-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
AMERICA'S SECRET ARISTOCRACY
by Stephen Birmingham (C) 1987
Berkley Book, New York, NY 1990
-----
A very interesting book for details and such. Very well researched and I would
reccommend many of Mr. Birmingham's books to any searcher of history. For it
is my belief, that by better understanding history, we can see today's course.
Om
K
-----
19. Old Guard Versus New
In New York, where money has become the main municipal product and
preoccupation, members of the old-line families have responded to the often
voracious social onslaughts of new wealth by collectively (and politely)
withdrawing into a common protective shell such as The Zodiac. Tortoise-like,
they have tucked their heads inside the carapace of family blood and family
name. While leading active business lives, they have, in a social sense,
become like cave dwellers in the city their ancestors built. They have gone
underground. After all, they all know who each other are, and they no longer
feel the need to prove or promote themselves in any public way. They cannot
properly be called snobbish, because a snob is defined as a person who
aggressively seeks out the company and only the company-of the wealthy or well
known. Faced with social climbers, the Old Guard families have tended to
respond with passive, and again polite, rather than active resistance. A case
in point would be the Old Guard's reaction to the arrival of the first August
Belmont in its midst.
John Jacob Astor was not a social climber. August Belmont was. Indeed, he may
have helped invent the term in New York. He was social climbing personified
and a snob par excellence. He had appeared suddenly in New York in 1837, with
money in his pockets, to take advantage of one of the financial community's
periodic panics. Buying up stocks at bargain-basement prices and then watching
them rise again, he quickly succeeded in his mission. Belmont was Jewish, but
that fact alone would not have amounted to a social demerit at the time. He
announced himself as the new American representative of the European banking
house of Rothschild, and the Rothschilds were by then internationally
respected and in several cases bore European titles. But Belmont denied his
Jewishness, and somewhere during his journey from his native Germany to
America his original name of Schonberg-"beautiful mountain"-had been more or
less Frenchified into Belmont.
But there was something peculiar about all this, beyond the name change. The
Rothschilds almost never sent a representative to open up new banking
territory who was not a family member, yet they did seem to be on very close
terms with Mr. Belmont. And the rumor circulated to the effect that, in
Europe, whenever a male Rothschild traveled with a lady who was not his wife,
the pair would traditionally register at hotels as M. et Mme. Schonberg. Thus
the possibility presented itself-though it would never be proven-that August
Belmont was an illegitimate Rothschild, an embarrassment to the family at home
but trusted sufficiently to be dispatched to conduct family business on the
other side of the Atlantic. This was the enigma of August Belmont: a man who
looked like a German, spoke with a precise, if stilted, British accent, had a
French name, and wanted to become an American aristocrat.
Belmont had not been able, as the Astors had done, to ally himself maritally
with one of the Old Guard families. But he did the next best thing. He
proposed to, and was accepted by, the daughter of an American war hero. She
was the beautiful -if, by some accounts, dull-witted-Caroline Slidell Perry,
the daughter of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, distinguished officer in
the Mexican War and the man credited with having opened Japan to the West. Her
uncle was another naval commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of the War of
1812 and the Battle of Lake Erie. The Belmonts were married grandly in the
Episcopal Church.
But from that point onward August Belmont began doing everything on almost
too grand a scale, which left New Yorkers more aghast than impressed. He and
his new wife established themselves in a new house on lower Fifth Avenue that
was bigger and more elaborate than anything the Astors had ever owned. It was
the first house in New York to have, among other things, its own ballroom, a
room set aside solely for the annual Belmont ball. As Edith Wharton commented
later, in her novel The Age of Innocence. this room "was left for three
hundred and sixty-four days of the year to shuttered darkness, with its gilt
chairs stacked in a corner and its chandelier in a bag." The Belmonts were
also the first couple in New York to have their own red carpet, to be rolled
down the marble front steps and across the sidewalk, for parties, instead of
renting one from a caterer along with the gilt chairs.
