The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-08
OUT OF THE MAGAZINES.

| the workings of our system of seif-govern-
| ment that in great issues the people seldom
1 so wrong, but that it is in matters Of petty
! local administration that we often fail. The
reason he gives for the difference. and he is
Undoubtedly right is that It is the want of
/ general and keen interest. rather than the
| lack of sound judgment. which is our
stumbling block. He illustrates his point
| by incident that occurred during the
| civil war. There had been a political up
heaval in Syracuse regarding the postoffice-
| A delegation of the citizens from that town
waited on Mr.. Lincoln. and one of them ex-
| pressed sympathy with the President upon
his trials and difficulties in sustaining the
burdens of the war. Yes said Mr.. Lin
| coin, the load is often heavy, but it is not
| so much the war that troubles me as your
| Syracuse postoffice.' The same truth was
| illustrated again during the past year. The
| country rallied to the support of the ma
| tional administration in the prosecution OF
| the war against Spain. and fractional fights
were abandoned; but city governments go
on in the same slip-shod fashion as of old
because the public does not take sufficient
interest in them to set them right.
A writer in Self Culture. the ambitious
magazine published over at Akron, o.,
thinks he has discovered difference in the
characteristics of the East and the Middle
West. The last quarter of century, ne
points out, has been dominated by the
purely commercial city, New York. The
State outside of that city and the surround
ing States have counted for nothing. The
tendency has been to concentration. A COM
mercial system was built up in New York
which dictated to everybody and every
thing. 1t became the home of monopoiies,
of syndicates, of pools, of trusts. But the
tendency in the West. he declares, is the
exact reverse of this. THE rise of Western
power does not mean the rise Of Chicago,
or St. Louis, Kansas City, or Cincinnati,
or st. Paul, or Minneapolis. Every indi-
vidual in every little country town is in
Guided just as much as the most influential
man of the greatest of these cities. Every
where the individual speaks out and not the
corporation" He admits that things are as
yet loosely and careslessly managed in the
West mo one" he says, takes enough
responsibility, no one makes enough per-
sistent effort. But once you get the people
of the West to making persistent effort TO
perfect the details of their lives, you VIII
get the whole people, and the result will be
a more effective social organization than
we have yet had, because every part Will be
intelligently administered" All this is in
teresting and hopeful, and heaven senG it
may be true, but when the West so organ
ICES how can one be sure that it, too, like
New York, will not be intoxicated with It's
own power and use it for what seems an I'M
mediate local benefit instead of for the great
general good? -: =
English readers, we have long been told
are always on the lookout for, and al
ways ready to welcome literature that is
1i-+ OVlx
like that of Longfellow whose nationality
is not strikingly marked, they do not greatly
value, while they go out of their way to
pat Joaquin Miller on the back and to APP
prove of his verses Notwithstanding the
crudeness of many of them. They rave, too,
over Walt Whtman's "barbaric yawp,"
but, curiousy enough, they have never taken
kindly to Whittier, although American
poet so well represents the nation and
it's life. Miller speaks for a half-civlized
element that once existed in the far west,
and he has a picturesqueness of speech and
holiness of fancy that deserve measure of
attention; Whitman expresses the uncurbed
man, and might almost as we'll have made
his dwelling place on the steppes of Russia
or in the interior of Thibet for all he repre-
sents of the real life and spirit of the people
among whom he lived Neither is an expo /
nent of American thought, or aspiration, or
character except in incidental and tram |
STORY way. But Whittier is beyond all
others a representative poet Through him
speaks the spirit of democracy; he is in
spired by the phases of development that
men call politics into utteTances that make
a part of our history; he pictures a family
life that is typical of the American home
everywhere; above all else he setsNforth the |
morality and the religious spirit that, say
what they may about the degeneracy of the |
times, still govern the life of the American |
people He may not have great magma |
ton, his work may lack the finish that dis |
tinguishes the work of lesser writer's, but |
he is representative. And now-according to
a London letter in the Book Buyer, he is
about to be discovered" by England. Thus
the paragraph reads: 1.-The immortalizing of |
Whittier has begun, for he is to be included |
among the Oxford Poets issued by the Clar- |
endon Press. For long Whittier, to US, has
stood among the inexplicables. Readers of |
poetry found his metres strange and per-
picking; while English people have lacked /
that intimate knowledge of American do !
nestle politics which would elucidate much |
of his spirit. He is being edited by Mr.. Gar !
rett Honder" 1t will be remembered that
a good many Americans never guessed what |
delightful verse the Poet of the Sierras'' |
WIOte, Ut WHAT Il EduSCeuuelll genius w nit /
man was until Englishmen told them about |
it. Are we to look for a Whittier revival |
on this side that he has been i'm
mortalized" abroad?
-: -
All the magazines are still telling about
the war. Owing to their unwieldiness and
inability to step hastily out of the beaten
track they were a little late in getting a
good hold of the subject, but the grasp.
once gained, is relentless, and they decline
to let go until the field is cleaned of the
last literary straw. There is little that is
Lew in what they have to say. The papers
told it all in one form or another long ago.
but the people of the country are not all
tired of the war yet and are willing to read
the story over again, no doubt, especially
they are now getting it, in d manner,
from first hands. In the January Scribner
Theodore Roosevelt tells the history of the
Rough Riders"-the raising of the regi-
ment, the character of the men and various
incidents concerning individuals among
them. Admiral Simpsons flag lieutenant,
S. A. Staunton describes in Harper the
naval campaign of the West Indies Hav-
ing been pictured many times by pen
and brush and camera, as a whole and in