The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-07-08
Is THIS THE HOTTEST?
All the Days Are Hot, But
There Are Degrees
You VIII Find the Degrees on
the Thermometer.
More of Them Than You Want-Hot
Weather Observations Boiled
Down or Boiled out-At
ANY Rate, Boiled

The evolution of summer clothing in
Kansas is in a protopIasmic state 1t
will take a century to convince the Kan
sas man that in a climate where the tenn
perature reaches e5 in the shade every
day for four weeks at time and then
does it again for four more weeks at a
time. and so on until the middle of Octo~
Der or thereabout. it is necessary to
change his ideas about what to wear We
stiu initiate the fashions in clothing of
our neighbors in Chicago and New York
without realizing that we are living in a
ssrui-subtropIcaI climate and they are
4 not It isn't any hotter in Brazil than
IT is in Kansas from May Is to October Is.
The BraziIians do not wear heavy wooden
coats. derby hats and suspenders- They
know better. They have spent 800 years
in learning to don the garments their an
cestors wore in Portugal
Most Of the people in Kansas came here
from more northern ATTITUDES Their
minds have not readily taken in the fact
that the sun shines in Kansas quite
like it does in Iowa. Michigan, Wisconsin.
Ohio New York and Pennsylvania Their
bodies have grasped the situation. but
their intelIects have not. We not
dressed for our climate Panama hats.
soft collars. linen trousers, null, madras
ard nainsook shirts, canvas shoes. belts
and no coats should make up the sum
mer wardrobe in Kansas. One hundred
years from now when the born and bred
Kansan Will be the product of a century
of experience and environment We shall
arrive at the standard of comfort in
clothes
Meantime we must continue to swelter
IN our wooden summer clothing. much of
1t made in the sweat shops OF New
Torks east side And all the sweating
is not confined to the shops.
In hot weather we find out some of the
things that Kansas lacks One is woods
There are not woods enough All that
there are around Topeka ought to be
saved It is so easy to hack down an elm,
a cottonwood or a sycamore. and before
a new one as big is grown, We have
nouIdered away in our collins. We may
plant trees for posterity, but it is better
TO be somebody eIse's posterity. Those
who went before Us in Kansas bequeathed
very few trees They were chiefly
busy in cutting them down Il seems
if pioneers were always busy cutting and
sIashing; If II wasn't Indians II was trees.
The mind pictures the pioneer with
AK over his shoulder The builder of
sidewalks in Topeka greatly adnires that
man More beautiful than trees in his
eye are straight symmetrical sidewalks
breadth OF a knife-blade to save tree;
not even the Boston elm OF the Charter
oak The inefabIe spirit of the pioneer
burns in the heart Of the superintendent
of sidewalks No pioneer wrote Wood
man Spare That Tree and no sidewalk
superinte ndent appears TO have read it.
There are punches of trees all around
Topeka, some large enough to be Qompli-
mented by the name of groves. Their
bosky recesses recall the big woods fauniI-
lar to kansans who have been raised in
older states. When they were boys they
used to run wild and barefoot in the tim
ber'' all summer. No thorn in the great
toe or stone bruise the heel ever
caused them a 1.-THE of the torments their
corns give them since they civilized their
feet Neither did their toes fold together
like mans hand when he is trying to
insert il in fruit jar BOyhOOd pictures
fash through the veriscOpe of the mind
a thousand films a minute when you
glance into the woods in the little delIs
around Topeka The woods fed TO the hol-
lows in this dry. hot country. Prairie
fires and hot winds chased them off the
hills if they were ever bold enough to try
to gain 4 foothold there Along the Mis-
souri, river near Kansas City and Atchi-
son. shaggy oaks and eIrns crown the
elevations far away from ther river and
east of IT there was once an almost IN
broken forest but when the woods began
their march across Kansas centuries be-
fore Coronado tried it. they were van
quished- They crept along the streams
and here and there planted an outpost or
- put a sentinel cottonwood on guard But
they have always been at disadvantage
in the fight
The white men should have come as
reinforcements instead OF as an enemy
in the rear with a cleaning axe We
Ia 81 brr< i to
repent and be cleansed of our sins. Let
save the woods we have left. In
country where the thermometer marks
12g in the sun we need shade Death Val
ley in Arizona hasn't tree: it is the
ugliest spot the American flag floats over:
and the ugIiest reptiles that crawl are
bred there. It is the habitat Of the horn
ed toad. and it is hot enough TO have been
the habitat of another horned Parsonage
after whom matches are named.
So We want all the trees in Kansas that
we can get If there is any danger that
some of the groves close to Topeka are
to be cut down. the people ought to get
possession of them and stop it The cut
ting up OF Garfield park into town lots
would be q public calamity The use of
the beautiful groves up the south bank of
the river for any purpose but parks would
also be a public calamity
The city should get possession of them
and thus have park worthy of the name
and with a river frontage
1t is popularity supposed and no doubt
the superstition was started by some OPP
tinntst or other person with a perfect
digestion. who looks on the bright side of
things, that hot weather is necessary for
the development of the corn crop. As
corn IN Kansas is indeed the bread of life
we are always ready to sink our indi-
v1duaI preferences for the sake of the
corn's. If the corn must have a temper