A SOCIAL REVOLUTION.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9696, 4 March 1910, Page 7

A SOCIAL REVOLUTION.

mob TAFT AND THE "SNOBBISH 311 RICH.” New York. January 7. With the active co-operation of Mrs Taft, what the New York World describes as » |i" veritable society evolution, having as its objects the final overthrow of the regime of the «ffflte ’Pour Hundred,’ and the social auppress* oa o£ fche saobb,sh . n . cb ’ . has been secretly organised at Washington. Bitter complaints as to the constitution of American society—its nar-row-mindedness, wrong-headed exclusiveness, mental aridity- have been rife ever since the retirement of tne late Mra Astor, who herself bewailed the impossibility of establishing in this country a salon after the French model, where literature, art, and cultured wealth could meet on tsrffis of social equality. Now, as H, e result largely of a campaign carrled on by prominent hostesses In various pasta of the country, the formation of a new rolihg body m society, to be known as the Assembly get. ban been decreed. The Assembly Set will consist of a thousand families having town residences in New York, Philadelphia, oi Washington. At a meeting held the other day at the White Honao under the presidency of Mrs Taft, a tentative list of these families was drawn up. It includes In addition to fche most representative families of all parts oi the country who reside for part of the year In the three great social centres of America, the names of many not hitherto known as "Society people," bnt who have won for themselves a reputation in the prognose of art, literature, politics, or rellgion. Such are four clergymen, three painters, four musicians, eleven authors, two travellers and five from family membership, olaoe will be given in the Assembly set to bachelors between the ages of twenty-five and and fifty. This age limit, to quote one of the promoters of the "revolution,” was fixed on the assumption that before the age of twenty-five a man is not useful except as a dancing partner or to fill odd places, while after fifty he ought to be married. According so the statutes of the Assembly Set as approved by Mrs Taft, all the members will enjoy a right to exclusive social courtesies in all towns where any member lives, la this reclassification of American society three-qaartera of the existing Four Hundred have been ignored, but "they may not learn of their rejection for many months, as In order to avoid a terrible howl of disappointment and protest from socially rabid families, we have decided to make no formal announcement regarding the Assembly Set, its rules, or membership. ” The "great society revolution, in fact, hat been conceived and organised in secret. Its members “will meet "outsiders” at the big official state functions snob as families in public life must give, but its musical parties, dinners, dances and garden parties will in future be strictly limited to the’list of families forming the Assembly Set.