Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1904-11-08
IOWA AND EsrHeTIcs.

IOWA AND ESTHETlCS.
An Iowa newspaper complains that
Iowa lacks the esthetic. 1t says that
we Of this state consume our lives pro-
ducing corn and hogs and cattle, neg
lecting art and literature. and" it
continues, there is the home, the wife,
the child. the aim and purpose Of this
life. Wouldn't it be better to take a
little Of the attention given to the hog
and the steer and devote it to the wife
and the child, to the home?"
Iowa must plead guilty to that
the prosperity Of bursting cribs ro-
tund porkers and the cattle in the feed
yards and onra thousand hills. She
confesses it. She owns up to a short
age of hair and poetic frenzy. Her
eyes are not cast soulfully skyward
and her language is the vernacular OF
common people not the jargon of the
esthete. Still no man who counts real
literature lacks a reader in Iowa. True
poets find 1owa's feeling and Iowa
crowds to gaze on pictures and stat
uary that speak grand sentiment or
tell silently beautiful story. Theodore
Thomas finds audiences that sit rapt
under the incarnation of his strings
and reeds and brasses; the cars are
damned by the Iowans who travel far
when great artistic sings at the cap
ital and lecturers of repute carry fat
fees from Iowa year by year. There is
In Iowa no paucity of sentiment no
lack of love for the beautiful and of
that inner estheticism which is the
true appreciation of art. Nor is there
that silly affectation Of culture and ar
tistic sentiment that affects to despise
the business of raising hogs and cattle
while it feeds on pork chops and por-
terhouse: Iowa is not short on the es-
thetic. 1t is only long on common
sense.
If there is a state where better homes
exist trot it out. If there are cleaner
cities and more fruitful farms we want
to see them. These fat hogs and cattle
to which the hyperaesthetic object are
building splendid farm houses, Lighters
ing labor, educating children, all over
the state. They are putting furnaces
and systems for water supply in the
houses where the wives formerly car
ried in the fuel, and water, putting in
lighting plants where the wives
formerly cleaned kerosene lamps;
they are paying the hired
girl: furnishing the house as the wife
desires it furnished, paying for the COM
Portable carriage in which she rides to
town and buying the buggies for the
boys. paying the girls way at the semi
nary and the boys expenses at Ames
or some other Iowa school, buying
better clothes, making real homes. The
men who are devoting their attention to
raising fat steers and hogs in Iowa, are
more devoted to the home, the wife and
the children, than all the shock-head-
ed pseudo esthetes that ever crowded
the divorce courts. They are making
the future of their families safe.
Let us thank the Lord that Iowa is
short on "esthetes." A little OF what Is
ordinarily accepted as esthetic goes
long way. Like olive oil, of which a
little is good in a salad dressing, it
sickens in quantities. Let us be thank
full that the hard-headed 1owan S
afield with his corn or looking after
his ho'gs and cattle instead of twid-
ding his thumbs in affected ecstasy
over the stuff some people elect to des-
ignate as the esthetic. And let US re-
frain from finding fault with him be-
cause he has enough Of common sense
and industry to raise and feed and sell
prime steers and top hogs at good
profit.