The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-09-27
A GOOD WORK.
A. II. Wilson Investigates the
Santa Fe Reading Room.
How the Employees Find Use
for Them.
DOING GREAT SERVICE
Tired Workingman Is Provided
With Entertainment.
DOING GREAT SERVICE
Mr.. Busser Appears to Have
Solved the Problem.

recently delivered a series of addresses
to the employees of the Santa Fe rail-
| road at the division stations between
Topeka and the Pacific coast where
reading rooms are maintained by the
company, and his story of his expert
ences on the trip is interesting. The lit
erary work of the company in behalf
of it's employees was a revelation to
him. as were also the general improve
ment and state of perfection which the
road has attained since an earlier trip
made by him a score of years ago. His
enthusiasm over it all is so great as to
be contagious and what is hereinafter
said is his own account of the Journey
1.-THE literary department of the COM
pany is under the immediate superVfS-
ion of Mr.. E. S. BuSser, an old-time
citizen of Topeka and a longtime resi-
dent OF Kansas. This work is Mr.. Bus
ser's great pride and surely he is en-
titled to be as vain about it as he
pleases. His whole life has been devo-
ted to books and men, with the result
that he not only knows what men de-
sire but he also knows where to find
that which will satisfy such desires.
The libraries connected with the read
ing rooms are of his selection and he
says that 40 per cent is fiction, 20 per
cent history in its general form, Is per
cent biography, 10 per cent technology,
the remaining Is per cent being miscel-
lany. Everything respectable and use
full or entertaining in the way of cur
rent magazines and newspapers is sup
piled, no expense being spared by the
company in that respect. Mr.. Busser,
of course, is simply one of the means
by which this great railroad is accom-
plishing great good to it's employees, and
to that company must the credit of the
work be given. 1t was an experiment
at the beginning but now it has proved
to be an inestimable success. No rail-
road company, or other corporation, or
in truth any employer loses anything
by making life brighter and better for
employees. What may be great sacri-
flee in the beginning soon developes
into the reward.
eff any person has the least sus-
picion that these reading rooms and
libraries are not appreciated let MIN
take a trip over the line and note how
they are used. In my journey noted
sixty-seven employees using the reading
room at a small division point in the
far west. Even the men who do not
reach the division point get much
benefit, as all magazines and newSpa- |
pers which are replaced by the later
editions are sent along the line of the
road to the section men and those en-
ployed in the bridge and construction
work. This is of inestinSable benefit in
that part of the country which is
sparsely settled. In this connection 1t
must be remembered that the families
of the employees have the use OF the
books and magazines. When people
live where they must depend on them |
selves for entertainment and recrea-
ton this sort of help is Godsend. IN
connection with the reading rooms the
company, through Mr.. Busser, ar
ranges each season a series of enter
tainmentS in the way of concerts and
lectures. Some of the best known en- |
tertainers of the country have been
taken over the line for that purpose,
and all of it is done without expense |
to the employees or their families.
Books and magazines are not the |
only benefits in and about these read
ing rooms. In Connection with them
may be found billiard and pool tables, |
thoroughly equipped bath rooms ana
other means of benefit and enjoyment;
Every room contains a piano, ana
about the buildings, most all of which
were especially constructed for this
work, are small parks in which may
be found flowers and shrubbery and
trees which make them veritable
GASES in the desert
''It is not a very long time since peo-
pie hesitated to make the trip to Cali
desert but all of that has now been
eliminated in Arizona and California |
by thoroughly oiling the roadbed SO
that no discomfort whatever is expert |
enced Instead of being compelled to |
pull down the blinds and exert every |
effort to get rid of the discomforts |
now one can enjoy and consider as ne
travels the marks of history Whlch |
no farther along than the tunnel |
which takes him out of Colorado and
into New Mexico when he passes
through the Maxwell land grant, ia
himself at the Glorietta mountains, at
an elevation of 1900 feet. There he |
sees the historic Pecos church (now |
A crurnbIing mass of adobe) in which !
the Aztecs kept a fire burning for
many years in the hope that Monte
yuma would again return and re-
establish their religion which was
overthrown by the Spaniards. In go
ing down this mountain one passes
through the Apache canon, commonly |
known as the battlefield of Glorietta
1t was in this canon, during the civil
war, that armed forces from Colo
RADIO repulsed in a most bloody con-
hict a confederate army from Texas
who were on their way north on a
foraging expedition. The loss to both
a'One hurries by the petrified forests at
Adamano, Ariz., which are protected by
the government, and the home of the an
of which are so high up on the mountain
side that they have never been I expE1t,orea'
Ariz.. he goes north 63 miles to the rim
of the Grand Canon at an elevation OF l.,
wonder of the world is bewildered
when he looks into what seems to be al
ness and sublimity of this ponderous
opening in the earth is manifest immedi-
ately on seeing IT, yet more IuilH W dP-
preciate this wonder it is necessary to
descend to the bottom of the canon-a |
distance of seven miles and descent of |
5 900 feet-to the Colorado river, the width |
OF which is 200 feet in the canon, where it
rushes and roars through this vast aper-
on horses and mules and over a narrow
trail. 1t is not until one starts on his re-
turn trip from the river that he fully re-
aIizes the magnifscence, wonder and beau
ty of this massive wall of solid rock-a
description of which has baffled the to-
pographer. Its beauties are beyond the
vision of the artist and poet and the Ian
guage of any people is inadequate to por-
tray its grandeur.