East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1906-03-01
THE SOUTH IS MOTHER Of THE WEST.

Emerson Hough writes a highly en-
tertaining article, entitled THE HUI
NOR of the Prairies," for the Saturday
Evening Post, which will be appreci-
ated by every westerner. The arti-
Gle in part is as follows:
In the first place, the west is far
more like the south than like the
north and east, in spite of parallels of
latitude. That is not wonderful, but
natural. The south discovered the
west, fought for it, took it and held it.
The north got the usufruct; but the
north did not put its stamp of mother
hood on the west. The south was
its mother. The great explorers were
southerners. To this day, the man
from Yale who goes west comes back
with his speech impregnated not with
westernisms but southernisms. The
idiom of the COW range, for instance,
is southern, and this in spite of the
fact that the entire ownership of the
cattle industry has changed hands.
The trails across the Rockies and up
the vast plains were paths made by
southern men. The mould of the
western mind was taken from those
indomitable "emigres," hardy and gay
and dead-broke and Independent TO
the core, who left the older south and
came to the west and northwest via
the ancient paths of the big rivers,
via cross-country paths of their own
making over the plains and the Rock
les, via Texas and the war for the in
dependence of Texas, via the COW
range and its creed of self-reliance
and independence.
So much for parentage-and
there is no denying the parentage-of
a western way of thought. The rest
must be chargeable to the environ
ment, and this reminder is even larger
than the portion for which we have
accounted. Environment stamps us
all unconsciously. 1t makes the aver
aeg man of a mountain country
blond, and the average city dweller 4
brunette-just why no one knows.
The western lands produce western
men, and a very good sort OF men.
These men, born as above pedigreed,
produced a western humor all of their
own, and 1t was a goodish sort of fun,
too. 1t was perforce big. broad, ele-
mental, at times grotesque. Why?
Ask the mountains; ask the plains,
and the bad lands. and the buttes,
and the deserts, and the river beds.
The carven faces of the Rockies are
not saints but goblins. The twisted
souls of the cactus and the mesquite
tree tell of want, privation. The peaks
and mesas speak language of soli-
tude and self-communion and loneli-
ness. Above all, they speak of lack,
of want, of waiting.
We are getting close now. 1t would
seem, to one distinguishing character
istic of western humor. 1t should be
courageous; and it is. 1t should be
grotesque; and it is. 1t should sneak
of lack, of privation; and it often
does.
English humor seems slow to us. 1t
deals with developed and elaborated
for which we Americans
have not time. Humor of the east has
more time for creme de menthe and
a straw. The west had no time for
creme de menthe; and, moreover, 1t
had no creme de menthe.
Always there was the feeling in the
bosom of the man who went west that
some day he would have all the things
which he had left behind him back
home. Usually 1t was his son or grand
son who got them, and not himself;
but meantime the emigrant to the new
country made believe. He Knocked,
to ease his soul. The laugh at things
sacrificed is on the lips of western
humorists, professional or amateur.
"You wouldn't want a thousand