The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-10-01
MRS. WHITES WRITE UP
Tells in Breezy Way Her I'M
pressiOns of Corn Carnival.

The following article concerning the
Atchison Corn Carnival. was written by
Mrs. VIM. Allen White and proves con-
clusively that Mr.. White is not the only
member of the family who writes well.
Atchison, Kansas, is a great town.
Four times it has demonstrated its right
to that title, and this year the demon
stration was emphasized with adjectives
of strong color. For this week she gave
her fourth Corn Carnival-and like
bou-Ben-Adam, it leads all the rest.
The Corn Carnival has developed in
Atchison a spirit that is religious in its
intensity 1t is from that spirit that
the Corn Carnival is borne The love,
the passion, the unselfishness, the
fervor which the people of Oberafn-
people of Atchison put into the Corn Car
nival: the result is a great spectacle.
Every window and door and business
front in AtchiSOn was wreathed in corn
this year; every window was filled with
1T. The corn decorations must have cost
hundreds of dollars, and the entertain
ment features cost thousands Every
thing was free. The bands gave free
concerts all over town. The big Banda
Rosa gave two open-air concerts, and
played 20 acres of people. 1t is said
the Wellington fair, which had the Ban
da Rosa, and charged admission to the
concerts, took in 81, 100. Atchison did
not take in a cent The travelling men
of AtchisOn fitted up two big buildings,
one for men, and one for women, and
served free lunch all day, ham sand
witches good homemade oneS), pickles,
cheese, lemonade, ETC., everything free
1t was said that it cost them $500 to
do it. but they did it. These are mere
" offered as examples of the Corn Car
nival spirit. But all of these things
were but hating. stammering express
sions of that spirit. 1t was in the Corn
Carnival parade that AtchisOn found her
elOQuence.
Thursday, under a lowering sky,
about $4,000 Kansas citizens looked at
the AtchiSon Corn Carnival parade, and
saw the prettiest spectacle the west has
ever seen. A big Omaha railroad Off
cial who has passes, and runs around
to everything. says that in many fea-
lures it beat the great Dewey parade in
New York city The Dewey parade is
supposed to have made the high water
mark in parades and pageants in the
United States. If the Dewey parade
beat the Atchison Corn Carnival parade,
$4,000 enthusiastic KansanS will admit
that it must have been q mighty one.
But the Atchison Corn Carnival parade
was a thing of such SURPRISING beauty
that it is not in a comparative class. It
was perfect-with not one false note of
colour or conception, not one jar in the
harmony of a most exquisite Dhantasy.
YOung's white jacketed band, 40 strong,
led a line of 95 features. all brilliant
jewels of colour linked together here
and there with the II big bands that
formed part of the parade. This splend-
id spectacle passed along streets that
were canopied with flying banners of
red, white and yellow bunting, hedged
on every side with tall plumy corn
stalks and lined with cheering multi
tudes.
The 95 features included band of
mounted Indians in buckskins and war
paint and feathers-a band of rough
riders, band of Spanish dons in vel
vets and gold lace and sombreros. an
old Wells-Fargo stage coach drawn by
four big mules and loaded with armed
guards. a giddy cavalcade of ballet
dancers, etc, ROSTERS, horses and most
everything else in the animal kingdom.
Then came the part of the show in
which the women of Atchison turned
themselves loose.te There were car
riages and traps and floats, prairie
schooners, baby buggies, bicycles, pony
even a big white sleigh covered with
snowbal1s. There were 85 of the flower
features. and the women used 5000 worth
of paper alone Hundreds of women
worked on this parade for weeks, for
it must have taken hundreds of thou
sands of those flowers to produce the
result. But the amazing thing was the
taste of everything. The attention to
horses and the butterfly bows of ribbon
above their fetlocks to the remotest
buckle on the harneSS-nOthing had been
omitted. nothing overlooked. And when
the work was all done and the marshals
whistle started the big parade. the
AtchisOn women puffed out their POM
Dadours. took a reef in their nerves.
and braced up their tired backs to stand
on the corners and see their handiworlz
pass by. And there is where the Atchi-
son women proved that they were
thoroughbreds, FOR there wasn't .
wrinkle or a gray hair in that entire
parade. The town spirit that made this
the biggest affair of the kind the west
has ever seen arose to fine heights when
it filed those vehicles with fairly-like
and f1ower-faced girls. and the result
was probably the most beautiful as well
as the most artistic spectacle ever seen
In the United States.
And the women of Atchison found
their reward in the glorification of a
town spirit so fine and strong and I'M
selfish that the 10000 visitors carried
home with them an example and an in
spiration that will last them to the
Days End. The Atchison women are
good wonderland long may they wave.