the flood-tide of that sympathy he would have been carried into office by an overwhelming majority. Let those who would excuse their own errors and the errors of their class, let the would-be astute politician and the abashed assumed barons ascribe the defeat of the Republican party to the lack of personal magnetism of their candidate, but the great heart of the people will feel that that charge was as false as the claim of the “Four Hundred” to social superiority.
Benjamin Harrison will long be remembered as an exemplary President, if patriotism and the performance of those pledges made to the people who elected him, entitle a President to remembrance. Great as we all recognize the personal magnetism of that magnificent statesman, James G. Blaine, to be, it could not have exerted the influence over the minds of the masses that the death of Mrs. Harrison in the White House did. Death robbed the President of the position of the First Man in the Nation. He became at once the husband, the father, and the man; and had the issue been alone to be decided by personal magnetism, sympathy of the people, the outburst of approval and approbation would have been in favor of Benjamin Harrison. But he and the party whom he represents, justly or unjustly, had become accursed with the crime of “caste” in our country. He was defeated by those who, to a man, bowed their heads in sorrow with him, and shed tears of sympathy at his great loss as a fellow-man and citizen, but could not give him their votes as representing what to them became the party of sham, affected, foreign aristocracy.
Another picture that rises simultaneously before the eyes of the masses as representing those queens in America, to whom more ready homage is paid than was ever accorded to a coronet or crown, is our Frances Cleveland. Ours, because the “Common People” claim her, as only an ordinary, sweet, lovely, modest American woman.
That picture made more votes for Grover Cleveland than any political chicanery could have accomplished. With her baby in her arms, she represents American womanhood, motherhood, and simplicity; that which is best, purest, and dearest to the hearts of all of us, the “Common People.” No higher place is it possible for woman to attain than that she occupies with her babe on her bosom.
THE AMERICAN QUEEN.
THE AMERICAN DUCHESS.
She had gone into the White House a young, guileless, average, common American girl; she had represented, in the high position accorded to her by the hearts of the people, the first lady of the land, with a simplicity and dignity pleasing to every American woman from Maine to Texas. She had welcomed the friends of her girlhood, before, as wife of the President, she became the most prominent female figure in the land, with the same cordiality that as Miss Frances Folsom she had exhibited towards them. The unassuming air with which she occupied her high position as sharer of the honors of the Chieftain of a free people, endeared her to the hearts of the mass of us, “Common People.” The farmer’s wife in Illinois, the mechanic’s wife at Homestead, Pa., the banker’s wife at Philadelphia, the railroad president’s wife in New York, felt a ray of sunshine warming that spot in woman’s heart, which is the Holy of Holies with them, young wifehood; and when Time, the great scene-shifter, had rearranged the setting of the stage, and presented to us the picture of the young mother, she became as interesting an object as the President himself. She had given to America another American. She had set an example for the women of our land which it would be well, my lady in your palace on Fifth avenue, to follow. Do not leave the future generations, who will rule the destinies of this nation, to be the offspring of foreigners; forego your balls, receptions, entertainments, and your trips to Europe; endure the inconvenience and annoyance of the nursery. Let us have some American children born. The prattle of the baby’s tongue will be sweeter music to your ear than the lisping flattery of some foreign duke. You may have the honor of being a mother of some future Jefferson, Jackson, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Lincoln, Garfield, Cleveland.
God bless you, Frances Cleveland, for the example you have set! Thoughts of you and sweet memories of the past, as dear even to the poorest woman as to the Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India, make Democrats of the hard-worked, poor old wife and mother in the little farmhouse of Illinois and Indiana. There is no scene in Grover Cleveland’s career to-day so embalmed in the hearts of the people as that wherein he is described as refusing to talk politics with one of the political satellites that ever hover round planets of the political firmament, putting them aside that he might watch the tottering footsteps of baby Ruth. It was just like any other man of the people, and the people recognized, as they did in the life and acts of Abraham Lincoln, that Grover Cleveland is one of us.
