Select Organizations in the United States (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Select Organizations in the United States

With men, on the other hand, it is different. They enjoy to an extent unknown among women, the ability to amuse and instruct themselves, independent of women's society. There are clubmen in this city who seldom, if ever, go into the society of women, and yet they appear to enjoy life exceedingly. There are good reasons for this, too, because men have more freedom and are more independent than women, and have a far greater number of ways of amusing themselves When associated together in a club a certain bond of sympathy, if not of affection, springs up between the various members, and it is a fact that men belonging to the same club always show each other marked consideration both in and out of the club-house. I have heard it said, on the other hand, that the meetings of the various women's clubs have not infrequently been attended with disturbance.

The first principle governing clubs should be social equality. Unless this prin cipic is carried out as a fundamental law, no club can exist harmoniously. Society itself in this country cannot exist without admitting this principle. Wealth, neither in this or any other country, can stand alone unsupported. In fact, it always has a large following of the impecunious. In England, where the nobility and aristocracy derive their importance entirely from the toadyism of the middle classes, you never see a man of wealth or high position, unless, as Thackery puts it, he be attended by his tadpoles and toadies. We are fast coming to it here, for, unfortunately for our American independence, we are importing this custom from England. There is hardly a Crassus among us who has not his recognized following, assuring him that he is a Sir Oracle, and when he opes his lips, let no dog bark.

The Somerset Club of Boston, one of the oldest and best clubs in America, has permitted the introduction of ladies into a portion of their fine club-house on Beacon Street; that is, to certain reception and dining-rooms in the club. In old, conservative Boston this has been a success, for with them propriety is inborn. In New York many of the clubs have what may be termed ladies' day, when ladies are admitted to all parts of the building. An ineffectual attempt was made several years ago to admit ladies to the Union Club, of New York, but it failed.

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