New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-07-21
RICHARD BURTON MAKES SOME PER
TINENT AND SUGGESTIVE
OBSERVATIONS
From The Criterion.

In sense. the West is more American than
the East The people there are less affected by
foreign models and standards. and they reflect
more transparency local conditions of life That
kind of culture which betrays itself by an air of
supercllious patronage toward our alleged ma
tlOnal ldeaIS is unusual IN the Western country;
II 1t bloom at all, it is a rare exotic. A resi-
dence of several years there in one of the new
and rapidly growing centres of population has
served to bring the fact home to me: and per
haps the other fact of a lifelong familiarity
with the East, has furnished Just the needed
point OF advantage for observation. A friend.
describing his own experience in going from
New-England to Nebraska to take position in
the State University, said to me: II went West
New-Englander; l came back American
This metamorphosis is pretty sure to take
place, and it is not bad thing if il is TO be
conceded that the whole is greater than its
parts. The Amercanism 1 mean is something
to be felt rather than defined; it is of the emo
tons, the heart primarily; only in a less degree
Westerner. it is very lovable, and, moreover it
has a marked tendency to keep the United
States in the procession Of progress. as to COM
merce, politics and social questions.
1t naturally follows that the literature now
being made by Western authors. and demanded
by Western readers, is the most distinctive pro-
duced in the land with the possible exception
of the South, in that it thus smacks of the soil
As State after State, and section after section.
are exploited in poem and story particularly in
story, the result is a product which honestly
portrays the characteristics of both Nature and
human nature; as a rule, the vigor and virtue
or great, unspent forces are in it, the vitality
OF the new and the hopeful and the masterful.
In possessing this quality Western literature
has the nub Of the matter; in standing for brave
performance that looks to the future it makes
an elemental appeal. Technic may at times lag
behind, though this defect is rapidly being over
come But technic, necessary IL is TO a per-
rect work OF art, is easier to get Git be &C
quired) than originality and power; these are
positive, where the other is negative. Nobody
can read comparatively new writer's like Gar
land, Thanet and White Che of Kansas or still
newer ones, like Seton-Thompson and Tarking-
ton. without recognizing the mingIing of fresh
ina yi0at grin
the gift for saying things. which always give the
world what it calls literature. There is some
thing peculiarly stimulating to the literary
maker in the air and scenery of the West; even
an Eastern Importation like Mr. Wister re-
spends to the bigger horizon with a style that
has tang to 1t. with types that are racy. The
earlier history of Western literature from Bret
Harte down, has been simply the record Of the
effect of a more arousing environment upon
Fasteners who turned westward and could not
but respond to its splendid motive. Would Win
throp's John Brent" for example. ever have
been written had the author stayed in Boston
New-York? No nor it's like
The taste for literature in the West follows
and is an index of the unspoiled Americanism
OF its folk 1t is healthy and sane even when
crude, and it Is crude mainly in places lying far
from the civilizing influences of centres which
is exactly what is true Of blessed New England
Too often in speaking Of East and West we
match some representative city on the Atlantic
seaboard against everything beyond the Mssis-
sippi or the Rockies. as if that were fair COM
parison. But in your search for the raw place
the pioneer Western village over against the
genuine back number New-England rural COM
uuhlty' ana then see II honors are not eaSyi
1t is simply a choice Of crudities. with the bet
ting in favor of that which is less conservative
The general Western attitude toward good
books is eagerly sympathetic. l was IeCturin g
this last winter in Iowa town of some ten
thousand people, and found Mr.. -Thomp-
sons animal books in house after house delight
ing the children and the childrens parents. It
was almost as If menagerie had come to town
Kipling's Jungle Books were known and loved
in the same way. This is cited merely as an ex-
ample of keeping closely in touch with a cur
rent and healthy success in letters. Far up in
North Dakota this spring, I talked with a man
whose knowledge of Ibsen's latest pIay-and in
deed of Scandinavian literature in general-was
of the intimate sort to put me to nv guns In
self-defence. Nor are these experiences excep-
tiOnal There is an eager. sound hearted pub
lie throughout the great West U am thinking
particularly Of the Northwest, because it is bet
ter known to mel awaiting the writer's who
really produce what is AmertCan by which
do not mean books that vauntingIy cut them
selves loose from traditions and carry chip on
the shoulder for any criticism of Uncle sam
No, but rather the literature which quietly in
evitably as the growth Of the material soil
springs from what the writer knows and loves
best, and which. in representing him. repre-
sents his environment The West can be trust
ed to welcome with enthusiasm this kind of
book and is every year producing more readers
of intelligence and independence Of Judgment
Numerically, this is an audience already of i'm
posing proportions.
Much less use than the East has the West foy
the decadent literature of our day This is only
another way OF saving that the reading DubIfC
is sane and uninfeCted by the faddisms of a
culture that poses and is tired-Culture in the
cant sense. The books of extreme realism of
morbid pathology must look elsewhere for pat
ronage; the West will have none of them The
illuminate of the East (takng their cue from
the older East of Europe) may continue to ask
for and get food spiCed to their faded palates;
only the few Westerners in the large cities who
consider that 1t gives them tone TO care for such
books call for them. There is no real demand
for the degenerates Of literature in the West
which is the other side of the shield whose face
is that certain demand for wholesome books
already noted