The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1908-11-19


Howard A. Burrell in Washington
Qowa) Press: l was born fifty years
too soon, sort of premature birca.
knew Oberlin as an ugly clay mud
hole, not a pretty building in it, not
bit of taste, not lawn or mower
bed in the village; nothing but I'M
attractive saints, cranks, zealots,
fanatics. negroes and alleged piety
and revivals on the half shell. They
wouldn't use tea, coffee, cotton
goods, because these were grown by
slave labor. 1t was as dreary
hole and as uninteresting COM
munity as the sun ever shone on,
in 1913, and even in 1859 and on
through the war. Luckily. all that hor-
rid thing has been swept down the
time-stream, and there has been a
fine renaissance after those dark
ages. Oberlin Is now the prettiest
village | know, very beautiful
place indeed, the houses and
grounds lovely, streets paved, and
arched with elms and hard naples
as fine as those in New England, the
public buildings ornate, good taste
and realizing sense of beauty are
evident everywhere. Some 1000
students. who dress better, but are
not otherwise handsomer than those
in Old Lang Syne, and larger per
cent of them are specialized. The
college was started in 1888. the
ground cut out of the forest in
Russia township when all was as
wild as the steppes in Russia, and
for years the school was as poor and
despised as church mice, but a few
years since money began to flow into
Oberlin from men of the world who
saw the college was plucky enough
to endure, and from alumni grown
rich. There are eight elaborate and
costly edifices and several halls and
dormitories, all of them built from
funds donated. For the new library
Carnegie gave s15O,O0O without con-
ditions, and Norton G.. Finney put
100000 into beautiful memorial
chapel in honor of his father, once
president of the college and an
evangelist of power like Paul's,
a man of remarkable genius, but an
unwise college man. For he must
have red hot revival stewing all
the while, and how, in suca condi-
tons, have the requisite academic
calm? His practice of introspection
and Understanding was the infer
nalist thing possible in spiritual Gull
ture. Mort made his fortune as
president of the Wisconsin Central
railroad, and though thorough man
of the world, he had the filial piety
to erect this delightful structure to
keep his father in mind. / heard
Booker Washington tell his story in
there. Here, every noon, save on
Sunday and Monday, the students
gather. though not by compulsion. as
In my day, to say prayers The splen-
did conservatory of music, where
Nora Curran studies and sings, and
one vast wing of gymnasium, were
given by DR.. and Mrs. Warner of
New York city. They are alumni
While he gave pills and powders
and thus did harm. she made cersets
by hand at first, and soon corsets
/ beat pills to FRAGILE. They have
a great factory and are as rich as
cream, and those two fine buildings
are proofs that thousands of women
and girls went in lemons and got
squeezed. If each one of them had
mad her proper young man. she need
not nave gone to all that trouble TO
be hugged. 1t is questionable If
the Warmers have not done infinitely
more hurt, Harvesting female
dlaphrasms in whalebone and steel,
and giving womankind floating kid.
ney. prolapsed stomachs and things
and misplaced livers and compress.
ed lntestines than they have done
good by these gifts. For tight lac.
ing is stupid and wicked: 1t affects
the heart, and in old novels tho
lovely heroines were eternally faint.
va INC IedNt prOVOcatt0n,
due to squeezing. Must have cor.
sets, Ell, TO hold you up and together?
why do not you of the sex by exer-
else train the muscles of back end
abdomen to keep you up? It is a
/ shame, a confession and plea like
that. Women ougat to be as able
as men to go erect without tbe
crutches of such absurd coat-of-mai,
don't approve the business of the
warmers and their omney put into
these two buildings is tainted II
ever money was. However. Ober.
lin has a conservatory of music that
ranks with the three great musical
centers in this country, namely
boston, Cincinnati and Chicago.