Word: urbane
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...properties of a phantom. In yet another light, the recurrence of this sectional line-up, which is essentially an arraignment of farm against town indicates a cleavage not unknown to American politics. In 1800, 1828, and 1896, it culminated in new party alignments. Now with the House falling under urban sway as the population of the cities grows, it would be hardly surprising to see the farmer make the Senate the scene of his last stand in much the same manner that the southerners checkmated the north long after the latter had outstripped them in population...
...Tartuffes, it is well to be aware of the fact here, that one may protect oneself against them. And since the Watch and Ward Society is firmly established it is evident that Mr. Mencken is waging justified, protective warfare. Ethics are not the most facilely adjusted elements in any urban administration. Yet an occasional acquaintance with them hurts no one. Ward bosses of the Watch variety who believe that the end justifies the means are rather anachronistic anyway. And certainly they do not present the most pleasant spectacle either in Boston book shops or on Boston Common...
...inactive members are some of the more esteemed citizens of the city, has played guardian to the people, established their moral code. And that code, being the expression of the active and more bigoted members, has been both a rule of ignorance and a law of pettiness. When any urban group submits to the ethical dicta of a prejudiced and demi-intelligent minority, that group has lost whatever claim to progressive decency it ever possessed...
...little man will take his place. So there will be just enough "Hatrackets" to make Boston realize its existence to appreciate its morals. And above the dome of the State House and over the dome of the Mother Church and high above the accordian pleated sincerity of each honest urban heart will smile an unknown god who moves in a pillar of wisdom--and the god's name? Meredith called him the Comic Spirit...
...public is an urban public. In all probability statistics would prove it a laboring, largely foreign, and almost wholly an uneducated public. From the more certain evidence afforded by the contents and wide circulation of the new journals, it appears to be a public relishing news of a domestic nature, editorials couched in simple sentences and expressing the precepts of simpletons, and, above all, pictures illustrating stories of comprehensible disgrace or honor. It finds equal and not different attraction in moral turpitude and mundano triumph; on the one hand, robberv murder, and divorce; on the other, limerick contests, daring rescues...