The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-05-19
EMPoRIA,s LOSS.

Under the caption, "An Emporia
Tragedy" the st. Louis Times has feel
ingly referred to the bereavement re-
Gently suffered by Emporia and her
most distinguished citizen, as follows:
Emporia, Kan, famed wherever
English is read because it is the home
of William Allen White, is in. deepest
mourning. Mary. the 16-year-oId
daughter of Mr.. and Mrs. White, has
been killed, thru being thrown from a
horse.
Emporia is a town where feeling
runs high. Senator Preston B. Plumb
lived there, and EmpoTia thought he
was the towns senator. All Ksansans
might praise him, but Emporia had a
proprietary interest in him, and long
after he had died from overwork
when the defeat of ingalls, sent most
of the Kansas mail to Plumb, his mem
DRY was kept green. Emporia was
also proud of Governor Eskridge, and
for a time his word was law.
Then came the great bank fight,
which divided the town into two
camps, with no neutrals allowed. 1t
ragged long after Cashier Cross. of the
Martindale bank, a fancier of Here
fords, killed himself and brought the
ruin of the bank. William Al IN
White wrote the vivid report of the
suicide and all that preceded it and
what would follow, for the Kansas
City Star. The younger Martindale
was the last survivor of one side of the
row. He was sent to the Republican
national convention in 1904, altho
| William Allen White pleaded to go,
and even President Roosevelt had in
tervened with Representative Miller in
| Whites behalf. Miller was defeated
for the nomination in 1912 and retired
to private life. The old Republican.
| the Eskridge paper, suspended. The
| bank forces with which Mr.. White was
allied, became don1iaant
Even the old timers, who had
| fought the political notions of Mr..
| White and objected to the snappy way
in which his newspaper chronic1ed
local events were overcome by the
fame he brought the little city with
his pen and were charmed by his per-
sonality. He and Walt Mason. whom
White rescued from the gutter, be-
came the pride of Emporia.
The death of the sweet-spirited
Mary has plunged all the community
into grief. Mary was a native. Her
father had come with airs from the
city. He came to take the place of
Stotler and to vie with Eskridge
There was some audacity in this. The
local columns of the Gazette were
startling to staid Emporia, for Will
White not only wrote many of them
in his picturesque style, but touche ed
up all the others. He abhorred the
commonplace, even in personal
items, and put spice into everything
But Mary was Emporia's own baby
She grew up as Emporia people were
learning to love her father. AS she
blossomed into maidenhood, all EN-
porians watched her with parental
pride.
AS for Will White himself, he isNstiI
an overgrown boy, with a heart run.
| ming over with the milk of human
| kindness. Whatever 1unacies he MAJ
cherish in politics, however much hi
may sacrifice cold facts to thu
emergencies of ardent literature h,
loves his fellow man, even more in tn,
l concrete than in the abstract.
= His grief over the death of Mar,
will bow his head. but he will not weeI
alone. All who have come under tn,
spell of his personality, who hav,
' caught his infectious enthusiasm, will
mourn with him. And all Empori:
mourns the loss of Mary. for he
fathers sake and for their own.