The Crime of Caste in Our Country

by Benjamin Rush Davenport

The honesty of purpose and the wisdom of the action of the legislative part of the Government, it is not the province of this book to question. It is to record the result of the action upon the social relations of the different members of that little community, or village, in which the small factory was established, and the attendant unhappiness arising from the accumulation of a disproportioned amount of money in the hands of one of the citizens of the community. The manufacturer, becoming prosperous, began to assume an air of social superiority. He was enabled to take a trip every now and again to some near-by city. He there saw his model McAllister. He returned to his village with un-American affectations, aping the manner of his model—the McAllister of his near-by city. He began to draw around him (in much the same manner as McAllister describes the creation of the “Patriarchs” of New York) those whom he deemed suitable for that superior social position which he, modelling the machinery after the manner of the city McAllister, deemed so desirable.

Before proceeding to describe the birth of this superior social class, and the method of its organization, for which information we are indebted to this Prince of Cooks and Coats—McAllister—it is desirable to regard in a political way this local would-be aristocrat, the manufacturer. He imagines that Protection, the tariff, by which he has been enabled to amass the wealth, as the foundation upon which he bases his claim to a more exalted position, socially, than his fellow citizens, is entirely due to the doctrines of the Republican party. He loses sight of the fact that the Republican party did not owe its origin to Protection. The Abraham Lincoln Republican party did not owe its victory and popularity in the hearts of the people to Protection. There were other causes which operated powerfully in producing the result of the election in 1860; but the manufacturer of that little village, before mentioned, absorbed by the one idea that Protection has been the one cause of his success, and that it was due to the Republican party, becomes oblivious to the fact that the necessities of the Government, during a war to preserve the Federal Union, became so great that revenue had to be derived from some source, and that many of the duties imposed upon foreign importations by the Republican party had for their cause the stern necessity of the soldiers in the field, fighting to preserve the Union; that the war was not a battle for Protection. It had for its origin other and very different causes.

The war, which had been the outgrowth of the election of the candidate of the Republican party, created expenses which the Republican administration had to meet, and as a means to that end it became necessary to increase the existing duty and to place new duties upon imported manufactured articles. And by so doing they carried to a successful termination the great struggle for the preservation of the Union, to which the Republican party had pledged itself; which, together with the inclination and desire of some of the prominent members of the Republican party to increase the manufacturing industries of the country, has brought about that Protection and tariff by which he, the village manufacturer, has profited. He never stops to consider whether the tariff was a means to the end so profoundly desired, the preservation of the Union, a means of furnishing sinews of war by which the stars were retained upon our flag. He regards the tariff and Protection only in its personal aspect. The Republican party, to him, means his benefactor, to whom he owes an eternal debt of gratitude for enabling him to acquire that which, without Protection and tariff, he never could have obtained in the open field of the commercial battle wherein the world at large may contend. The position held by great thinkers of the Abraham Lincoln period is utterly unappreciated by him. That this tariff and Protection, which has been such a boon to him, was not created for his especial benefit, never suggests itself to his mind; that men of the Lincoln day and stamp should have had in view only the preservation of the Union and creating a fund to pay the expenses of those engaged to accomplish that end, does not occur to the village manufacturer.

In fact, many of the Republican politicians have made too much of the Protection doctrine and not enough of the cause that created it. This village, protected, small manufacturer, communing with himself, concludes that without Protection he could never have amassed that wealth which he is endeavoring to make elevate him above the social status of his fellow citizens. He acknowledges, possibly, to himself, that without Protection he might still be struggling for existence upon an equal plane with the “Common People,” above whose heads he hopes to elevate himself socially. He regards only the Republican party of to-day, utterly oblivious to the fact that he and men of the McAllister and the “smart set” type have no just appreciation and no great admiration for the father of the Republican party, Abraham Lincoln, and his doctrines, which are the doctrines and sentiments of the “Common People.” He merely knows that Protection helped him, and he cares nothing for what it was that brought about Protection and compelled the Republican party to advocate a high tariff during the Civil War.

Hence, this village manufacturer, this would-be social leader, the imitator of the city Ward McAllister, is a most ardent Republican. The little set of satellites which he gathers round him, glad to imitate the examples and opinions of one who has attained success and who is a recognized leader of this social movement to create “Caste” in our communities, become also ardent Republicans. In other words, it becomes almost a mark of respectability (so called) in the little community wherein resides the small protected manufacturer, to be a Republican.

The very word “Democrat” smacks so much of the “Common People.” A man of intelligence, education, or wealth, who is a Democrat, becomes a social anomaly in that little community. A few prominent men through the land, who have become associated with the Democratic party, are spoken of merely as the result of inherited opinions through a long line of ancestry, similar to an inherited religion, or a motto on a coat-of-arms. A man who believes in Democracy, in its broad sense, is regarded in these little communities, when he is possessed of education, intelligence, and money, as a kind of firebrand. His every action is viewed with suspicion. So firmly has it become fixed in the minds of this little set of satellites, who surround the local manufacturing magnate, that “Republicanism” and “respectability” are synonymous, that they find it utterly incompatible with reason and refinement for a man to be respectable, according to their definition of the term, and not at the same time be a Republican.

The “Common People” in these little communities, many of whom have been Republicans with Abraham Lincoln, many of whom were veteran soldiers of the Union, became more incensed by the impression created by this local “smart set,” than convinced by argument, during the campaign of 1892.

Before proceeding to more fully dissect the sentiment created by this kind of nonsense, and by its almost invariable association with the Republican party throughout the land, we will return to the admirable, unabashed Ward McAllister, and quote something from his text-book of snobbery, as to the methods adopted in the creation of the “smart set” in New York, which has furnished a model for similar creations through the length and breadth of the land.

“As a child,” writes this scion of a race of nobles(?), “I had often listened with great interest to my father’s account of his visit to London, with Dominick Lynch, the greatest swell and beau that New York had ever known. He would describe his going with this friend to Almack’s, finding themselves in a brilliant assemblage of people, knowing no one and no one deigning to notice them; Lynch, turning to my father, exclaimed: ‘Well, my friend, geese, indeed, were we, to thrust ourselves in here, where we are evidently not wanted.’ He had hardly finished the sentence when the Duke of Wellington (to whom they had brought letters, and who had sent them tickets to Almack’s) entered, looked around, and seeing them, at once approached them, took each by the arm and walked them twice up and down the room; then, pleading an engagement, said ‘Good-night’ and left. Their countenances fell as he rapidly left the room, but the door had barely closed on him when all crowded around them, and in a few minutes they were presented to everyone of note, and had a charming evening. He described to us how Almack’s originated—all by the banding together of powerful women of influence for the purpose of getting up these balls, and in this way making them the greatest social events of London society.