Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1921-07-02

washington, -. IT,, July 2S.-Ihe
| state of Missouri, one hundred years
old, will this summer tell the world
Of its achievements. In addition to
| the state fair at Sedalia, there will be
many minor local celebrations. Mis-
souri, will loom large in the public eye
and in the public prints.
this proposed celebration is the large
part which pageantry and story are to
play in it, according to the plans which
have been made public, Missouri is
a great Industrial state, as all the
world knows, and it is probable that
most of the rest of the country thinks
OF it as business minded place. fam
GUS for it's corn and pork, its hard com
mon sense and sound finance.
All Of these things it has, and all of
them will be duly illustrated in the
coming celebrations. But in addition
to that, Missouri will be revealed as a
state with romantic past and vivid
imaginative consciousness of it. All
of its story will be told in pageants
and in local histories. Missourians
will be taught to see themselves as
the descendants Of an heroice race,
holding soil for which men have dared
and died.
That, of course, is the way any
people should think of itself. It should
have a national or race consciousness
with roots that go deep into the past
A man should think of himself. not as
being isolated in space and time, but
as part of long and interesting ro-
nance.
Merely to know the vague outlines
of national history is not enough. A
man should know intimately the story
of the soil on which he is born and
lives, and the part his own forebears
played on it. National heroes and re-
mote events are hard to grasp, but the
doings of your own flesh and blood,
and the things that happened in your
own county easily become vivid to you
and give you new perspective On life.
Americas UntoId Story.
There is perhaps no country in the
world which is so devoid Of this his
torical consciousness as the United
States An erroneous idea Of the Rev
dictionary and Civil wars, set forth
in dull histories, and taught to sleepy
school children. is all we have.
1t is not this academic dishing up
Of history, cut and dried, which cap
lures the popular Imagination. In
every other civilized country history
has been made forever real to the
people in great works of art-dramas,
novels. poems, songs. Think of any
period of British history that you
please, and you can also find a great
story about it, in prose or verse. The
life of the British people has been
immortaized by great artists from
Chaucer to Thackeray. The same is
true of France and Of Germany, and
Of the Scandinavian countries. In ad-
dition to great formal works of art,
these countries have folk tales, ballads,
songs, many of them of unknown ORR
gin, that carry the national story and
traditions from generation to gener-
alton.
What has the United States to COM
pare with this? Its story has been
short, but one of the most striking in
the history of the race. The Revolu-
tionary War produced nothing worthy
to be called great work of art. We
have nothing left Of that great epoch
save canned and somewhat ridiculous
schoolbook version of it, in which
George Washington is represented as
a tin saint, and the causes of the
troubles are all obscurcd. It's emo
tons and color. its human values. are
lost forever. Only art can preserve
these.
The Civil War was vastly more
human event than the Revo-