When some member of the “smart set,” who allies herself with the effete nobility of Europe, gives to the world a sample of what a man should be, as did the humble American wife, Nancy Lincoln, then the “Common People” will forget their wrath at the absurd assumption of the worshipers of the British peerage. Women like Martha Washington, Nancy Lincoln, Carrie Harrison, and Frances Cleveland, will ever be contrasted with those samples of the “smart set” who seek the society of the snobs and swells of foreign nations. The wrath of the people will ever be aroused at the arrogant assumption of snobbery and sham aristocracy upon the part of the successful searchers after titles.
The saying, by the “smart set,” that the “Common People” have nothing to do with them or their actions, or with how they dispose of their wealth, is quite true; but the unwise exhibition of an attempt to create class distinctions, can arouse such gusts of anger that that wealth, which is held only by paying such taxes as the “Common People” may decree (being, as they are, the majority), that much-prized wealth may be swept away, as a handful of dust, before the storm of the people’s anger.
The correspondent of the New York World hastens to vindicate the just censure written, from any suspicion of prejudice concerning New York’s “Four Hundred”; but, in the attempt to vindicate, gives evidence enough of the thought of the people with regard to the morals of any “smart set” possessed of unlimited millions, totally idle, selfish, and luxurious:—
“To vindicate my censures from any suspicion of prejudice, let me hasten to add that the tone of New York’s ‘Four Hundred’ is better than that of any corresponding set in the world. Comparisons are not satisfactory, because the society of Paris is the society of all France, and the society of London is the society of the whole British Empire. Compared with these, the social aristocracy of New York is merely a little clique. It is only just to say that it has not yet reached the coarseness of that fast set in London, which it aspires to imitate, and, if it lacks the refinement which centuries of courtly teaching have given to even the most unruly elements of French aristocracy, it also falls short of that cynicism which ignores all moral influences. Perhaps the present lowered tone of society may be only a passing malady. Perhaps things may get better before they get worse. Who knows? We can only say that unlimited millions, total idleness, and selfish luxury, are conditions not usually conducive to the elevation of morals.”
What the people meant by the exhibition of their wrath last November, in the vote that they cast against what they deemed the party of the “smart set,” was the creation only of pictures in future, so sweetly pure as that with which the World correspondent winds up the article:—
JAY GOULD.
Died December, 1892, worth $70,000,000.
“What a different social vista is presented to us when we turn to look back on the long and peaceful life of Emerson’s widow, who died last week at the ripe age of ninety. Although she made no claim on the world’s regard, we catch pleasant glimpses of her personality along the path of the great philosopher’s life, like the sunshine showing through the leaves of the Concord elms. Beside the simple dignity of a life like hers, how unsatisfactory appears the career of an over-dressed, over-fed, over-rich woman of fashion, worn out in the scramble and struggle to keep up with the procession.”
The people desire, and have so expressed themselves, by the mighty voice of the majority, a return to the simple, natural condition of social life in America, wherein “caste” has no place, from which social distinctions disappear; the simple, homely, every-day, virtuous life of the mothers, wives, and daughters of those who made the Republic.
The “Common People” have recorded their protest against snobbery, sham aristocracy, “smart sets,” Ward McAllister, and multi-millionaires, who assume to be better, either by “divine right” or otherwise, than the ordinary American citizen. They have taught, by the lesson preached in the tremendous majorities for that party whom they deemed least tainted with this repugnant crime, that wealth, arrogance, assumption, and snobbery may have obtained an undue amount of influence, disproportioned to its merit, but that, thank God, on election day, every citizen of the Republic enjoys an equal right to the franchise, and that, by the voice of the majority, he will create such laws as to eradicate the insidious disease of “caste” from the wholesome body of the nation.
CHAPTER VI. THE ARISTOCRATIC “CHAPPIE” vs. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
As that satellite of McAllister, that scion of the line of “Patriarchs,” parades Fifth Avenue, creating by his presence an aristocratic atmosphere for the poor, Common People to enjoy, what a picture he presents! How admirable and worthy of emulation!
