The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-06-06
'NAN WITH 4 HOE"
Continued from Second Page.

/ est OF all the western poets. Some Creat
critics go further. One asserts that The
Man With the Hoe" touches the high
water mark of American achievement in
verse Another, more modest, but still a
master of ill-cons dered superlatives.
| thinks it is the best thing written by an
American author in a quarter of a cen
| fury. A third holds that it stamps the
author as zone of the greatest thinkers
| in the world" a fourth, more weirdIy
! impressionistic in his language, declares
| that ''he goes down into the dim places
Of the dead; he reaches in heart warm
| prayer to the Father of Life" a fifth
| says, This poem comes as the cry CT the
| Zeitgeist."
! large number of great western critics
! ton in agreeing that Markham IS the
foremost name in poeucaI literature since
| Tennyson and Browning.
Where's your Wully Shakespeare
! now?" cried hot Scotch in me gallery
/ sc the Edinburgh Theater, rejoicing over
| the success of John Homes Douglas"
where's your Ruddie Kipling now" ap-
pears to be the unexpressed but secretly
| exultant interrogative OF Coordinate
criticism in the West.
Of course this is all nonsense. 1.-THE
Nan With the Hoe" is nos a great poem
in the sense that the masterpieces of
Tennyson or Browning, or even kipling,
are great poems. one may still mold 10
the comparison with The Marsaillai2e"
and the Ca Ira" But neither The Mar
seiuaise" nor the ga Ira" 5 a great
poem. Both were great raI7ing cries "a
The Man With the Hoe" may prove TO
he. They voiced prevalent and eventu-
ally dominant mood. They possessed the
st0rmful energy of passionate protest.
All this is true likewise CT ;ue newer
lyric. But of all three il s true that ne;
have not the majesty or authority of the
highest poetry.
And the fun Of the thing s that Edwin
Markham. or Charles Edwin Markham.
as he used to sign himself. was name
familiar - eastern editors on before ris
western critics discovered him. lie : now
more than 80 years Of age. and mas been
contributing to Harper's and Scr.pTeI's
ami the At,artic for nearly quarter OF d
century. But not until the appearance
of The Man With the Hoe" did he wake
up to find himself famous.
This fame has not turned MS head. He
speaks modesty enough Of his own per-
Torrance TO the reporters who flock TO
him for interviews.
II am the man Of the hoe be said 10
one these. Il am child Of the furrow.
All my youth was passed on a farm and |
cattle range. among the hard, severe con- I
eittoas that so with that life. So when I
write Of the man with the hoe 1 write I
to some extent Of my own experience.
A-. Markham has been for many years +
the principal OF a school in aOkland. Cal /
Ten years ago. he tells Us, he made a 1
visit 10 loan exhibition in San Fran /
cisco. and then for the first time saw /
1IlIet's painting The Man With The |
Hoe"
Il sat for an hour before he painting
and al the time the tenor and power OF
the picture was growing upon me. / saw
that tbs creation of the painter was ne
mere peasant. no chance man OF the
fields. but ne was rather q type, a sym
Dol OF the teller, orutJ8lized through long
ages OF industrial oppression. saw in
tbs peasant tie slow but awful degra-
dat.oa Of man through endless hopeless
and oyleSs labor. I saw in this peasant
betrayed humanity. Tor. Cain To the con-
trary. We are ali more OF less our broth
er-s keeper. This picture stuck ~ nv
memory for ten years. until my Christ
mas vacation. and 7 wrote out he i'm
preston Of IL ,nat had been s2-iaslas Up
through my SOU 5U these years
But We who now-hsve a chance n read
1Ir Markhsr1's verse in rs e1,f-e.v. can
recognize that II many a prelude 81 the
final utterauce he breathed the same sQ.--
It - si,ruis,ic love for ne oppressed and
hated or a system which produces 7lr-
cons ciousneSs and un-otent.o1al cn9-ss-
SorS q,
TAKE THE FRISCO LINE
4. rtcr-na1 TAN u s.. Iai-S art ar 49,.