America's Secret Aristocracy (48 page)

Perhaps so, because these families continue to teach the unenforceable standards that all upwardly mobile Americans, except the outlaws, strive to live by. It has often been said that America has an aristocracy of wealth. But these old families are a reminder that, in America, money alone won't do it. To money must be added a touch of—well, class.

“Class” is not a word America's old aristocracy likes to use much. It prefers, instead, to speak of breeding, but the concepts are the same. Breeding, of course, has a genetic ring to it, and most of the old families do feel that their good breeding is in their genes. But breeding can also be taught, and most Americans are eager to learn it, and there is a whole industry out there to teach it. Breeding was what Ivy Lee tried to teach his robber baron clients, taking his cues from the aristocratic Old Guard. Today's public relations men and women offer the same counsel. “Get involved with a charity,” the P.R. man advises the ambitious newcomer to New York. “Hire a good decorator.” “It is all right to mix your woods,” counsels the decorator. “You don't want everything to look as though it came from the same store.” “It is all right to mix your china patterns and silver settings,” says the consultant at Tiffany's. “You don't want your table to look pretentious. There's nothing wrong with paper napkins.” “Let me help you get rid of that Brooklyn accent,” suggests the elocution coach. The quest for good breeding goes on at every social level, a kind of national yearning, visible in the syndicated columns of Dear Abby and Miss Manners. What is the
right
way of handling this thing and that? America wants to know.

Breeding is more, though, than just manners and morals. It is essentially a matter of achieving self-esteem, and self-esteem is a commodity the Old Guard has a wealth of. It comes with the name, like the Jay nose, passed from generation to generation. It serves as a kind of ballast, and even the most eccentric members of the old families had it, a feeling that their moorings were fast, that they could not go too far adrift, that they were anchored, rooted, in the past. With their self-esteem has gone a commitment to certain values and a belief in the great nouns: loyalty, honesty, dignity, duty, work, service, patriotism, courage, God, guts, and the golden rule.

These, of course, might be seen as old-fashioned values, and the Old Guard today are essentially old-fashioned people—
not chic, or trendy, or with it. Their hairstyles don't change much, nor do their modes of dress, and they remain devoted to their antiques, portraits, and family silver. Their ancestors were for the most part outdoorsmen, men of the soil, suited to the wilderness, who headed eagerly toward the frontier, wherever it happened to be. The Old Guard today remain fond of outdoorsy pleasures: farming, gardening, riding, fishing, sailing, swimming, golf, and tennis. But values such as courage and dignity do not go in and out of fashion, even in a consumerist America of the 1980s, dedicated to making and spending big money. Self-esteem and the ability to rise to occasions will not go out of fashion, either. And if the old families themselves are not in a position to teach self-esteem, they are very much in a position to demonstrate how valuable a human resource this can be. They are in a position to set this example, and their descendants will doubtless be doing so for many years to come.

Good breeding—self-confidence, self-esteem, call it what you like—can show itself in the smallest ways, in the tiniest gestures.

Not long ago, Mr. and Mrs. S. Dillon Ripley were spending the weekend at Mr. and Mrs. John Jermain Slocums' house in Newport. It was late afternoon, and afternoon tea had segued, as it often does, into the cocktail hour. The Slocums' butler was new to the household and not fully trained, but he was young and eager to please, and he was able to clear away the tea things and serve the drinks without making too many mistakes. Then it was time for the hosts and their guests to repair upstairs and dress for dinner. Mary Moncrieffe Livingston Ripley rose first, carrying her empty cocktail glass, and moved toward the drinks cart. “May I fix you another drink, ma'am?” the butler said, a bit too loudly. “No, thank you,” said Mrs. Ripley. “I'm just putting my glass back on the cart.”

The right thing. A guest doesn't leave a hostess's sitting room with her glass left sitting on a coffee table. Just as, no matter how many people a hostess has on her staff, a house guest does not rise in the morning without making her own bed.

Mrs. Martha Ferguson Breasted is a woman of eighty whose Ferguson ancestors came to America from Scotland in the eighteenth century. Mrs. Breasted is the widow of Charles Breasted, the historian, and her mother, Isabella—one of
New York's great beauties at the turn of the century—was a close friend of the Oyster Bay Roosevelts and was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt in 1905. Mrs. Breasted spends most of her time at her house in Tucson, but her great love is her eighteenth-century farmhouse, which her ancestors built, in the horse-breeding country of northeastern Kentucky. Mrs. Breasted likes to spend a few months of each year at the farm. On a hill above the farmhouse, in the family cemetery, repose many of her Ferguson ancestors, under white headstones. In a separate corner of the cemetery, under black headstones, lie their slaves, who did not have last names and are simply identified as Ben, Mary, Emma, and so on. This bit of class differentiation amuses Martha Breasted today, and she has decided that her headstone, to atone for any past injustices, will be gray when she joins the little group.

Mrs. Breasted owns several parcels of farmland in the surrounding countryside—a hundred or so acres here, a couple of hundred there—where tobacco is grown. But some of her Boone County neighbors, in the hills and hollows surrounding her land, are poor Appalachian families whose menfolk, especially when they have been drinking, have a reputation for being rough customers. One night a while back, Martha Breasted was driving back to the farm in her battered pickup truck and, turning a corner, encountered a bit of unwelcome activity taking place on her land. A group of perhaps forty youths had built a bonfire and was having what was quite obviously a beer bash. The group had already grown quite rowdy.

Mrs. Breasted stopped her vehicle, fished an old-fashioned electric flashlight out of the glove compartment, got out of the cab, and headed across her field toward the partyers, limping slightly (a youthful bout with polio forces her to wear a leg brace). She approached the interlopers, a tall old lady, somewhat stooped, her tightly curled white hair tied back, characteristically, with a twisted length of woolen yarn, her flashlight her only means of self-defense.

As she approached the revelers and their bonfire, the young men suddenly grew still. Their silence was, at best, ambiguous, and Martha Breasted continued her approach.

One young man, who appeared to be some sort of leader of the group, stepped toward her. His fists were clenched. The two faced each other, Martha Breasted with her chin tilted
upward just slightly. Mrs. Breasted was the first to speak. “May I
help
you?” she said.

Slowly, the young man lowered his eyes, then turned away from her toward the others. “C'mon guys,” he said a little gruffly. “This lady doesn't want us here.”

Silently, and with obvious reluctance, the young men began gathering up their empty beer cans and dousing their fire.

“This lady,” he had called her.

Class.

*
During World War I, her Buick was patriotically put up on blocks, and Mrs. Iselin rode everywhere on Socony, including to church, riding sidesaddle, or the so-called “Queen's seat.” She was also a superb four-in-hand driver and had acquired four perfectly matched gray Thoroughbreds from Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, In 1917, to promote the Liberty Bond drive (as well as to publicize the family's patriotism and spunk), Eleanor Iselin drove her coach and four from Buffalo to New York City—a distance of nearly four hundred miles. Her feat made headlines across the country.

Image Gallery

The aristocratic George Washington and his aristocratic Cabinet (left to right): General Henry Knox, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Edmund Randolph.
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John Adams of the Boston aristocracy, second president of the United States.
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Lieutenant Jacob Schieffelin and his wife, the former Hannah Lawrence. Their marriage raised eyebrows, since he was a British officer and her family were Quakers.
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Sir Richard Saltonstall, first of the long line.
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Governor and Mrs. Leverett Saltonstall waiting for election returns on November 7, 1944.
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