How the mind naturally recalls specimens of the genus Chappie when the subject of the young male aristocrat recurs to us! This descendant of a half-dozen fur traders, ferrymen, or land speculators, has become elongated and attenuated by the non-exercise of the muscles of his feet and legs in the long tramps that his forefathers used to take to barter for the peltries of the untutored Indian, exchanging rum and bad muskets therefor.
We will begin with Chappie’s lower extremities, because of the greater importance of that part of his anatomy. The pimple which surmounts his structure is hardly worthy to be called a head, and is the least important part of his makeup. Around the thin shanks of his lower limbs are imported striped trousers, in imitation of his English model; these are turned up when it rains in London. His narrow, chicken-like bosom is covered by a hand’s breadth of imported material. (There’s no heart in his bosom, nor other organs worthy of naming within his whole body; hence, a little cloth will cover his trunk.) From sloping shoulders that would have done credit to a belle of the First Empire of France, hangs, in badly wrinkled folds, the latest thing “from Poole’s, of London, y’ know!” Rising from the apex formed by the slopes of his shoulders is a thing through which he breathes, and which he calls a neck; around which, to fence it from the cold blasts of heaven, he has had built a structure which he calls a collar, modelled absolutely after that of “our late lamented Prince Clarence.” Above that thing he calls a neck is nothing; for that which in a human being would represent a face, in this creature is but a simpering mask of idiocy, arrogance, sensuality, intemperance, and licentiousness.
That thing he calls a face, with assured presumption and insulting attitude, he thrusts before the gaze and upon the attention of the daughters of the poor but honest workmen, whose children, not having a fur trader for a grandfather, have to labor. This thing—this “Chappie”—would assume the same privileges as one of the new nobility, the creation of men like McAllister and the “Patriarchs,” as those assumed by the curled and perfumed darlings of the court which surrounded the licentious Louis XV. That which from fear he would not dare to do or say among the “smart set,” he feels at liberty to do or say when thrown among the children of the poor and defenceless on a public street. It is nothing to him to insult the poor shop girl; he would say, “That is one of the evidences that I am of the upper class. It should be an honor to be spoken to by me.”
It was ever one of the idiosyncrasies of the upper classes, wherever people have allowed them to exist, to insult innocence and outrage honor. History teems with it, and “Chappie,” by tradition, thinks that necessarily he must act it, to be of the “Prince’s set.” “Chappie” thinks that the scandal of Cavendish Square was but a little episode—nothing, in fact, because the children of the poor were the only ones contaminated; for the brutes who led to these orgies in Cavendish Square had already become decayed and rotten morally.
“Chappie” in his exalted position sees in every unprotected woman (and he’ll make sure she’s unprotected) a victim upon whom to exercise his wiles, and if, God help her! through weakness, love of dress, finery, or pleasure, she allows herself to be led to lean upon his honor, she’ll fall! For “Chappie’s” honor exists only as aristocracy in America, that being a sham and a fraud, as is Chappie’s honor.
This outgrowth of accumulated wealth, this polluting toad in the pure water of public life, never has and never will, nor can he, give one atom of return to the Republic for the honor of living in it. He whose life is spent in idleness, debauchery, and sensuality regards his valet, coachman, cook, clerk, tailor, hatter, merchant, banker, as his social inferior. And he is always attached, like a barnacle, to the good Republican Ship built by Abraham Lincoln.
Is it a wonder that the people said, in November last: “We’ll burn the ship rather than endure such barnacles?”
This thing, so amusingly written of by that most excellent comic paper, Life, so ridiculed by Puck and Judge, held up for derision by the whole newspaper fraternity, is responsible for the loss of thousands of votes to the Republican party. Indignant wives, sisters, and daughters have returned with flaming cheeks to humble yet honest homes, and told the story of the insults offered them on the streets of this and other good cities in the Union by “Chappie” and those creatures of his kind; and in their telling of the story have made more votes, more Common People’s votes, than have been made by all the newspapers ever printed in the interests of the Democratic party. Each tear that was shed upon the bosom of the poor man by an honest working daughter became a nail in the coffin of the Republican party. Justly or unjustly, such is the case. The Grand Old Party had descended, in the People’s opinion, to the level of enduring representation of it by such as “Chappie.” “How have the mighty fallen!”
