The Alaska daily empire., 1922-04-29
Why Are the States?
Now York POSt.l

New York Post)
There was a time when Americans not
merely citizens of States but aggressvely proud of it.
The greatest American of ALL in camp at Cambridge,
wrote to Lund Washington that the Yankees a
low graspng set in distressing contrast with the Viz
ginia officers The Yankees themselves had such root
objections serving under New Yorker that Con-
gress replaced Philip Schuyler with Gates The most
eminent Pennsylvania Dickinson and the most emin-
ent of Massachusetts, Adams cut each other over
a question of Pennsylvania policy
1t pride that persisted to what is some
times called 1.-THE War of the States" Virginian
in 1860 would have been much insulted be taken
to be called Scotchman. OF this pride there are
fewer and fewer veSiges. 1T is curious how State
lines mark differences in Americans writes William
Allen White in the first OF series OF Nation articles
which will try to define the variances between the
members of family of fortyeight States. 1t is
curious how little the differences rec
ogniZed.
In large part this arises from habit of looking
at the States from a standpoint of national history
and politics, in which light they to have played
discredable and diminishing role Haven't the States
been in the of every great reform from the Fed
eral Constitution to the establishment of a truly
tional army? Are they not the of the
main difficulties in such fields divorce? Such ques
tons are misleading. The States have often been NOT
the obstacles national reform but the instrument by
which it came. Frequently it is not the nation which
conquers the unwilling States, but the States which
conquer the nation.
We watch the Interstate Commerce Commission
struggling with the Legislatures but forget that
it the Granger movement in the States which
gave birth to railway regulation We the nation
trying the child labor evil in several
Southern States but the uprising of fortyodd States
against child labor came first Prohibition un-
successfully tested in the States in the fores and
ffties; it successfully tested there century
later Our orty-eight capitals give the greatest
experimental laboratory in the world
But political differences, innovations, and reten-
tons much less import ant than social differences
Edward Eggleson, in The Hoosier Schoolmaster,"
made an effort to define Indiana as a state of mind
la peculiar and chosen civilization. He was correct
in believing that it's dialect, outlook its manners
unique Illinois and Indiana alike in
photography, climate mingling of New England and
Southern immigration, addiction to the Saturday
Evening Post the Chicago papers and nationally ad-
vertised brands 81 soap and underwear; but how
Meredith Nicholson and Henry B. Fuller would
chuckle at the suggestions that there not pro-
found distncticns! William Allen White, treating
Kansas "a Puritan survival" remarks upon the
clear between that State and Nebraska.
What they? A comparison of Villa Sibert
Gathers fiction of Nebraska with Ed Howes and
William Allen Whites fiction Kansas will ind-
cate them subtly and emphatically than reams
Iof magazine articles Oregon also is "a Puritan
survival" but Oregon has still another personality
When have a fuller art in America we shall
better appreciate this diversity in union for art both
expresses and nourishes special character.