Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1890-01-11
Pullman Herald.
Grand Chance for v. 'satile Genius Wha
Wants to Become Famous.

wanderer when he sets forth to go up
and down the earth to seek whom he may
lecture to Is the pleasant occupation OF
looking over his list and seeing how he
is going to get there. He is impressed
with the fact that, however much in
ventive genius the American people may
possess in other lines, they are poverty
stricken race when it comes to names.
West of the Rockies the people have a
comparatively easy time of 1T naming
towns and places. They have retained
nuite a number of names, euphonlous,
Inappropriate and suggestive, invented
for this learned and civilized and COM
paratively enlightened people by tribes
of savages who could neither read nor
write. but had native genius for call
ing things by their proper names. And
when the Indian names gave out the
american people, we in that wide and
roomy land of majestic landscapes,
simplified matters by naming every
thing else after the devil. OF course,
we like a proper degree of family
bride but there is such thing as carry
ing the feeling to excess. Where, in the
effete East. Lover" is used as handle
for every thing on land and sea, from
hop over bank four feet high to leap
over precipice higher than the clouds,
out West the devil is called up to act as
sponsor for the grandest mountain and
for the sweetest little cascade that ever
sang its way through messy rocks and
fern-plumed banks. However, there is
usually more or less of the devil about
scask aid, so may be that's all right.
but for the rest of it. take the country
by and large, and the same names recur
most monotonously over and over again,
,-uot only in the different States, but in
the same State. Look at the two Da-
lSotas-biggest new States in the Union,
and there wasn't sufficient originality in
the two to invent a distinctive name for
seither. A patch of country half as big
as the smaller Dakota that doesn't
know enough to name itself isn't fit to
become State. Why the only original
portion of their names the wild Indians
made for them. If it hadn't been for
the despised savages 1 suppose those
two States would have applied for ad-
mission into the Union as North and
South, without any surname.
And when it comes to naming towns,
any,thing with ''ville" or ton" tackled
on it seems to be good enough. Or,
some old town with New" prefxed is
looked upon as such perfectly miracu-
lous outburst of originality and invent
i've genius that the man who suggests it
is liable to be elected mayor of the new
village. And very often people are either
too stupid or too lazy or both to make
ANY change whatever in the name of the
town. They take an old one without
aaltering letter. Now, for instance,
ny masters, the Redpath bureau, in
struct me to go to Beaver, Pa, ard talk
to the people seriously about them
selves. l dive into the "Official Rail
way Guide" and l find that l can take
my choice of going to Beaver in Beaver
County or Chester County or in Dauphin
County or in Huntington County. If it
was Beaver, Wis, matters would be
somewhat simplifed, because l would
merely have to choose between juneau
sssa see5eeesE45ss-cseaaG ties | And gong
to franklin, O., by and by. don't
know just yet whether will go
to Franklin, Belmont County, or
Columbiana County, or Coshocton Coun-
ty, or Warren County, but to some
Franklin in Ohio am bound to go if
i live long enough to find out which
one. These are merely chance ex-
amples which happen to fall in the way
of my pilgrimage for the coming five or
six weeks. But before the winter is
over they will be many times multi
piled. We are great people, of won
drous versatility in slang and mining
schemes, but when we come to study
our own geography we find that fire.
quently we don't know enough to name
the town we live in, but steal the door
plate off some more, or, it may be, even
less, original town. And as for New
England, our mother in learning and
scholarship and thought and invention,
If the Mayflower had lost her compass
coming over there wouldn't be fifty
names in all that grand old land. But
so long as North and South shall stand
and East and West endure, no baby viii
lage in New England will come into
the world like founding, without
ready-made name; it will have a new
name of its own, made for it as in the
older days the boys new trousers were
made for him-he had new pair made |
out of paps old ones, and pap had a new
pair made out of an old bag.-Robert J. |
Burdette, in Brooklyn Eagle.