Bisbee daily review., 1909-05-16
Arizona Maligned in Literature

Dane Coolidge. the naturalist ane writex vel known throughout Arizo- "a, and especially we'll known about renpe ed Phoenix. has in the cur. rent number ok the Stanford Alum aus an article ou Arizona in Litera- ture." Ar. Coolidge has written much about this territory and the ter ritory is better for all that he has writtea- He has just completed a I06.0oo word novel dealing with the famous Tooto Basin cattle war. Con tesuinG the manner in which Arizona has been given the worst of 1t by writers Of short stories and writers of plays he says:
 The name of Arizona. either in the drama or in literature. suggests at once iawiessness. romance and mys- tery. a land where any brutal crime may be committed. where any love af- fair is legitimate and where positive iy anything can happen. Naturally. then. a mass of literature, mostly written in the east. has risen up un- der the name. colored by what has already been written and fixing still more firmly in the American mind the picture that will probably endure forever Without attempting to cor rect this preconception-the age or miracles being long past-it will be interesting, nevertheless to look into the matter philosophically with a view to tracing out some of the great CT influences which have given this lurid caste to literature which, in England and the far east. is recog- nized as distinctly western.
 Western literature was born Tn day-the day that Francis Bret Harte wrote The Luck of Roaring Camp.
 This story. which to this day is re garded by all competent eastern cr1t- ics as the touchstone of western Tt erature. is briefly the account ot the Birth of a child to an unfortunate wo- man in a western mining camp, ana of this wonderful moral influence oyer the rough. red-shirted men who cared for him after bis mothers un' timely death Since ''The Luck was published. in the second number oi the Overland Monthly, there have been hundreds of stories written up on its plot, and most of them have sold. 1t is apparently the one best western plot, but. as often happens the first story, the one that estap' lishsd the type and developed the eastern appetite. was not appreciat' ed at home. In the introduction to his complete works the author tells how The Luck was written by him for the second number of the over land Monthly-of which he was the editor-in order to make up for the lack of distinctive California romance But when the copy was sent 10 the printer that worthy man. who was oi a moral and religious turn of mind refused to set it up; his proofreader voupg lady of delicacy and refine ment. refused likewise to O. K. the proof. and the publisher, being Of a conservative. nature, refused to aiio" :he story to run. Thereupon NIT. Harte threatened to resign as editor' and he story went in under protest, the decision being left to the great reading public. The western public. with it's usual purblind provincial ism. united in condemning the story. insofar as it could be induced to read fl al all. but when the pony express came gailoping back from the great east then. gentle reader. western lit erarure was made in a day,
 The eastern editors with one ac- cord pronounced it the real thing, and the Atlantic Monthly requested the author. upon the most fatteriDg terms. to give them another story like Luck "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" 'Miggles," and other western classics followed in quick succession and today the pages CT Harper $ Scribner's Century and the Atlantic Monthly still features echoes of The Luck" It was a great story and yet after reading it over l cannot hell agreeing with the moral printer, We refined proof-reader and the conserV ative publisher And likewise. when I see a play like "The Great Divide or read some Arizona story-writter in New York, I cannot but regre' that a man who combined such coit brutality with such maudlin senti mentality should have given the formative touch to western romance But the deed is done now, and there is nothing left but to trace out tht influence of Bret Harte. for It ha: left it's mark even in Arizona ntera lure. and cast against it those othel influences, which, while now faten and half buried in the territory might if not oyershadowed in then ipfancT have developed into a sturd, and equally distinctive growth.
 Of the three men who have don' most to make the name of Arizoni known in literature-Owen Mister Alfred Heary Lewis and Stewart Ed ward White-Alfred Henry Lewis, Il my opinion. most truly reflects th' spirit of the olden times the spiri that is expressed by the older gen eration in Arizona today. His Ol' Cattleman is the type of those earl. pioneers. who rooted out the Apache and the Mexicans and took the coun try. regardless. Yet while MT. Lew is honored the territory by more o less protracted residence-and tn courtesy is appreciated down there he has the men of Wolfville speakini a peculiar dialect which after pa tient research I am forced to con clude does not exist. And what i the characteristic of this dialect which has been adopted as standar' by the cheaper school of eastern ar thors? In it's more salient points is briefly, curious combination o ilIiteracy and erudition in speech. am