The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1919-10-21
EASYCHA|R WRITER'S
FALS|FY THE WEST

~ hOuAN NC aSACCoy vi all AAA0
any estimate, discussion. or critical
analysis of the people of the West of
the United States, to the ~delineation
of whose traits, heroic or otherwise,
much modern fiction has been de-
voted. must be based upon the writ
ings of those who know the West. its
mountains and valleys, and its deni-
zens. Estimates and criticisms have
too often, in the past, been made on
conclusions reached from false pre-
misses, for the simple reason that so
much has been written about the vast
empire which lies between the Mis-
souri, river and the Pacific ocean,, and
the people who reside there, by those
who have attempted to create char
acters rather than portray character.
1t cannot, of course, be denied that
the easy-chair philosopher ana the
Pullman-car author-tourist write en-
tertainingly enough, and c~onvincingly
enough, about the people they appear
to know so well. 1t is because they
write entertainingly and convincingly
that they too often spread what, in
reality, is nothing more nor less than
misleading, if not actually unjust,
ideas in no wise descriptive of the
things about which they write. This
indictment, it should be understood,
is not directed against the writers of
what is called the wild West" fiction
of the paper-backed variety, more
common, fortunately, a decade or two
ago than at the present time, o yet
picture scenarios and plots evolved
and illustrated within a stones throw
of the Atlantic ocean or the Hudson
river.
Their products, for the most part,
bear a sufficiently conspicuous kind
OF warning to even the unsophisti-
Gated. And besides, even the con-
irmed Fastener. the tourist who for
merly regarded it as a somewhat pre-
carious undertaking to visit Chicago
or st. Louis because of the supposed
presence, at least in the immediate
neighborhood of those cities. of bands
of hostile American Indians. has
learned that civilization actually has
followed the flag. at least as far West
as the eastern shores of the Pacific.
But there is a somewhat more
clever counterfeit. misleading and de-
ceptive because of its plausibility.
This. collectively speaking, is the
work of those writer's of so-called To-
Called fiction whose point of view is
not that of persons who have ever
lived, for more than three months, in
what the people of the United States
call the West. Their portrayals are,
all too often, crude caricatures of
members of society of which no sec
ton, state, or city, where schools,
colleges, and universities are found,
has a monopoly. Those who read
these productions, possibly with
amusement and a generous forbear-
ance, must forget that their own as
that American culture is IA
not sectional. is no idle boast.
1t is interesting, however. to OBJ
serve that there have come out of
the West, within recent years, writers
who are able to defend its peoples,
it's institutions, and its traditions, not
in the public forums alone. but in the
field of contemporaneous literature.
New heroes of Western fiction have
been created, and they are of a kind
represent the true West. Bret
Harte and Mark Twain no doubt
wrote faithfully of the West of their
day. as did Owen Wister of a section
of the West of a decade ago; but the
of none of these could be re-
West of today.
In this newer school it is crafty
ing to find those who seem to be able
to paint a picture of a %shipyard, a
camp. a cattle ranch, a wheat
or a desert, in colors mixed and
blended on a palette held in sympa-
hands. Those who read what is
being written about the people of the
West of today, while they may infer,
and properly. that between Gloucester
with its fisher folk and the Golden
Gate may be found many dialects
and colloquialisms, will learn that its
and women. and its boys and
girls, are everywhere fairly repre-
sentative of American ideals.-lThe
Science Monitor.