immediate ultimatum—that if rough play continued, he would 
abolish the game by executive edict. The effect was the same 
as that of the harrowing telegraph reports of Russell from the 
Crimea, which created the image and role of Florence 
Nightingale.

     No less drastic was the effect of the press photo 
coverage of the lives of the rich. “Conspicuous consumption” 
owed less to the phrase of Veblen than to the press 
photographer, who began to invade the entertainment spots of 
the very rich. The sights of men ordering drinks from horseback 
at the bars of clubs quickly caused a public revulsion that drove 
the rich into the ways of timid mediocrity and obscurity in 
America, which they have never abandoned. The photograph 
made it quite unsafe to come out and play, for it betrayed such 
blatant dimensions of power as to be self-defeating. On the