Omaha daily bee., 1908-04-26
ROYAL TRIBUTES TO KING
salutes Of Freemen to Monarchs Of
Cereal Kingdoms.
PROSE BAEoUETs TO KING COTTON
Two Recent Word Paintings of ths
Southern standby Placed Beside
ORIesby's Famous Classic
on Corn.


eaual value and color were rescued from
recent Numbers and passed along through
the appreclative currents of the press. AS
specimens of southern loyalty to King Cot
ton they are inspiring and present an in
structive contrast with the famous classic
on corn delivered in Chicago nearly eighteen
years ago by Richard ]. oglesby, "Uncle
Dick" Of Illinois, governor and United
States senator.
Congressman Helfn OF Alabama, the bard
Of Coosa, Tallapoosa and other counties
saluted King Cotton in these words:
1.-THE attention of the world is turned to
the south when in the spring Of the year
the farmer prepares his soil and places seed
in the ground. Sunbeams dance on the
surface. refreshing showers seek and find
their hiding place, and, lo termination
begins. Little plants push the clods away
and smile at the sun. Gentle zephyrs kiss
their tender faces and breathe into them
the message of their world mission. ZAP
plause.) We hear the music of the hoe ard
the song of the happy plowman. Proud
and graceful the little stalks stand mantled
in leaves laden with squares. We look
again and thousands OF white blossoms
are noddlng welcome to the gold belted
bees. In little while they are rosy red,
then they assume golden hue and finally
fade and farl, leaving behind them tiny
green spheres. Basking in sunshine and
reveling in shower, these flourish until
autumn winds whisper to every full grown
boil, "Open sesame" tApplause.) Then
the cotton stalk filings its fleecy fiber to
the breeze and busy fingers pluck it from
the DOLL. Now we hear the hum of the old
cotton gin, the seed fall down on the floor
below and lint comes out in swirls of snow.
(Applause) Yonder at the cotton factory,
hard by the cotton field, we hear the trem-
ulous voice of industry in the concert of
whirling spindles woolng the fibre into
cloth, and the finished product goes out
upon the pulsating tide of splendid com
merce and cotton is king-king of Amer
ican exports-and in ali its ramificatons
is basis for the greatest manufacturing in
terest III the world. prolonged cheers and
applause,)"
A sweet singer of less volume, but equally
ambitious is Ezekiel S. Chandler, jr.. a
typical representative of the song birds OF
Itawamba. Noxubee Okliblieha and Tish-
mingo counties, Mississippi. who Joined in
the cotton refrain in this style:
are fed and clothed by the American
farmer. The grain waving in golden beauty
upon the great plains of the west. the
cotton drifting like summer snow upon the
fields OF the south, freight the fleets OF
nations and loose their sails. thread the
continents with tracks of steel, fill the
earth with the roar OF trains and heap for
trade and commerce and useful art those
stores that make a nation great. Where
are our great, diversified agricultural prod
ucts? What victorious host ever waved as
joyous banners as those that float above
the tasselled maize from the SHOWS Of
Maine to the spicy groves of California
What spirit Of beauty hovers above south
ern fields when fleecy bolls uncover to
crown King cottonv Applause"
Tribute to King Corn.
In eloquence, philosophy and feeling
| Oglesby's panegyric on corn is esteemed 9
classic. 1t was defined al a banquet given
| in Chicago, September Q, 1894. in honor OF
/ Joseph jefferson and A. Conan Doyle. The
toast was. What I Know About Farming
Uncle Dick" gazed for a minute upon the
| harvest decorations of the banquet hall
! particularly at the tall stalks of corn will
F.! large ears upon the walls. They he spoke
The corn, the corn. the corn, that in its
| first beginning and Its growth has fur
nished aptest illustration Of the tragic an.
nouncement of the chiefest hope of man
| II he die he shall surely live again. Planted
in the friendly but sombre bosom of tht
mother earth II dies. Yes, It dies the sec.
| ond death. surrendering up each trace OF
] form and earthly shape until the waywarc
| tide Is stopped by the reacting vital germ
which, breaking all the bonds and cere
ments of it's -sad decline, comes bounding
laughing into life and light the fittest of al
the symbols that make certain promise Of
/ the fate of man. And so it died and then il
lived again. And so my people died. BY
some unknown, uncertain and unfrendlS
gate, ! found myself making my first jour
new into life from conditions as lowly a;
those surrounding that awakening, dying
living infant germ
Recalls Days of Youth.
1T was in those days when l. simpi,
boy, had wondered from Indiana to Spring
I field, that there / met the father of thii
good man tJoseph Jefferson). whose kinC
and gentle words to me were as water to
thirsty soul, as the shadow of rock to
weary man. loved his father then.
love the son now. Two full generation,
have been taught by his gentleness anc
smiles. and tears have quickly answered I,
the command OF his artistic mind. Lonl
may he live to make us laugh and cry
and cry and laugh by turns, as he may
choose 20 move us.
but now again my mind turns to thu
glorious corn. See It! Look on its ripenin,
waving field. See how It wears a crown
prouder than monarch ever wore. some
times jauntiiy and sometimes after TIL,
storm the dignified survivors Of the temp
est seem to view a field Of slaughter an,
to pity a fallen foe. And see the pendan
caskets OF the cornfield filled with the win,
Of life and see the sillSen fringes that Sc
form for fashion and for art
And nowlthe evening comes and some
thing OF a time to rest and listen Tn,
scudding clouds conceal the half and thei
reveal the whole Of the moonlit beauty o
the night. and then the gentle winds max,
heavenly harmonies on a thousand harp
that hang upon the borders and edges AM
the middle OF the neid OF ripening corr
until my very heart seems to beat respon
sive to the rising and the falling Of TIN
long melodious refrain. The melanehoh
clouds sometimes make shadows on III
field and hide its aureate wealth. and nov
they move and slowly into sight Their
comes the golden glow Of promise for al
industrious land.
strensth In its Kernel.