Chapter I: Front Matter

_BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON_

THE MAN IN THE STREET
BLACKSHEEP! BLACKSHEEP!
LADY LARKSPUR
THE MADNESS OF MAY
THE VALLEY OF DEMOCRACY

_CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS_

_THE MAN IN THE STREET_

_THE
MAN IN THE STREET_

_PAPERS ON AMERICAN TOPICS_

_BY
MEREDITH NICHOLSON_

_NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1921_

_Copyright, 1921, by
Charles Scribner’s Sons_

Published September, 1921

COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1920 BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE YALE PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION, INC.
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY THE NEW YORK EVENING POST, INC.

THE SCRIBNER PRESS

_To
CORNELIA_

_FOREWORD_

My right to speak for the man in the street, the average American, is, I am aware, open to serious question. Possibly there are amiable persons who, if urged to pass judgment, would appraise me a trifle higher than the average; others, I am painfully aware, would rate me much lower. The point is, of course, one about which I am not entitled to an opinion. I offer no apology for the apparent unrelated character of the subjects herein discussed, for to my mind the volume has a certain cohesion. In that part of America with which I am most familiar, literature, politics, religion, and the changing social scene are all of a piece. We disport ourselves in one field as blithely as in another. Within a few blocks of this room, on the fifteenth floor of an office-building in the centre of my home town, I can find men and women quite competent to answer questions pertaining to any branch of philosophy or the arts. I called a lawyer friend on the telephone only yesterday and hummed a few bars of music that he might aid me with the correct designation of one of Beethoven’s symphonies. In perplexity over an elusive quotation I can, with all confidence, plant myself on the post-office steps and some one will come along with the answer. I do not mention these matters boastfully, but merely to illustrate the happy conditions of life in the delectable province in which I was born.

The papers here collected first appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_, except “Let Main Street Alone!” which was published in the New York _Evening Post_, “The Cheerful Breakfast Table,” which is reprinted from the _Yale Review_, and “The Poor Old English Language,” which is reproduced from _Scribner’s Magazine_. The political articles are sufficiently explained by their dates. They are reprinted without alteration in the hope that some later student of the periods scrutinized may find them of interest.

M. N.

INDIANAPOLIS,
July, 1921.

_CONTENTS_

PAGE

_Let Main Street Alone!_ 1

_James Whitcomb Riley_ 26

_The Cheerful Breakfast Table_ 65

_The Boulevard of Rogues_ 92

_The Open Season for American Novelists_ 106

_The Church for Honest Sinners_ 139

_The Second-Rate Man in Politics_ 150

_The Lady of Landor Lane_ 190

_How, Then, Should Smith Vote?_ 223

_The Poor Old English Language_ 263

LET MAIN STREET ALONE!