The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-10-21

Bostonian Convinced that American
ism Is mt It's Best i'm the West.
Boston Transcript.

Boston transcript.
"The East is East and the West is West"
says Rudyard kipling, but according TO
the citizen of St. Louis it would seem that
the West is both East, North, South and
West, the true center of America, the
child of New England and the mother of
the American that Is TO be. To one brought
UP In New England it is an enlarging and
enlightening experience to settle in any one
of our great Western centers where the
very crudities seem but the unripeness OF
some new and desirable product. If life
is more stable and more perfect in Massa-
chusetts II is in Missouri more stirring and
more surprising in what IL has already at
tanned in spite OF imperfection. There is
less dissatisfaction there, but more that
is satisfying; less education, perhaps, but
what robust material for the improvements
in education TO work upon; and these i'm
provements grow under the eyes of half a
generation.
At the top, the civilization of the West
is as fine as In the East, the arts OF life
are all known and practiced, and society
has all of Bostons culture with more than
It's charm. Homes are as beautiful, and
home life as refined and as earnest The
relative proportions are different. The
rougher elements predominant away from
the shelter of the Statehouse, and the
shades of Boston Common, but IL is a
roughness with hope in it, pretty sure TO
be shaped and formed and smoothed by the
rush OF the waves OF fine impulse which
sweep around our globe, from whatever
surface.
To come down TO details: A Boston audi
ence is unmistakable; an audience In a
Western city is representative, and il Is at
a public meeting in such environment that
the familiar axiom gains new meaning:
THE whole is greater than any OF its
parts" Before such an audience Governor
Roosevelt spoke Tuesday night.
II heard Roosevelt" says a New Eng
lander grated on to the life OF st. Louis;
1.-The big Coliseum was packed, and sat in
the center of the ring, Roosevelt ahead
and SWarUS of people all around, up into
the caves, fifteen or twenty thousand, and
after all had sung 'America'--it was great
they all went wild for interminable min
utes, one vast noise, and the waving flags
looked like forest or autumn leaves In
hardly see heads for the fiuttering. When
Roosevelt appeared, of course, IL was the
same. He spoke well, and could be heard
we'll, voice high and strong and not dis
agreeable. He was a paying investment,
and no one could have caught the West as
he has done.
1.-The new experience I'm that multitude
was the sense of nationality we never get
I'm New England. The band played all the
different airs, Dixie, My Maryland and
old Kentucky Home as well as the ones
we New Englanders are used TO. and in
that crowd each was as inspiring as the
other. Every wave OF song was the pulse
of a country, not of locality, or rather OF
localities merged I'm country. And that we
can never get in New England. II was
swayed the air I felt that L was Ken
tuckan. and sang ii like a native.
when Roosevelt spoke OF serving under
Joe Wheeler the man beside me said: And
l helped fight him-almost captured him
once! I've been in big crowds, but never
in such crowd-one that meant the blood
of the Nation. Who would not stand dirty
streets and SCOT, and even worse things.
for the sake OF being where the heaviest
part of the work is going on, Home will
never be less, nor less TO be loved, but all
the best life Of the country must not al
ways stay at home. Nothing can give the
partnership in what our land really is but
the actual living where IL is
This is the spirit OF the modern pioneer.
and il is good news TO those who sit by the
banks of the Charles and bemOan them
selves, losing faith in the future OF their
country. There they sit. did poor 10,
the sun going down, the river running
fast, the crowd flowing by I'm two streams
everything moving on 10 some purpose and
to one end"-until they are stirred by the
voice OF the West and told to move on
too.