Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1922-11-02

1
He was doing something the same
kind OF agonizing at the chocolate
eclair world conceived by the Ameri-
can writer's Of his day, that Mencken
and Sherwood Anderson, and the
naturalists of our fiction are doing
to-day Garland coming fresh out of
F., the Wisconsin words was a roaring
bear for realism. He was militant to
a degree; offensive to the SNUG
and contented literary America of
his time. He used to write bitter
books about the hardships Of farm
life, at time when PETER and Jerry
Simpson Of Kansas were talking
| fat money to initiate the currency
so that the western farmer could pay
1 off his mortgage easily. What is more
Hamljn Garland had way Of going
out to populist conventions and talk
ing to the farmers, encouraging them
I in their unhappiness, and making
medicine for the preachers Of polit-
/ ical discomfort Time was when Gar
) lands name in our best circles was
not more respected than Gorky's is
now. Then along came Mr.. Howells
and took up Garland; became, as
Howells became for many literary
debutantos, Garland's literary spon-
sor. Mr.. Howells himself wrote The
Hazard of New Fortunes" and "Silas
/ Lapham, books that Uttered at the
| high gods of business and exploited
the doctrine of a liberalism which
was regarded then as red, radical and
dangerous. Howells was dean of our
American letters then, and now prob
ably Garland is dean. Garland has
written of western America with
truth and beauty. He never was a
romanticist even though his Rocky
Mountain stories and his Indian
, agency romances had in them much
that would delight Bill Hart.
But now they are old fashioned
those tales of Gods great out Of
doors" 1t is not done any more. THE
grea. wide spaces" are relegated to
/ the dog and pony shows of literature.
/ We are in the midst Of a sophisticat-
ed age. The gentle reader must have
his libidinOus reactions .symbolized
or else take them psycho-analyzed.
or sugar coated with a materialism
, that makes US all like the beasts of
4 the field and so keeps all sin rather
simple animalism AMI never very
blam eworthy. Indeed in our litera-
ture today We have abolished sin
/ entirely. We recount murders. adul-
teries, larcenies and other infrac-
tons Of the ten commandments
most casually and explain them by
i indicating that men and women al
ways grow tails, drink creek water
and run mild when no one is watch
ing. Consciences are not allowed in
fashionable fiction. Remorse is taboo;
indeed, remorse is the only indecency
that figures in modern fiction. Let
a hero have regrets and he i'm
mediately becomes the villain of
the piece.
! And thus far have we Travelled
in the 80 odd years in which Ham
lin Garland has been writing Amer
lean stories. He has not moved for
ward with the tide. He still believes
in the force outside ourselves which
makes for righteousness, barking
back in his theology to Matthew Al.
mold and reverting in his morals to
the Sermon on the Mount. The
young rebels today feel that the old
wildcat Of the nineteenth century
is domesticated pussy. But no one
who would know the truth about the
west Immediately following the great
f. civil war, can learn the truth better
than by reading these farm stories
of Garland's! Main Travelled Roads.
More Main Travelled Roads, and