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.”