The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1910-05-19
Keeping the Mour tains Young

Down in North Carolina Editor Wade Harris,
+ of the Charlotte Chronicle, has improved upon
tho ideal of the rapidly vanishing personal
journalism by adding to the distinctive per-
sonaty of his editorial page an occasional
feature which could perhaps be best described
as Press Agent service to the State and its peo-
pie. In pursuance of this plan. the Chronicle s
editor now and again lays down his pen to
CAD about the Old North State, and returning
writes of the people he met and the things he
saw in style nimitable in its combination of
news advertising and homely, intimate gossip
Recently he has been among the mountain folk
of the West and from his story we choose this
paragraph, which is Illuminating not only as to
North Carolina conditions but of the present day
status of mountain and rural people in the
Souh, generally.
The phony MAGAZINE and newspaper
writer's always put the WORD stranger
in the greeting of the mountaineer The
people of the North Carolina mountains
do not know that word Their dialect
Is that of an INTELLIGENT and cultivated
people. 1t you want to tho bloom
of health on the check of child call
at mountain home and look at any one
of the group of children that may fol
low the mother to the door The cul-
ture of the people is manifested in the
adornment of their yards and porchcs
with flowers and vines. However hum
bic a home may be. it is sure to be
found in floral setting. The love of
flowers is born in the people of the
mountains and God never made better
people than those who love 1owers'
Literature is III some sense the art of vivid
description by judicious cvaggeration. A
sharply defined exception. so that it holds the
characteristic traits, may well serve to Indicate
type In this way early books dealing with
mountain folk Were true But the trouble is.
that in the following food of stories bv authors
with paucltv of material, the incidental matter
of those writing from first hand experience has
been swallowed whole revampcd and undnly
emphasized.
No only in the matter of dialect are the
mountains no longer conspicuouslv outre. but
in the manner of life of their people they ex-
hibit to-day as much of virtue and as many
marks of improvements as the people of any
other section.
AS an example, a familiar "picture" of noun
tain life is the daubed cabin, the meagre pro-
visions of the family hanging to the smoky
rafters, the nncouth mountaineer, the children
swarming about the satternly wife and the
jug of moonshinc liquor on the supper table,
to refuse to partake of which is mortal insult.
AS matter of fact, spirituously thirsty man
will go farther and fare worse before salts
flying his desires in the mountains than any
where else; and the chnk cabin with acces-
series is SO rare~a survival as even to the noun
tain-folk themselves to rank as picturesque
Editor Harris has done service but he will
not serve to stop the food of 'phony stuff he
attacks, any more than the great progressive
ly modern West can cause the suppression in
books magazines and on the stage of the mpos-
sible talk, the impossible men and the night
mare manners to which the Fastener clIngs in
the mad desire to hold forever to an ideal
created by those adventurous souls and magni-
fcent liars who crossed the Rockies in the fortes
The Excuse of Curiosity