The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-05-09
" KANSAS. THE TENTH MUSE.

Why She Makes as Much Noise as a
 Moon Full of Meteors on Tin Roof"
 1 There Is a foolish English question or
 conundrum which runs Why Is a
 mouse when it epins?" There Is no an-
 swer to 1t. It is only silly combina-
 ton of words, and in this same spirit
 and by the same token one might ask, | Why is Carrie Nation when she smashes?"
 | Why Is she?
 Heaven knows!
 Why does all the world stop it's busi-
 ness and stand agape while this little
 old woman who until ten weeks ago had lived sixty eminently respectable years
 goes about waving her hatchet and
 talking in loud and excited tones? l As the world has rolled along any number of ladies and gentlemen have risen with axes or adzes or clubs and have damned the daylights out of pso-
 pie who disagreed with them. Saloon
 smashing has been done, and in recent
 years, by women who have been perse-
 cuted by the rum fiend The matter
 ldS CduSeu SOIIle SOlil-
 ment. It has even got into the days
 dispatches. But the story was unim- portant and trivial and really of no consequence"
 But here comes this Kansas woman, from Medicine Lodge, Kan, the home of Jerry Simpson, and also of Congress- man Chester I. Long whose speech on the Porto Rican tariff was used more than any other speech on the subject by the republican national committee last year-here comes this little old Kansas woman and throws rock heard around the world
 Why does it resound?
 Would 1t have crashed through the Mrs. Nation had thrown that rock at Springfield, Mo, or Wheeling, W. Va, or Charleston, S. C., or Walla Walla, Wash, or Laramie, Wyo,, or Ilion, N. Y.?
 'No!" as the Fourth of July orator would say, No, ten thousand times mol"
 The rock that Carrie Nation aimed at the Rum Fiend's slats rattled around the world like a moon full of meteors falling on tin roof solely and only be- cause Carrie Nation threw the rock in Kansas.
 Kansas is the tenth muse-the muse of advertising.
 There have been socialists in Ameri- ca for a century, but until the Kansas Populists appeared the socialists were force or effect. There have been cyclones in the world since the morning stars sang together, but until the Kansas cycline appeared the cy- ,lone was without distinction or influ- ,nce. God made grasshoppers before le made man, but until the grasshop- oers became hyphenated with Kansas 1e was a lowly bug, less known than he begbug or the flea.
 Kansas refuses to allow her wares to become shopworn. She advertises. It | 8 in the blood. When she found she lad in Ingalls, the best living American ;tyllst, what did she do? Did she hide i'm in a college, as Massachusetts would have done? Did She start mag izine with him, as New York would | lave done? Did she send him to the 'ourt of St. James. as Ohio would have lone? No, gentle reader. Kansas | ound the best billboard on earth, and | ut old John T. Ingalls, to writing ad- 'ertisng on Kansas there. Kansas | ent Ingalls to the senate.
 Kansas gets advertising out of eve- ything Good fortune and calamity, iches or diversity. famine or feast Il times and seasons are reserved in he contract for top column next to- eading matter advertising for Kansas,
 Kansas Is a wonderful state. If some fight an earthquake should drop the 'hole ever blooming state into the bot omless pit, before morning the inclo- ure would be fenced up with a bill oard ten miles high, covered with the tory of the glory of Kansas, and every fight from the crater of the pit the anne enlivening and diverting, withal rofitable, Kansas tale would be wig -agged from the blazes below upon the ome of the eternal stars,-William lien White in the St. Louis Mirror.