The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1920-02-27
MY VIEW OF FRANKFORT
(By J. II. Thomas)

The tide of time in it's drift along
has eddied me shore at Frankfort,
the city of everchanging population,
where hope invites and disappoint-
ment follows. Today they gather
from the mountains. the Pennyrile
and the Blue Grass, for the official
State House feast, and tomorrow an
adverse election strikes the group
with despair. The lure of office
holding is the cardinal weakness, the
besetting sin, of the American peo-
pie. How wisely old Sunset" Cox
said nobody should be allowed to hold
office except those who had thorough
ly demonstrated they could make
living no other way.
Frankfort is a city of dozen
thousand souls, most of whom are
present office-holders, or former ones
and their descendents.It is proverb-
ial here that no office-holder is ever
able to get away from Frankfort
when his term expires unless his re-
lations back home are charitable
enough to send him the money to pay
the expenses of his return. They ev-
en- point out that the great grand
children of the officers of the first
state administration are still to be
found here, enduring the never end
ing struggle to maintain genteel pov-
erty.
The reason for this condition is
that Frankfort is a society city.
Social functions, elaborate and gay,
are nightly indulgencies, and they
tempt the novices from the country
towns, who think they must get lost
in the never ending whirl Frank
fort is the Gay Paree" of Kentucky.
The women are the fairest and most
cultured of the Blue Grass country,
and their gowns and manners are
models of perfection. The balls are.
fairy dreams, and it is said that even
the preachers who come down from
the mountains, as they often do, to
sit as legislators, return home with
strange shaking of the foot. These
Frankfort ladies are so charmingly
and so graciously bewitching that the
young men go wild about them, the
bachelors adore them and the mar
ried men look on with bewildering-
but the Madam will see this. With
conditions like these itis little Won
der that the young men who come up
from the hill towns and theeillages
go out of office eligible to member
ship in the Ancient and Humble Or
der of Lazaruses.
Frankfort is 90 city Of marked cul- |
ture or at least Of accented polite !
ness. It's politician population, which |
is in decided majority, has grown
so accustomed to coddling the voting
that habit and intention
combine to produce a sociable and |
friendly atmosphere. Most every
body here wants something. Those
who are in want to stay in and those
who are out want to get in. none de-
spair of hope, and everybody be-
comes a candidate for public favor,
and the effect is to develop affability
10 fine art. But in observing this
universal effort to please l cannot
avoid a mental inquiry of the real
of sincerity that inspires it.
But the colossal, the masterful,
he inspiring monument to Frankfort
s the magnificent Capitol Building.
inside and out, It is marvel of SYM
netry. of order and beauty. and is
he last and final word in architec-
ural achievement. Viewed from
he north approach, it presents
plendid and pleasing spectacle, and {
he observer wonders at the almost
niricle picture that had to take form
n the deyising architects brain be-
ore the plans were Transcribed to
he blue prints. 1t is one Of those