“Why, Mr. Editor, there are thousands of good Democratic citizens who can trace back their descent to the Pilgrim Fathers, more than a hundred years before Alexander Hamilton landed from the West Indies. Is it not a relic of feudal times and barbarism to claim distinction above our fellows and superiority of birth on account of the deeds of an ancestor a hundred or more years ago?
“‘Honor and fame from no condition rise. Act well your part; there all the honor lies.’”
Shades of the great dead of journalism, the Bennetts, Raymonds, and others who have left the stamp of their genius upon newspaperdom in America, look down and pity the inane idiot who gives utterance to sentiments concerning Horace Greeley like those of the descendant of one of the “Patriarchs!” And men who occupy positions in the world of journalism, like Halstead, Cockerill, Clark Howell, how like you such utterances?
Really, had Horace Greeley been alive and known of such an utterly meaningless assertion, doubtless the old genius would have smiled; but here is the query: Would it not have made a Democrat of every female member of his family, who regarded him as the epitome of worth, virtue, and merit? That a man like Horace Greeley, who had arrived at a position so pre-eminent as to disregard the snarls of puppies, should be amused at such a statement, would not be astonishing; but it would be none the less disagreeable for the women of his family. A woman’s life is essentially social.
This illustration, and it would be impossible to find a better, of this nauseating attempt to establish “caste” in our country, will demonstrate the assertion that attempted class distinction has not been confined to the laboring man, the workman, or the poor man, but has been attempted, and made obnoxious, in every degree of wealth, learning, and position. The little country or village manufacturing magnate, whose Republicanism is not the Republicanism of _principles_ nor the Republicanism advocated by Abraham Lincoln, has adopted the scheme set forth by Ward McAllister as a successful one, to be imitated in his little community, in establishing his own little “smart set”--his own local “Patriarchs.” Proceeding upon that basis, he and his little band of innovators have attempted an improvement upon the social system of each little community, which has become associated in the minds of the “Common People” of these little communities with Republicanism; and, therefore, the Republican party, in November last, was forced to bear the opprobrium that attached itself, in the minds of the “Common People,” to the “smart set” in their little communities.