Chicago and its cess-pools of infamy

by Samuel Paynter Wilson

Society in Chicago is made up of many parts, a few of which we propose to examine.

The first-class is unfortunately smallest, and consists of those who set culture and personal refinement above riches. It is made up of professional men and their families, lawyers, clergymen, artists, authors, physicians, scientific men and others of kindred pursuits and tastes. Compared with the other classes, it is not wealthy, though many of its members manage to attain competency and ease. Their homes are tasteful and often elegant, and the household graces are cultivated in preference to display, the tone of this class is pure, healthy and vigorous, and personal merit is the surest passport to it. It furnishes the best types of manhood and womanhood to be met with in the metropolis and its homelife is simple and attractive. In short, it may be said to be the saving element of society in the city, and fortunately it is a growing element, drawing to it every year new members, not only from the city itself, but from all parts of the country. It is this class which gives tone to the moral and religious life of the city. Its members are generally sufficiently well-off in this world’s goods to render them independent of the forms to which others are slaves; they are always ready to recognize and lend a helping hand to struggling merit, but sternly discountenance vulgarity and imposture. They furnish the men and women who do the best work and accomplish the greatest results in social and business life and their names are honored throughout the city.

The second-class consists of those who have inherited large wealth for one or more generations of ancestors. They are generally people of culture, nothing of shoddyism or snobbery about them. Their houses are filled with valuable works of art and mementoes. Having an abundance of leisure they are free to cultivate the graces of life, and they constitute one of the pleasantest patrons of society in the city. The class is not large, but it is constantly receiving new members in the children of men who have made their way in the world, and have learned to value money at its true worth. They make good citizens, with the exception of an easy going indifference to political affairs, are proud of their city and country, and do not ape the airs or costumes of foreign lands.

The third largest class, that which may be said to give Chicago’s fashionable society its peculiar tone, consists of the “newly rich.” These are so numerous, and make themselves so conspicuous, that they are naturally regarded as the representative class of Chicago society. They may be known by their coarse appearances, and still coarser manners, their loud style and ostentatious display of wealth. Money with them is everything, and they judge men, not by their merits, but by their bank account. They are strangers to the refinements and small, sweet courtesies of life, and for them substitute a hauteur and a dash that lay them open to unmerciful ridicule. Some of them are without education or polish, and look down upon those who are less fortunate than themselves, and fawn with cringing servility upon the more aristocratic portion of society. To be invited to an entertainment of some family of solid repute in the fashionable world, to be on visiting terms with those whose wealth and culture rank them as the true aristocracy, is the height of their ambition. This they generally accomplish, for money is a passport to all classes of Chicago society. The better elements may laugh at the “newly rich,” but they invite them to their houses, entertain them, are entertained in return, and so do their share in keeping the “newly rich” firm in its position on the Avenues and Lake Shore Drive.

The “newly rich” look down with supreme contempt upon the institutions which have enabled them to rise so high in the social scale. It is from them one hears so many complaints of the degeneracy of society, and it is the frown from them that chills the ambitious hopes of rising merit; lacking personal dignity themselves, they ridicule it in others.

Some strange changes of names are brought about by a translation to the upper circles. Plain John Smith becomes John Smythe, and perhaps Smyythe. Sam Long, who began life by driving a dray, is now Mr. Samuel Longue. A coat of arms suddenly makes its appearance, for the establishment in the city which deals in such matters is equal to any emergency, and often a pedigree is manufactured in the same way.

A mansion on Lake Shore Drive or in any of the more pretentious avenues, newly acquired wealth is liberally expended in fitting up the new house; and then the fortunate owners of it suddenly burst upon society as stars of first magnitude. They are ill-adapted to their new position, it is true, rude and unrefined, but they have wealth and are willing to spend it, and money is supposed to carry with it all the virtues and graces of fashionable life. This is all society requires, and it receives them with open arms, flatters and courts them, and exalts them to the seventh heaven of fashionable bliss.

Lucky are they who can manage to retain the positions thus acquired. It too often happens that this suddenly gotten wealth goes as rapidly as it came. Then the star begins to pale and finally the family drops out of the fashionable world. It is not missed, however; new stars take their places, perhaps to share the same fate, thus this class of society is not permanent as regards its members. It is constantly changing. People come and go, and the leaders of one season may be conspicuous the next only by their absence.

Sometimes even this class of society takes a notion to be exclusive, and then it is hard to enter the charmed circle.

Some years ago, a gentleman, a man of brains and sterling merit, who had risen slowly to fortune feeling himself in every way fitted for social distinction, resolved to enter society, and to signalize his entree by a grand entertainment. At that time he lived in a not very fashionable street, but he did not regard this as a drawback. He issued his invitations and prepared his entertainment upon a scale of unusual magnificence, and at the appointed time his mansion was ablaze with light, and ready for the guests. Great was his mortification, not one of those invited set foot within his doors. In his anger he swore a mighty oath that he would yet compel Chicago society to humble itself to him. He kept his word, became one of the wealthiest men in the city, indeed one of the merchant princes of the land, and in the course of a few years, society, which had scorned his first invitations, was begging for admission to his sumptuous fetes. He became a leader of society, and his mandates were humbly obeyed by those who had presumed to look down upon him. It was a characteristic triumph; his millions did the work.