The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-07-01

49,
made name.
John Hay was our ambassador to
the court of st. James, successor OF
Lowell and Bayard. He did much to
strengthen the good understanding be-
tween the two countries.
Opportunity came and Mr.. Mckinley
offered Mr.. Hay the place he was made
for secretary of state. There was that
was more than Richelieu or Bismarck
could boast. Hay suggested tc the
chancelleries of the powers, we must
conduct this affair so that when the
comes, as it comes to nations and to
individuals alike, Where is thy broth
er?'-we must conduct it in such man.
ner that we shall not be reduced to the
answer Cain made"
Hay as an Author.
OF Mr.. Hay as an author the same
writer says:
I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank
TIL the last galoots ashore.
What heart has not thrilled at that,
and where is the man whose eye has not
moistened at the concluding lines:
He weren't no saint-but at Judgment
I'd run my chances with Jim,
'Isongside of some pious gentlemen
That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He seen his duty-a dead sure thing
And went for it thar and then:
And Christ amt a-going to be too hard
On man that died for men.
would have been ashamed of those lines
not Shakespeare or Milton. The verse
is good, the sentiment lofty. And there
is Little Rreeches,' almost as good
How did he git thar? Angels.
AS for the "Breadwinners, if John
Hay wrote it he wrote a charming
story, and "Castiliian Days" haunts you
and makes you curse the fate that will
not let you see Spain and the Spanish
at home.
TerhapS thara &c not II, o,1r Ioocr1,a 90
a more delightful volume of essays than
Hays translation of Emilio Castelar,
Republican Movement in Europe" A
country that in a nearby epoch pro-
duced such a man as CASTELAR, is not
ready to die, and, however decrepit,
must have a renaissance.
Jim Bludso, of the Prairie Belle.
1.-THE best known of John Hays poems.]
Wall, no! can't tell whar he lives.
Because he don't live, you see;
Leastways, he's got out of the habit
Of Twin like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three
That you haven't heard folks tell
| How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks
The night of the Prairie Belle?
He weren't no saint-them engineers
Is all pretty much alike:
One wife in Natchez-under-the
And another one here in Pike;
| A keerleSS man in his talk was Jim,
But he never flunked, and he never lied
| reckon he never knowed how.
And this was all the religion he had:
| To treat his engine we'll;
| Never be passed on the river;
| To mind the pilots bell;
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire.
| thousand times he swore
| He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank
| Till the last soul got ashore.
All boats has their day on the Mississip.
| And her day come at last
The Movastar was a better boat.
But the Belle she wouldn't be passed.
And so she come tearin along that night,
The Oldest craft on the line
And her furnace crammed. rosin and
pine.
The fire bust out as she clared the bar.
And burnt hole in the night
And quick as a fash she turned and made
For the willer-bank on the right.
There was runnin and curSfn', but jim
yelled out,
Over all the Internal roar:
''I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last galoot's ashore"
Through the hot black breath of the burn
in boat.
Jim Bludso's voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And knowed he would keep his word
And sure'S you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestack fell,
And Bludso's ghost went up alone,
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.
He weren't no saint, but at judgment
I'd run my chance with Jim.
'Iongside OF some piouS gentlemen
He seen his duty, a dead sure thing,
And went for it thar and then:
And Christ amt a-going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.