The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-03-05
FROM A SMALL. TOWN

1t has remained for Topeka minis
ter of the gospel to aver that it may
be wrong to come from a small town
and to sIur a man of ability because,
in comir K to the capital city "he came
forth I.'o m little country town
This is the first time that the State
journal can recall such an unkindly
and unjust reference to a man who
was summoned here because he was
believed to be fitted for new task to
be performed and to cast his lot with
this city.
The records of big men coming
from little towns are innumerable.
The small town seems to develop char
acter, fer there and in the smaller
communities, the hamlet and the
farm, human nature gets closer to ma
ture itself, and with the development
OF things material seems to come nat
urally development of the mind. the
heart and indeed the spiritual, Great
inC with the firm foundation and
physique the qualities which prepare
man Tor the needs of a larger com
munity. the state and the nation.
Garfield came from a small town;
Mckinley from Canton; Lincoln from
cago Tribune. which claims to be the
worlds greatest newspaper. from Hol
ton, Kan; most good reporters come
from :ne small towns the same is
true of most newspaper men who are
today conducting the great papers of
the big cities. Topeka picks up a re-
porter from small town, trains him,
Kansas City gets. him, then Chicago,
then New York. and then he begins to
feel sorry he is not back in Topeka.
One of he greatest editors this coun-
try has produced told me once as I
sat beside him at a dinner in New
York, hat he wished he could con-
duct a newspaper in one of the smaller
cites anu train his growing son there
and live in a locality where there
was more of humanity and neighbor-
illness and less of greed and hustle and
the ruthless struggle for fame and
gain. But this is another story.
Edison lives at Orange, n. J.; Doc
little, who seems to have been a red
comes from Cottonwood Falls, Will
liam Al.eL White, from the little town
of Empcria, and many a big city
would like to get him; Arthur Capper
came from the small town of Garnett
He was rot in Topeka long before he
began to do things and he has been
dong trem ever since, and aside from
conducting daily paper and many
other periodicals finds time to be gov
ernor OF Kansas and to aspire higher;
the STORY of Country Town" writ
ten by country town man, e. W.
Howe, is one Of the great novels, and
about great subject.
The instances of big men coming
from tbs small town are so numerous
that it is the rule. There is one ex-
ception to the rule that will occur to
you. that great American, Theodore
Roosevelt, who was born in New York.
But he went out into the small COM
munity and constantly goes there and
receives inspiration thereby. The
small town is in the preponderance.
There generally are born the great
men.
The intemperance of people who
preach against it is sometimes amaz-
ing. Occasional language from the
pulpit is so gross that the newspaper
hesitate to print it. We have an ex-
ample of this just now before US,
growing out of the doings on Sunday
and yesterday in one church and at
the meeting of the Ministerial union.
The charges, and actions and words
anG conduct of Brother Gordon on
these two occasions are hardly believ-
able.
| The word brother is used advis-
edly, because the Press and Pulpit
! belong TO the Fraternity of the Uplift
In the days of Herod the king, near
ty 1000 years ago, John the Baptist
cried out in the wilderness and his
meat was locust and wild honey.
In Isaiah it is said "cities are a will
derness.
In these days We have Robert the
Baptist crying out in the Wilderness -
and our fats, wheat. sugar and meat
are conserved just as were those OF
John in the first century and he seems
to have been the first to follow the
precepts of Hoover, who came Sc
4 many centuries later
The Baptist divine may mean well
but he seems to live constantly in en-
virons which are paved with good in
tentions. He may possess the Christian
faith, but he lacks the exercise OF
what is more important for, as Pau
said, now abideth,' there still abides
faith, hope and charity, these three
but the greatest of these is charity
BY that, of course, he meant Christian
charity ard the exercise thereof, from
which car friend in the pulpit at times
appears to stray. He seems to cherish