Everything the Belmonts did seemed larger than life, and so naturally it was
talked about and written about. August Belmont may have been New York's first,
and was certainly its most ardent, publicity seeker. When he imported a French
chef from Paris, the news made the papers. August Belmont's art gallery was
the first in the city to be lighted from a skylight in the roof, and the
collection of art it housed was remarkable, including works by Madrazo, Rosa
Bonheur, Meissonier, Vibert, and-truly scandalous-an assortment of voluptuous
and oversize nudes by Bouguereau. Most scandalized by the last was an Old
Guard New Yorker named James Lenox, who lived directly across the street from
the Belmonts. Leaning of Mr. Lenox's objections to the Bouguereaus, Belmont
defiantly hung the largest and most explicit of the nudes just inside his
front door so that it would be in full view of the Lenox front windows every
time the Belmont front door was opened, which, in light of the amount of
entertaining Belmont did, was often. Mr. Lenox would become almost apoplectic
at the mention of the Belmont name, and according to Lucius Beebe, when Lenox
was told that Belmont spent twenty thousand dollars a month on wines alone,
Lenox collapsed of a heart attack and died.
The press happily chronicled the extravaganza of Belmont's high living. Two
hundred people could be comfortably seated at table in the Belmont dining
room, with a footman behind each chair, to dine off the Belmont gold service.
Belmont had taken up the sport of kings, and the regal Belmont racing colors-
scarlet and maroon-had been established. The livery of Belmont's coachmen and
footmen consisted of maroon coats with scarlet piping and silver buttons
embossed with the Belmont family crest (which, it was said, Belmont had
himself designed after studying various royal European coats of arms), along
with black satin knee breeches, white silk stockings, and patent-leather
slippers with silver buckles. All his carriages were painted maroon with a
scarlet stripe on the wheels. His chief steward, it was said, was required to
go through five complete changes of uniform each day.
At the same time, there were some decidedly odd stories that also circulated
about August Belmont. It was said that he washed, combed, and set his wife's
hair, and chose all her dresses from her dressmaker. It was said that, despite
his stable of Thoroughbreds, he himself could not sit a horse. It was said
that he eavesdropped on his servants and blackmailed them into accepting the
lowest wages in the city.
Heroism had not made Commander Matthew Perry wealthy, and when Mrs. Belmont's
father came to live with the Belmonts, it was said that August Belmont treated
his father-in-law like a servant, giving him menial household chores to
perform and sending him out on petty errands. These activities did not sound
like those of the kind of gentleman August Belmont seemed to want to be.
In The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton presented a thinly veiled portrait of
August Belmont in the fictional character of Julius Beaufort, a man whom, as
one of Mrs. Wharton's characters put it understatedly, "certain nuances"
escaped. As Mrs. Wharton wrote:
The question was, who was Beaufort? He passed for an Englishman, was
agreeable, handsome, ill-tempered, hospitable and witty. He had come to
America with letters of recommendation from old Mrs. Manson Mingott's English
son-in-law, the banker, and had speedily made himself an important position
in the world of affairs; but his habits were dissipated, his tongue was
bitter, and his antecedents were mysterious.
Like Caroline Belmont, Julius Beaufort's wife (who "grew younger and blonder
and more beautiful each year") always appeared at the opera on the night of
her annual ball "to show her superiority to all household cares." To explain
why she accepted invitations to the Beauforts' dinner parties, one of Mrs.
Wharton's characters said airily, "We all have our pet common people." But,
Mrs. Wharton added, "The Beauforts were not exactly common; some people said
they were even worse."
August Belmont had gone a long way toward going too far with New York
society, but he had not yet made his final fatal step. That was yet to come.
For years, the most important social event in New York had been the annual
Assembly, held at Delmonico's. And, for years, invitations to the Assembly had
been rigidly based on the standards of "birth and breeding." An invitation to
the Assembly was the ultimate proof of social rank. Year after year, August
Belmont had dropped broad hints to various of the all-male members of the
Assembly Committee that he and his wife would like to be invited. The hints
had been politely ignored.
