The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-04-13

tx 1s.I
/ The club women and civic improve
ment league have started their annual
antidandelion crusade. Every spring
| there is big roar about the dandeliOns
and wild story that they are taking
the town and that, If their ravages are
not stopped, there Won't be a spear of
blue grass left by another year. Well,
there may be something to 1T, and any
way you can't stop 'enl-these dandelion
crusaders when they get started on
their pet hobby-but won't you own to
sneahng satisfaction in the thought
That as long as they continue to work
harder with their tongues than they do
with their trowels the dandelions are
comparatively safe from them? Is
there a sight more fair in all the world
than bright green lawn in early
spring, before the eye has grown ac-
eustomed to the glories of the new
year, spangled with the golden radiance
season there is nothing so beautiful as
the state house grounds-say on the
north side of the library building, where
the dandelions dot the gentle slope of
vivid green lawn as thickly as stars
In the purple sky of night-or Bethany
campus and the surrounding parking
where they riot undisrurbed and trans
form for few weeks, a commonplace
park into a veritable Kate Greenaway
fairyland of vivid coloring and haunt
ing beauty.
The chief charm of the dandelions is
their suddenness-their unexpectedness.
They burst upon you in moment some
more or less dyspeptic morning as you
truoge down town, eyes on the ground,
the Spirit, e>lso, steps tagging. thoughts.
too, when suddenly looking YEARLY up
your eyes fall upon the lawn or park
ing and the dandelions sparkle back at
You from the green young grass. Then
suddenly you realize that spring is
here, that The sky was never so blue,
the sun so bright and the dandelions
so beWilderingly. dazzlingly yellow,
peer coqu ettishly ou: from the green
and laughing roguishly at the world.
A world that hates them? 1t isn't truei
Who could hate them? This anti
dancel1on crusade is a stupid, blunder-
ing, Ph1listine movement supposed to
De in the interests of civic beauty but
really aimed at the destruction of the
loveliest feature of the panorama of
spring. What if the do ndelions do en-
croach a little upon the blue grass q?
isn't there plenty of blue grass left
Isn't there DOM in this great big Kan
sas where. Until the past few years, |
an acre Of ground was the cheapest
ming IN the world and the least con-
sldered for both blue grass and daEde-
lions? A civic beauty movement that
has It's roots in a fierce, unreasonable |
hatred won't accomplish anything but |
harm. Hatred has nothing to do with |
beauty anyway,-they don't work to-
gether, never did and never can. If |
you hate the dandelion there's some
thing wrong with you-nat radio ally |
in herently wrong of course, but |
quirk in your spiritual and temper
amental makeup or a slight aesthetic |
astigmatis1l. Or, possibly you're not |
thinking for yourself but have merely |
followed somebody's suggestion that the |
dandelioa is an evil to be literally up /
rooted and cxterminlted, and so have |
never looked at them with an unpre- |
JUDGED eye that could revel in their |
beauty and rot tother about their use
lessness.
WHAT'S the matter with Kansas, any
way. that such q craze as the anti |
dandel1cn and anticottcnwood and anti
surfiower crusadcs could gather such |
following? nothing could be more typi-
cally Kansan than the sunhower and !
the cottonwood, and why this wicked
well to say that there is no danger of /
exterm1nat1ng them but don't you
know that the wild sunflower is almost |
exterminated already? Time was when
You could drive through any country |
lane in Kansas during July and Aug /
Ust and find it bcrdered thickly with |
tall sunfiowers higher than your head |
But the ruthless farmer, with his utili-
tartan standards unmindful of beauty
and thinking only of Irofit has killed |
them out end they IRE seen no more
in their former lavish profusion In
back door yards arranged according to
Ladies Hon Journal models the cult
waited varieties grow primly along the |
high board fences just as they do every
place else, but she wild sunflowcr that
used to make the country roads of |
Kansas different from all other coun- |
try roads in July and August are gone
forever, and all the blue grass in the /
world can't take the place they filled in
the hearts of loyal Kansans.
And now they're after the dande-
lions the club women, the mayor and |
council. and even the governor of KAN
sas. The attitude of the others is not
so surprising but who would ever have
thought it of Governor Hoch? The F
sentiment alone that attaches to the /
dandelion, might have been expected to I
save them from the wrath of the auth
or CT Thoughts I've Been Thinking
But no, the governor has set apart a 1
crew." from the state house, officials,
clel ks ard janitors Will 1
stop the wheels of state government I
and go out with trowels and knives to
wage a pitiless war on the brilliantly
lovely advance agents of spring.
No quarter is to be shown the daunt-
less little dandelion! their death war
rant has been signed. 1t bears the
great seal Of the state of Kansas, the
sunfiower state now in name only. 1t
is to be another Massacre of the limo
cents next Tuesday when the schools
turned out to join in the shameless de.
structiop of the SPRINGS first harbingers
and to turn that wonderful mosaic of
emerald and gold that now makes To-
Deka beautiful, into a dreary waste of
upturned roots and bruised and broken
ions Who ever thought to live to see
the day WREN IL at tragedy would be
nailed as blessing and it would be
held a civic duty to ruthlessly destroy
The golden dandelions that every spring
do paint the meadows with delight