The Columbus journal., 1910-08-31
Ak-SAR-bEN IS
NEBRASKA SHOW
Enchanting Festival Of the Nerlh
Attracts Wide Attention.
STORY OF ITS ORGANIZATION,

STORY Of ITS ORGANIZATION,
6ixteen Years Prove Value Of King
Ak-Sar.een to Trans Missouri coun.
try-Writer in Hearst's Papers Gives
State Big Boost for Its Enterprise.
BY Will A. Campbell.
When Mark Twain wrote thirty
years ago that no such an enchant
ing festival as the MardiGras Of New
Orleans could live in the practical
north any longer than it could live in
London, one season-the distinguished
journalist did not know what kind Of
men and women the future citizens Of
the middle-west would be: did not i'm
agine that a foundation of business
fraternalism would continue great
festival in the north just as surely as
the love of romance would sustain
such festival in the south.
On the practical foundation of bust
ness. Ak-Sar-Ben has been built and
has fiOurished. The festival is about
to open in Omaha for the sixteenth
year and for the first time membership
has been limited because of the grow
ing popularity Of the enterprise.
Void of all those things which set
the world in love with dreams and
phantoms; without sham grandeurs,
gauds and chivalries. Ak-Sar-Ben is
really q big boosters" organization
which has done more to put Nebraska
on the map and renew the confidence
Of her people. than any other force in
the trans Missouri country.
This festival has everything which
Mardi-Gras has and more. The TO
nance is present; there are kings and
knights: big sounding titles go thun-
dering along after the names of its
officers, but the soul of Ak-SarBen Is
the cooperative spirit of the people Of
the middle-west the eternal effort OF
the business fraternity to boost for
each other and for the trans-Missouri
empire always.
Ak-Sar-Ben is more than a relic of
the French and Spanish occupation
with the religious features knocked
oSt 1t is more than a tawdry mas
querade of knights and mobiles clothed
in silken and Paris-made gOrgeOnsness.
Ak-Sar-Ben has q reason and has had
since its inception back in thO:e hard
days when Nebraska and Kansas were
thought to be 4 blizzard cursed western
waste in the winter; sun baked prair-
ies-the harbors Of cyclones and grass
h0ppers in the summer.
I'VE must do something" said the
men Of Nebraska in 1895 when the
veins of commerce had become SO
sluggish that the state had lost con-
fldence and lay bankrupt at the feet
of the national government. What to
do was a mystery. Eastern insurance
and trust companies became possessed
by foreclOsing of the most valuable
real estate. some owning from fifty to
one hundred pieces of property wide
ly separated. OIt in the towns and
cities Of the state homes of men we're
being moved to the ranches to house
cattle and sheep in the winter that the
more comfortable quarters might take
the place Of nourishing food.
Thus the Ak-Sar-Ben festival was
born in poverty: planned with the be-
lief that it would bring the people of
the state closer together: keep their
money at home and working. As they
Joined hands to hold this festival six
teen years ago. confidence began to re-
turn: an opportunity has been given
each fall for taking an inventory Of
the resources Of the middle-wcst and
q graphic lesson in the advantages of
cooperation has been driven home to
the people
There was something about the Sc
lection OF the name which increased
this business fraternalism True, the
name is Nebraska reversed. but it is
more than that. AK" Is Syrian in its
origin and is said to mean head Of a
00usenoid." linen ''Sar" Is good Arab
ic for household" and Ben in the
Hebraic is literally translated as fam
fly" or brothers of a household"
Thus there is a touch OF Oriental
enchantment about the word. There
Is Ak. the head of the household. or
the king: sar, the board Of twelve gov.
ernors who manage the affairs Of the
festival; last there is the family called
ben, which embraces the body of
knights. and every true Nebraskan Is
a knight of AkSar-Ben whether he
has been able to journey to the den in
Omaha and attend the ceremonial or
not.
The same spirits who organized Ak
Sar-Ben made the Trans-Mississippi
and International exposition possible
in 1898. and this enterprise marked the
close of stagnation and opened the era
Of prosperity in the middle-west: the
period of the '9O's,' dark with industrial
gloom and commercial disaster. be-
came history and the star OF Nebras-
Ia began its ascendancy.
The men who have continued Ak.
Sar-Ben for sixteen years and made it
the most enchanting festival the north
has ever known, are the men who have
planted the boom seed deep in the soil
and nourished it until Nebraska and
Kansas are second to none in the indi-
vidual prosperity of their people, and in
the amount of food contributed annual