Evening star., 1923-07-20

There's nothing finer anywhere in
the west than the St. Louis outdoor
municipal opera. In n vast and beau
tiful sylvan amphitheater. seating
II. 900 persons. light opera is magniti-
Gently staged and performed six
nights a week. The ensemble, with
the exception of professional prinei-
pals. is wholly local talent. A better
looking. better dancing or better sing
ing chorus of sprightly young men
and women could not be discovered
on Broadway in a years searching.
President Harding's party attended
the performance of The Prince of
Pilsen" while at st. Louis-an appro-
prite offering in that capital of near
beer-and was thrilled by the spec
tacle presented alike on the stage and
by the audience The opera is financed
and supervised by the municipal ad-
ministration, and within year or
two of its origin has become sue
cesSful institution. artistiCally and
from a business standpoint. 1t may
be that st. Louis strong leavening of
music-loving Germans Is responsible.
The east. at any rate, has nothing to
match il. and down the corridor of
this observers long European recol-
lections he can recall nothing ap-
proXimately as lovely.
x X y \
Rivalry between the twin cities
st. Paul and Minneapolis-like time,
goes on forever. Every once in a
while the old project of consolidat-
ing them ia revived and as often goes
on the rocks because of the seeming
impossibility Of hitting on u mutually
tee ~ MJnnapnnliS folk
tell an eastern tenderfoot this yarn:
One of them opined to a group Of st.
Paul residents that he had solved the
battling problem of a suitable name
for the united twins. What is it,
inquired the fellow from the capital.
"Niinnehaha." rejoined the Minnea-
politan. There's Minnie for Min
neapoIis. and the ha-ha' for st. Paul"
st. Paul has the finest residence
street. Summit avenue; the best hotel
and railway terminal. and $50 she
CIaims) greater invested wealth, eSpe-
cially in wholesale industries. Min
neapolis is far ahead in population,
has the great state university and tS
f1anked by the most beautiful chain
of lakes imaginable. In every re-
metropolitan community. Her Nicol-
let avenue-now enriched with a 9Th
avenue motor-traffic tower-is one of
the country's finest shopping streets.
x x x x
Wall street continues TO be the per-
sonal devil Of the bounding west
whenever economics or politics is un-
der discussion. AS of yore. all of the
western countrys troubles are laid
at the door of the street of adven-
ture which begins at Broadway and
Trinity churchyard. When the name
of Morgan or Rockefeller or Gary or
Il. ,1,, ~ a
talk of international bankers" or
the steel trust" or the money
trust" the average westerner bris-
ties with fight. In many sections
there's a strongly imbedded theory
that Wall street runs Washington.
who buster that "Wall street owns
Harding" The prosperity of the
farm-labor movement is said to be
due to westerners' recognition of the
necessity to Organize against Wall
street" In that thoroughfare. it is
verify believed, is the lair of the
vampire. whose aim in life is to suck
the blood of the guileless west.
Y X X
In the Red River valley of Minnesota
a new profession has been called into
tees are professors of moonshining
Usually they are graduate moon
sinners, who. after ten or dozen
terms in Jail for violations of the
Volstead act, have decided that to
teach moonshining is a safer game
than to practice 1t. Minnesota is said
to be full of these pedagogues. who
go from community to community
especially in the farming regions
showing how "moonshine" can be
brewed. There appears to be a
stronger division of sentiment or
prohibition in Minnesota than in 9TH
er western states. 1t played prac-
tically no role in the recent senate
rial campaign. Northern Minnesota
perhaps because of it's proximity tC
Manitoba, where the vets recently
overturned prohibition, is less dry
than any other section of the North
Star state.
X I: x i:
Colorado's mining industry is in sad
decline, but one is assured there is a
successor which promises to be al
most as lucrative--the tourist indus