“Chappie,” with his vacant semblance of a head, with his trousers carefully rolled up, with his insidious smile, insinuating manner, his suggestive gestures, and ogling glances, has proven himself a valuable assistant to Mr. Harrity, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Steadily he has increased the waters of wrath in the reservoir of the poor man’s heart, until, bursting all barriers, it swept away “Chappie,” his “smart set,” and all, November 8, 1892.
“Chappie,” after his late and dainty breakfast and stroll down Fifth Avenue (every city has its Fifth Avenue or something like it), enabling the daughters of the poor to gaze upon his charming proportions; delighting their fancy with the possibility in the shape of finery that might be theirs would he only condescend to beckon to them; with a few chosen spirits similar to himself—all of the “smart set,” y’ know!—seeks that most discriminating and select of saloons, Delmonico’s. (And every city has its Delmonico.) There, after tickling his palate and tempting his satiated appetite with delicacies so rare and difficult of procurement that the cost of each one of such dainties would feed some poor man’s family for a fortnight; forgetting that early grandfather, the fur trader, who considered pork a feast, leans back in his chair and lisps in affected imitation of the English, “Where shall we g-o, deah boys?”
Now let us draw the veil over where “Chappie” spends his evenings. “Chappie’s” pleasures and “Chappie’s” unnatural amusements would cause a blush of shame to redden the face of the humblest horny-handed son of toil. “Chappie’s” exhausted nature has ceased to realize sensations natural to men and sons of God. “Chappie” is much poorer than his progenitor, the old fur trader; for the old fur trader was rich in all the natural inclinations and appetites created by a natural and vigorous manhood. The old fur trader had no coat-of-arms; but, “Chappie,” that old fur trader would blush at the decadence of his own descendant! When the historian, “Chappie,” shall make up the records of this great nation, that old fur trader, though he swindled the Indians and debauched them with rum, had that which you, “Chappie,” lack—manliness, courage, and character, even though the character was of a peculiar kind.
You have no character, “Chappie.” The Common People have found you a tumor, an excrescence upon the body politic. They have taken their knife to amputate, from wholesome Americanism, a foreign infliction. Be careful, “Chappie,” that the amputation does not include the severance of that semblance of a head that you carry on your sloping shoulders. Be warned in time; you and yours have wealth, luxury, influence, and obedience upon the part of those you dominate. You have all that wealth will buy—villas at Newport, yachts, palaces. You revel in banquets, balls, and glittering assemblages. The poor man’s home is illuminated alone by the light shed by honor. He who would steal or deprive him of that one light, takes all from him that makes his life worth the living. The poor man’s honor is the honor of his wife and children. Your immoralities have increased, like appetite, by what they fed upon. It is not after you, the deluge, but it is around you, the deluge. It is in the air, because it is in the hearts of the Common People.
It is no exaggeration to say that the assumed license which young men of the “Chappie” class exhibit in their lives, morals, and manners, has done much to disgust the large mass of the people. The oft-repeated expression, that “virtue and honesty in England is confined to the great middle classes,” is reiterated by those of the “Chappie” class in America as an excuse for their own misdemeanors. The flagrantly sinful lives, filled with debauchery, which they lead, is an evidence, to their poor intellects, of their being members of the sham aristocracy with which America is cursed. The society of the kind composed of “Chappies” is so objectionable to the decency and intelligence of the Common People that its exclusiveness would be almost a virtue.
The Common People of respectability would never seek “Chappie’s” society, and their hearts are filled with resentment at his supercilious manner and ignoble intentions when seeking the society of the Common People.
ABE, THE RAIL-SPLITTER.—The “Common People” Made Him President.