Finally, August Belmont decided to pull out his heavy artillery. He appeared
before several members of the committee and stated firmly that this year the
Belmonts expected an invitation. The men replied that they were sorry. but
that it was quite impossible. Belmont then allegedly told the committee
members, "I think, it's not only possible, it's also extremely probable. I
have been investigating the accounts of you gentlemen on the Street. I can
assure you that either I get an invitation to the Assembly this year, or else
the day after the Assembly each of you will be a ruined man."
The Belmonts received their invitation, but the story of the means by which
it had been procured got around. The following year, the Belmonts were also
prominent guests at the Assembly. They were particularly prominent because
nearly everyone else who had been invited stayed home. The Assembly was never
held again.
Thus did the Old Guard deal with climbers, not by battling them but simply by
withdrawing from the arena. Of course the result would be that the climbers
had the arena to themselves. But the Old Guard would never view this as
weakness on their part, or as a signal of abdication or defeat. On the
contrary, they saw it as a kind of victory of principles over sheer power. Was
there any other gentlemanly or ladylike way to deal with social ruffians?
Margaret Trevor Pardee grew up next door to August Belmont's son, August
Belmont, Jr. Her father's big house took up half the block on Madison Avenue
and Fifty-second Street, and the Belmont house stood on the other half.
"Mother told us that of course we were to be civil to the Belmonts," she says,
"but we were not to get involved with them." The tiny nonagenarian with
twinkly blue eyes and auburn hair ("I give it a little help from a bottle")
recalls a turn-of-the-century New York girlhood and upbringing quite different
from that of her neighbors. "Goodness, I couldn't tell you how many servants
Mother had as opposed to the Belmonts." she says. "They were hard to count,
because we children were not permitted in the kitchen. This was not for a
snobby reason. It was because we were told that we would be underfoot and in
the way while the kitchen staff had important work to do. Of course, when
Mother was out, we'd sometimes sneak in. But we didn't count because we were
taught that it wasn't nice to talk about how many servants one had. It would
be like boasting, and it was bad manners to boast."
The strictures of Margaret Trevor's girlhood read a bit as though they were
taken from a Renaissance manual for the training of a princess: You are to
rule your kingdom, but to be served you must also know how to serve.
"Everybody we knew was taught the same thing," she says today. "We were taught
never to ask a servant to do something you wouldn't be perfectly willing and
able to do yourself. You might never have to scrub a toilet, but it was
important that you know how to do it. You might never have to change a tire on
an automobile, but that didn't mean you weren't taught to do it properly. My
children were taught the same things, and now their children are teaching
their children.
"Of course, a lot has changed. Mother started her day early, with her
breakfast brought to her on a tray in bed. While she ate. she and the cook
went over the day's menus together. Then she read and answered her mail, and
paid the bills that had come in that day. Then she rose and bathed, and went
out visiting or shopping. My children and grandchildren can't get that kind of
service today, but I'm happy to say they still observe the rules that my
mother laid down to me. Two of them were: Never leave your house until all the
day's bills have been paid; and, a lady isn't a lady if her bed isn't made by
noon."
Like others in her circle, Margaret Trevor was raised by governesses and
educated by private tutors until she was twelve years old. "The governesses
were usually English, and very strict on manners. The chauffeurs were usually
Scotsmen-don't ask me why-and the maids were Irish. It sounds extravagant, I
know, but in those days it wasn't-it just wasn't. There was a steady supply of
Irish girls who were eager to get the work, who were clean and honest and
loved children, and who would work for very little-seven days a week, with an
hour off on Sunday to go to mass just to have a roof over their heads. They
didn't act as though we were exploiting them-they felt we were helping them!
In those days, every lady had a personal maid as well. Oh, my, it all seems so
long ago!
