Wallabout Smith did not attain recognition until late in life. I gather
that he must have been well over fifty when a former President of the
United States declared that Wallabout Smith, by raising a family of four
sons and two daughters, had done more for his country than all the laws
enacted by the Legislatures of all the New England and Middle Atlantic
States since the Spanish-American War. Fame came rapidly after this. The
college professors repeated what the former President said. The
newspapers repeated what the college professors said. The playwrights
repeated what the newspapers said. The pulpit repeated what the
playwrights said. Interviewers descended upon Wallabout Smith. They wore
out his front lawn, the hall carpet, and the maid-servant's temper; but
they always found Smith himself patient, affable, ready to say whatever
they wished him to say.
The reporters would usually begin by asking Wallabout Smith what were
his lighter interests in life. "I find my greatest pleasure," Smith
would reply, "in common things. For instance, I have never ceased to be
intensely interested in the cost of shoes and stockings.
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