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Show IBS B1ES lift II mu inous War Writer Finds R-ew Yorkers Respectable and Domestic. S iety Honest, Sincere, of Middle Class, Says Great V Journalist. 'i 'f-ia' to The Tribune. flW VOKK, Aug. 9. People who !!eve that American life is decadent that we are all headed for the tar-fori tar-fori bowwows, our primrose path (e merry by the syncopation of jazz, Ltiiose of the opposite camp who feci i the good old American virtues si ill kic, will fiet varying emotions I Philip Gibbs' frank analysis of ,J Adventure of Iifu in New ' the feature article of Harper's p-razinc for August. ' ir Mr Gibbs finds us not only cmi-'; cmi-'; respectable, but highly domestic, mains that our maiden aunts set ft pice for our frivolous gaiety an(1 C v.hcn it comes to la vie dc luxe, we it much as we do the sybaritic try of our great hotels as visitors " r and end by taking our wife and icr home to the domestic .ioys of ;0mo and Oshkosh, Washington (Ms and Brooklyn. rfiilors in la Vie dc Luxe. VThe adventure of life in Xew '' savs Mr. Gibbs, "always star-(' star-(' and exciting, I am certain, to a i or woman who enters its swirl as ranger, was more stirring at the t of"mv first visit because of this" Jlj-in? influence of war's backwash. 1 city was overcrowded with visitors on all parts of the United States who ' come in to meet their home-'com-', soldiers, and, having met them. Fj'ed a while to give these boys a good is after their exile. This floating , ulation of New York flowed into all X hotels and theaters. ... I "'clie'l the social life in theso palaces l found it more entertaining than h most sensational' 'movie.' The ' 'litccts of these American hotels ac vied with each other in creating ..atmosphere of richness and luxury. J' . The fastness and tho overwhelm-hixury overwhelm-hixury of the New York hotels was ij first and strongest impression in i city after I had recovered from the Ration of, the high, fautastic build-iii, build-iii, hut it occurred to me very quickly :i this luxury of architecture and ijmtion has no close reference to lifo of the people. They aro only 9itors in la vie de luxe and do not "ni!; to it, and do not let it. enter u:i their eouls and bodies. In a weai-rt.T, weai-rt.T, nioro expansivo way, they are I tho city clerks and their girls in EB'lon, -who pay eighteen pence for a il in marble halls at Lyon's Popular (Ji, and sit around a gilded menu-card jne, ' Isn't it wonderful . . . and JS jl "c go home by tram f ' ' ()f "Middle Class" Society. 'There are many rich people in New 2,k more, I suppose, than in any (,;r city of the world, but, apart from nopolitan men and women who have Jliry beneath their skins, there is no .Cite sense of it in the social life of .,io people. In tho hotel palaces, as m as in the private mansions along 1 'h PNounc and Riverside Drive, all i - their outward splendor does not alter the simplicity and honesty of their character. They remain essentially 'middle class,' and have none of the easy licentiousness of that European aristocracy which, before the war, flaunted its wealth and its vico iii Paris, Vienna, Monte Carlo, and other haunts, where the cocottes of the world assembled to barter their beauty, and where idle men went from boredom to boredom in search of subtle forms of pleasure. American women of wealth spend vast sums of money on dress, and there is the glitter of diamonds at many dinner tables, but most of them have too much shrewdness of humor to play the 'vamp,' and the social code to which they belong is swept clean by common sense. Democracy and Diamonds. " 'My dear,' said an American hostess, host-ess, who belongs to one of the old rich families of New York, 'forgive me for wearing my diamonds tonightV It must shock you, coming from scenes of ruin and desolation.' This dowager duchess of Xew Y'ork, as I like to think of her, wore her diamonds as the mayor of a provincial town in England wears his chain of office, but as she sat at the head of her table in one of the big mansions of New York I saw that wealth had not cumbered the $oul of this masterful lady, whose views on life are as direct and simplo as those of Abraham Lincoln. She was the middle mid-dle class housewife, in spite of the footmen foot-men who stood in fear of her. " Essentially aniddle class in the best sense of the word were the crowds 1 mot in the hotels. The men wferc making mak-ing money lots of it by hard work. They had taken a few da3Fs off, or left business early, to meet their soldier sons in these gilded halls where they had a sense of satisfaction in spending largo numbers of dollars in a short time. "'This is my boy from "over there"! Just come back.' Women Know Dress. "I heard that introduction many times, and saw the look of pride behind be-hind the glasses that were worn "by a gray-eyed man who had his hand on the arm of an upstanding fellow in field uniform, tall and lean and hard. 