"But we children were never allowed to have a maid pick up after us the
way"-she sniffs-"some people did. I'm thinking of the Belmonts. Oh, no, that
was taboo. We had to keep our rooms tidy and make our own beds. Our clothes
had to be all folded and put away at night before we went to bed. We ironed
our own middy blouses-middy blouses were the big thing. Oh, I suppose it was
all very rigid, very formulated, very comme il faur," she says of the kind of
girlhood that has been compared to the binding process that was used to form
the Chinese lotus foot, "but we didn't think so at the time. We lived the way
everyone else we knew lived."
As she talks, Margaret Pardee's voice is full of little trills and
crescendos, punctuated with tremolos and staccato passages. It is a voice that
seems to have been trained for the theatre, and it almost was, for Margaret
Pardee at one point threatened to rebel against her aristocratic training in
order to become, of all things, a show girl. "But wiser heads prevailed. As
children, you see, our upbringing was very strict. From nine in the morning
until one in the afternoon, my brothers and sisters and I had our lessons with
our governesses. But then, for two whole hours we had freedom! Freedom. We'd
put on our roller skates and skate up Fifth Avenue to Central Park, and down
the Mall-our governesses tagging along, of course, a block behind us, not
because the park was dangerous, but because it was comme il faur, you see.
When I was twelve I was sent to a real school, and that was to Spence when it
was still called Miss Spence's Classes. Miss Spence's school was on West
Fifty-fifth Street then, and my brother went to the Browning School, which was
also on West Fifty-fifth, just across the street. My brother and I would walk
to Fifth Avenue, and there we'd pick up our friend Dickie Babcock, and walk
north to Fifty-fifth. But there we'd have to part company, because Spence
girls weren't allowed to be seen walking down the street with boys. Oh, my! So
the boys would walk down the north side of the street to Browning, and the
girls would walk down the south side to Spence. In good weather, at recess
time, we liked to go up on the roof, where there was a sort of playground.
Across the street, the Browning boys would be up on their roof, and we would
look at them from across the street. But we weren't allowed to wave at each
other. All we could do was look. Oh, my!
"And, oh, my, there were all sorts of rules at school. We were only allowed to
wear one simple ring, and one simple pin, no other jewelry, and no more than
two hats at a time. You see, it was fashionable for women to change their hats
several times a day-even in their own houses ladies wore hats-but at Spence we
could only change hats once a day! And there was a rule that the hats must be
'inconspicuous and not costly.' We didn't have uniforms, but I used to wish we
did. Even though Spence girls weren't supposed to wear expensive dresses
either, some girls did. The Bishop girls! Oh, my, I remember how I envied
their velvet dresses! Nowadays, I suppose you'd call the Bishops nouveaux
riches, but we didn't call them that, though the Bishop girls were considered
rather fast. Money didn't matter to people in those days the way it does
today, or at least we never talked about it. What mattered was breeding, and
whether we liked someone. And breeding didn't just mean old family, or
pedigree. It meant people who behaved in a well-bred way-who were nice. you
see.
"And my Spence graduation! It was held at the old Sherry's at Forty-fourth
and Fifth. We marched down the aisle to the strains of 'Pomp and
Circumstance.' Oh, my, and Miss Clara Spence herself a steely-eyed Scotswoman!
Excellence, excellence-that was her credo! Better grades, better grades! 'Come
now, Miss Trevor' she would say to me, 'you can do better than that!' At
night, I used to stuff cotton around the cracks of my bedroom door so my
father wouldn't see how late I was staying up, studying. But I got good marks,
and when I graduated I was one of the top ten in my class. It was unusual for
a girl to go to college in those days, but I begged my father to let me go to
college. He turned thumbs down on that. College was for boys, not girls. It
sounds unfair, I know, but there was a reason for it. In those days, if a girl
went to college there was nothing she could do with her education except
become a schoolteacher. And schoolteachers were not permitted to many, and so
that meant becoming a spinster. Every father wanted his daughter to marry, and
to give him grandchildren. In those days there was always a good reason for
everything."