“Chappie” on Fifth Avenue.—The Worthless Product of “Caste” and Sham Aristocracy.
To some it will appear ridiculous to have devoted so much space in this volume to such a nonentity. If we could confine the “nonentity,” like an ape, in the Zoological Garden in Central Park, it is true so much space would be wasted as he occupies in this volume. But, the fact is, he is allowed to run at large, and in his peregrinations around the country he creates a feeling of disgust among the Common People for that political party to which he proudly asserts he belongs; claiming it to be the “only respectable party.” Were he not, as a “sandwich man,” a walking advertisement of the worst element that has become attached, like an octopus, to the Republican party, “Chappie” would be unworthy of the attentions he has here received.
But, in seeking for the true cause of the decisive and overwhelming overthrow of Lincoln’s “Grand Old Party,” it is necessary to mix even this worthless ingredient into the porridge of defeat with which the leaders of the Republican party have been fed.
It is a relief to turn from the despicable object of “Chappie,” and regard and compare in our minds with him the men who have “left footprints on the sands of time” in the history of our nation.
What a contrast is presented when we shift “Chappie” from the scene of our mental vision and bring forth the loved “Harry” Clay, the miller’s boy. That barefoot boy, on a bony, ill-bred horse, with shaggy mane and tail; holding a bag of corn in front of him, on his journey to the mill for his widowed mother, is a more inspiring picture, decidedly, than “Chappie” on his well-bred English cob whose coat is soft as fur from constant currying, whose tail is cropped off a la the fashion for riding-horses in London. As “Chappie” sits on his little imported English saddle, and daintily holds an imported English riding whip, prepared for a ride, to give the “Common People” an exhibition of the beauty, gallantry and horsemanship of the scion of sham aristocracy; with all his glory, backed with all of his millions, “Chappie” does not warm the hearts of the “Common People” like the picture of that miller’s boy, Henry Clay, the great Commoner of Kentucky.
Daniel Webster, struggling as district school teacher in New England, clothed in ill-fitting garments, would somehow furnish a better model for the sculptor or painter who would make a statue or picture or a head of him who was, indeed, a mighty man.
The music of the voice of grand old Daniel Webster, even though he did not drawl in delightful imitation of the English, would give greater delight to the “Common People,” plebeian as they are and unrefined, than “Chappie’s” lispings.
There remains another figure, called to mind by the Common People when they view “Chappie,” by reason of the vast difference between the figure of “Chappie” and the “rail-splitter” of Illinois. The long, uncouth, gangling, ungainly figure of a boy sprawled on his back, lying on the floor of a humble log-cabin, seeking knowledge in a well-thumbed book, by the light of a flickering fire, presents something that speaks more eloquently to the hearts of the Common People than “Chappie’s” gorgeous appearance and apparel; for they know that the name of the lad before that fire was Abraham Lincoln, and that from that uncouth figure, and by the aid of that difficultly-acquired knowledge, resulted the production of that man who, as representative of the Common People as their President, stood as the Rock of Gibraltar when the fierce waves of fratricidal war swept over our land; immovable, firm and unchangeable as that rock itself in the determination that the Union should be preserved, and that the Stars and Stripes should float over every inch of ground of the United States of America. While others lost hope and many were downcast, groping for support in the hour of gloom and peril to the national existence of our country, that man, who was the outcome of the ungainly figure by the fire, led the people of the nation as the pillar of fire of old led the hosts of Israel.
While men like Jefferson, Jackson, Clay, Webster and Lincoln present types which, to the minds of the Common People of America, are best and greatest, the picture of “Chappie,” in all of his splendid apparel, peculiar pronunciation, abnormal immoralities, will sink into insignificance beneath the flood of the people’s contempt and disapproval; just as the party to which “Chappie” had allied himself were swept away and submerged, November 8, 1892.
ANDREW CARNEGIE.
A “Self-Made” Man. A Multi-Millionaire.
Made $20,000,000 in America;
Lives in Scotland.