There undoubtedly is something in the American temperament
that prevents our doing anything in moderation. If we take
up an idea, it is immediately run to exaggeration and then
abandoned, that the nation may fly at a tangent after some new
fad. Does this come from our climate, or (as I am inclined
to think) from the curiously unclassified state of society in our
country, where so few established standards exist and so few are
sure of their own or their neighbors’ standing? In
consequence, if Mrs. Brown starts anything, Mrs. Jones, for fear
of being left behind, immediately “goes her one
better” to be in turn “raised” by Mrs.
Robinson.
In other lands a reasonable pride of birth has always been one
of the bonds holding communities together, and is estimated at
its just value. We, after having practically ignored the
subject for half a century, suddenly rush to the other extreme,
and develop an entire forest of genealogical trees at a
growth.
Chagrined, probably, at the small amount of consideration that
their superior birth commanded, a number of aristocratically
minded matrons united a few years ago as “Daughters of the
Revolution,” restricting membership to women descended from
officers of Washington’s army. There may have been a
reason for the formation of this society. I say
“may” because it does not seem quite clear what its
aim was. The originators doubtless imagined they were
founding an exclusive circle, but the numbers who clamored for
admittance quickly dispelled this illusion. So a small
group of the elect withdrew in disgust and banded together under
the cognomen of “Colonial Dames.”
The only result of these two movements was to awaken envy,
hatred, and malice in the hearts of those excluded from the
mysterious rites, which to outsiders seemed to consist in
blackballing as many aspirants as possible. Some victims of
this bad treatment, thirsting for revenge, struck on the happy
thought of inaugurating an “Aztec” society. As
that title conveyed absolutely no idea to any one, its members
were forced to explain that only descendants of officers who
fought in the Mexican War were eligible. What the elect did
when they got into the circle was not specified.
The “Social Order of Foreign Wars” was the next
creation, its authors evidently considering the Mexican campaign
as a domestic article, a sort of family squabble. Then the
“Children of 1812” attracted attention, both groups
having immediate success. Indeed, the vogue of these
enterprises has been in inverse ratio to their usefulness or
raison d’être, people apparently being ready
to join anything rather than get left out in the cold.
Jealous probably of seeing women enjoying all the fun, their
husbands and brothers next banded together as “Sons of the
Revolution.” The wives retaliated by instituting the
“Granddaughters of the Revolution” and “The
Mayflower Order,” the “price of admission” to
the latter being descent from some one who crossed in that
celebrated ship—whether as one of the crew or as passenger
is not clear.
It was not, however, in the American temperament to rest
content with modest beginnings, the national motto being,
“The best is good enough for me.” So wind was
quickly taken out of the Mayflower’s sails by “The
Royal Order of the Crown,” to which none need apply who
were not prepared to prove descent from one or more royal
ancestors. It was not stated in the prospectus whether
Irish sovereigns and Fiji Island kings counted, but I have been
told that bar sinisters form a class apart, and are deprived of
the right to vote or hold office.
Descent from any old king was, however, not sufficient for the
high-toned people of our republic. When you come to think
of it, such a circle might be “mixed.” One really
must draw the line somewhere (as the Boston parvenu replied when
asked why he had not invited his brother to a ball). So the
founders of the “Circle of Holland Dames of the New
Netherlands” drew the line at descent from a sovereign of
the Low Countries. It does not seem as if this could be a
large society, although those old Dutch pashas had an
unconscionable number of children.
The promoters of this enterprise seem nevertheless to have
been fairly successful, for they gave a fête recently and
crowned a queen. To be acclaimed their sovereign by a group
of people all of royal birth is indeed an honor. Rumors of
this ceremony have come to us outsiders. It is said that
they employed only lineal descendants of Vatel to prepare their
banquet, and I am assured that an offspring of Gambrinus acted as
butler.