'It's good to be back,' said one of these young officers, and as ho sat at table he looked round the huge salon with its cutglass candelabra, where scores of little dinner parties were in progress to the strident music of a stringed band, and then, with a queer little smile about his lips, as though thinking think-ing of the contrast between this scene and 'over there,' said. ' Darned good'! "In their evening frocks the women were elegant they know how to dress at night and, now and then the fresh, frank beauty of one" of these American Ameri-can girls startled my eyes by its witchery of 3-outh and health. Some of theni wore decollete to the ultimate limit of a modiste's audacity, and foolishly I suffered from a sense of confusion sometimes because of the physical rexelations of elderly ladies whose virtue, I am sure, was as irreproachable irre-proachable as that of Caesar's wife. The frail queens of beauty in the lotus-garden lotus-garden of life's enchanted places would envy some of the frocks that come out of Fifth avenue, aDd scream with horror at their prices. "But, although the American woman with a wealthy husband likes to put on the flimsy rubes of Circe, it is ouly as she would go to a fancy-dress ball in a frock that would make her brother say. Gee! And where did you get that bit of fluff? She is Circe, with the suffrage, and high ideals of life, and strong views on the league of nations. She makes up her face like a French comedienne, but she has, nine times out of ten, the kind heart of a parson's wife in rural .England, and a frank, good-natured wit which faces the realities of life with the candor of a clean mind! Our Respectable Gaiety. "I found 'gay life' in New York immensely im-mensely and soberly respectable. One could (ake one's maiden aunt into the heart of it and not get hot by her blushes. In fact, it is the American maiden auut who sets the pace of the fox-trot and the oue-step in dancing-rooms dancing-rooms where there are music and afternoon after-noon tea. Several times I supped 'English breakfast tea' I suspect Sir Thomas Lipton bad something to do with it at five o'clock on bright afternoons, after-noons, watching the scene at Sherrv's and Dclmouico's. It seemed to me that this dancing habit was a most curious and overrated form of social pleasure. It was as though American society has said, 'Let us bo devilishly-gay! devilishly-gay! ' but started too early in the day, with desperate sobriety. Man' couples left the tea-table for the polished boards and joined the throng which surged and eddied in circles of narrow circumference jostled by other dancers. Nothing to Shock Moralist. 1 1 One figure that caupht my eye pave the keynote to the moral and spiritual spir-itual character of the scene. It was the figure of a stout old ladv wearing a hat with a huge feather which waggled over hoi nose as she danced the one-step one-step with earnest vivacity, and an old gentleman with side whiskers. She panted as she came back to the tea table, ta-ble, and said, 'Say, that makes you feel young!' It occurred to me that she might be Mrs. Wings of the Cabbage Patch on a visit to New York, and, anyhow, her presence assured me that afternoon dancing at JJclnionieo 's need not form the theme of any moralist in search of vice in high places. It is not only respectable; it is domestic. Savonarola himself would not have denounced de-nounced such innocent amusement. Nor did I find anything to shock the sensibilities sensi-bilities of high-soulod ethics in such midnight haunts as the Ziegfcld Follies of the Winter Garden, except the inanity inan-ity of all such shows where large numbers num-bers of pretty girls and others disport themselves in' flowing draperies and colored col-ored lights before groups of tired people peo-ple who can hardly hide their boredom, but yawn laughingly over their cocktails cock-tails and say, 'Isn't she wonderful?'' when Mollie King sings a song about a variety of smiles, and discusses the pcr-sor.rilily pcr-sor.rilily of President Wilson between comic turns of tho Doolcy brothers. Drinks Bacardi Cocktail. "That, at least, is what happened in my little group on the roof of the Century Cen-tury theater, where a manufacturer of barbed wire I wonder if they were his barbs on 'which I tore myself in Flan-dors Flan-dors fields initiated me intn the mystery mys-tery of a Bacardi cocktail followed by a stinger, from which T was rescued in the nick of time, by a kind lady on my right, who took pity" on my innocence. A famous playwright opposite, as sober as a judge, as courteous as Beau Brum-mell, Brum-mell, passed the lime of day, which was a wee small hour of morn in cr, with little ladies wlm came into the limelight, until un-til suddenly he said, wi'h a sigh of infinite in-finite impal'onee: 'Haven't wo en-1 en-1 oy e d o u r so I v es enough? I wa n t m y bed'; so interrupting a i-orious discussion discus-sion between a war correspondent, and a cartoonist on the e:;act truth about (ierman atrocities, to the monstrous melody of a jazz band. ' Unman nature is the same in New York as in other cities of the world. Passion, weakness, folly, are not eliminated elim-inated from the relations hclwccn American men and women. Put to find vice and decadence in American society one has to go in search of it and L did not go. 1 found Xew York society tol-ora tol-ora at in its views, frank in its ex pre s-siou s-siou of opinion, fond of laughter, and wonderfully since re. Weal E li does not spoil i',s fresh and healthy outlook on life, and its people are idealisls at heart, with a reverence for the old fa-h- j iniicd virtues and an admiration fur; those who 'make c1nd ' in whatever job! to whirh th'v put their hands.'' |