A young woman of good family was not only expected to marry. She was expected
to marry well. "This was drummed into us," and so this Margaret Trevor did in
1917, when she married Dr. Irving Pardee, a prominent neurologist and himself
a member of an old-line New York and New Jersey family. Margaret Pardee's
younger sister, Louise, married even better. Her first husband was J. Couper
Lord, of the family that founded Lord & Taylor, who died. She married, next,
Lewis Morris, a grandson of the Declaration of Independence signer. He also
died. She then married, third, Henry Mellon of the Pittsburgh Mellons, who
suffered a heart attack in Florida, became paralyzed, and eventually died. "So
she managed to marry and bury three rich husbands," Mrs. Pardee says with a
sigh.
Between her graduation from Miss Spence's and her marriage to Dr. Pardee,
however, Margaret Trevor was required to fulfill another social obligation to
her class-the proscribed ritual of becoming a debutante-in the 1912-1913 New
York winter social season. There were the balls, parties, luncheons, and thes
dansants at which she was officially presented to her parents' friends as
their social peer. She herself was presented to society at a tea dance for
several hundred people held at her parents' Madison Avenue house.
"I loved to sing, and I loved to dance," she says. "My father used to sleep
with his bedroom door ajar, and my sister Louise and I used to tiptoe past his
door when we came in at night, so he wouldn't know how late we'd been out. Oh,
my, but he was strict with us! Not with himself, of course he had French
blood, and loved a good time. But with us he was so straitlaced! My mother was
much more laissez-faire. She didn't care how late we danced, because she knew
that we wouldn't do anything wrong. There were some dances that were frowned
upon. The turkey trot and the bunny hug, for instance. We didn't do those
dances. The tango was a problem. Some people thought it was very elegant and
beautiful. Other people thought it was downright naughty. I loved to dance the
tango! And the Yale Prom-that was the party of the entire season. Everyone
went up to New Haven and stayed at the Taft Hotel.
The prom started on Saturday night, and by Sunday afternoon people were still
dancing! The next year, they were still dancing on Monday, and it became a
thing to see how long the dance could last! It went on all day Monday, and
Monday night, and then all day Tuesday, and Tuesday night! People were still
dancing on Wednesday! It became something of a scandal, and all the newspapers
wrote it up, and the Yale authorities issued a statement to the press that
such a thing would never be permitted to happen again! Oh, my, but how I loved
it!"
Currently, Margaret Trevor Pardee is in the process of sorting out the family
papers in order to prepare a scrapbook of family memorabilia for each of her
grandchildren. Old newspaper clippings, diaries, journals, and family bibles
plus one fat scrapbook of clippings from her own debutante year-are being
sorted through, arranged, and filed in appropriate folders. Into each
grandchild's scrapbook will go copies of the interwoven family trees of the
Schieffelins, Pardees, and Trevors, and her own genealogy, which wanders
backward through eighteen generations of Trevors, Stewarts, Lispenards,
Roosevelts, Barclays, Bownes, more Barclays, more Stewarts, back to the turn
of the fifteenth century-showing her direct linear descent from Mary Stuart,
Queen of Scots.
What is it that she hopes to transmit to her grandchildren, and on to their
grandchildren after that, through the medium of these family-memory books?
"Pride," she says. "The things I was taught. Poise and pride. Pride of our
place in American history. The things that knit a family together. We were
always very proud of being Americans, you see. Even though a Schieffelin
ancestor fought on the side of the British in the Revolution, he was part of
American history.
"I suppose that was one of the troubles with the first August Belmont. He was
a foreigner. He didn't understand America, and he didn't understand New York.
Our ways were foreign to him. He had no background, no roots to fall back on.
He thought he could buy it all with money, but you just can't. He had plenty
of money, but he had no pride."
pp.216-225
--cont--
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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