But it is wrong to joke on this subject. The state of
affairs is becoming too serious. When sane human beings
form a “Baronial Order of Runnymede,” and announce in
their prospectus that only descendants through the male line from
one (or more) of the forty noblemen who forced King John to sign
the Magna Charta are what our Washington Mrs. Malaprop would call
“legible,” the action attests a diseased condition of
the community. Any one taking the trouble to remember that
eight of the original barons died childless, and that the Wars of
the Roses swept away nine tenths of what families the others may
have had, that only one man in England (Lord de Ros) can at the
present day prove male descent further back than the
eleventh century, must appreciate the absurdity of our
compatriots’ pretensions. Burke’s Peerage is
acknowledged to be the most “faked” volume in the
English language, but the descents it attributes are like
mathematical demonstrations compared to the “trees”
that members of these new American orders climb.
When my class was graduated from Mr. McMullen’s school,
we little boys had the brilliant idea of uniting in a society,
but were greatly put about for an effective name, hitting finally
upon that of Ancient Seniors’ Society. For a group of
infants, this must be acknowledged to have been a luminous
inspiration. We had no valid reason for forming that
society, not being particularly fond of each other. Living
in several cities, we rarely met after leaving school and had
little to say to each other when we did. But it sounded so
fine to be an “Ancient Senior,” and we hoped in our
next school to impress new companions with that title and make
them feel proper respect for us in consequence. Pride,
however, sustained a fall when it was pointed out that the
initials formed the ominous word “Ass.”
I have a shrewd suspicion that the motives which prompted our
youthful actions are not very different from those now inciting
children of a larger growth to band together, blackball their
friends, crown queens, and perform other senseless mummeries,
such as having the weathercock of a departed meeting-house
brought in during a banquet, and dressing restaurant waiters in
knickerbockers for “one night only.”
This malarial condition of our social atmosphere accounts for
the quantity of genealogical quacks that have taken to sending
typewritten letters, stating that the interest they take in your
private affairs compels them to offer proof of your descent from
any crowned head to whom you may have taken a fancy. One
correspondent assured me only this month that he had papers in
his possession showing beyond a doubt that I might claim a
certain King McDougal of Scotland for an ancestor. I have
misgivings, however, as to the quality of the royal blood in my
veins, for the same correspondent was equally confident six
months ago that my people came in direct line from
Charlemagne. As I have no desire to “corner”
the market in kings, these letters have remained unanswered.
Considering the mania to trace descent from illustrious men,
it astonishes me that a Mystic Band, consisting of lineal
descendants from the Seven Sages of Greece, has not before now
burst upon an astonished world. It has been suggested that
if some one wanted to organize a truly restricted circle,
“The Grandchildren of our Tripoli War” would be an
excellent title. So few Americans took part in that
conflict—and still fewer know anything about it—that
the satisfaction of joining the society would be immense to
exclusively-minded people.
There is only one explanation that seems in any way to account
for this vast tomfoolery. A little sentence, printed at the
bottom of a prospectus recently sent to me, lets the ambitious
cat out of the genealogical bag. It states that
“social position is assured to people joining our
order.” Thanks to the idiotic habit some newspapers
have inaugurated of advertising, gratis, a number of self-elected
society “leaders,” many feeble-minded people, with
more ambition than cash, and a larger supply of family papers
than brains, have been bitten with a social madness, and enter
these traps, thinking they are the road to position and
honors. The number of fools is larger than one would have
believed possible, if the success of so many
“orders,” “circles,”
“commanderies,” and “regencies” were not
there to testify to the unending folly of the would-be
“smart.”
This last decade of the century has brought to light many
strange fads and senseless manias. This
“descent” craze, however, surpasses them all in
inanity. The keepers of insane asylums will tell you that
one of the hopeless forms of madness is la folie des
grandeurs. A breath of this delirium seems to be
blowing over our country. Crowns and sceptres haunt the
dreams of simple republican men and women, troubling their
slumbers and leading them a will-o’-the-wisp dance back
across the centuries.
