The Kevin review. [volume] (Kevin, Mont.) 1922-1929, 1924-04-10
BY JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN
( RIVAL

~WO o L JIM" BRIDGER 'Teller Of
IL Tall Yarns"
M They're classics still, these latter
nA days
~vS5H}AA Sir George Gore, straight-faced, road
nv "Munchausen's Tales"
\I,t E By Rocky Mountain c%ampfre's blaze
tGfTsNl Sale odd Jim" scornful: "Passel O.
s4HSShAaGT big lies!
hFSSBSY9 That critters dogoned bad mistook.
IN h An. say! Some things 1 seen myself
~ wd read
More hifalutin' in a book
Yellerstun cliff O. rock We kin see thru;
Hull herd o. picked BUTLER in Salt Lake;
Gran Canyon, where the moon is always full.
Makeup Gorge-echo comes back mex mornin';
Boilin' water runnin' from ice-col, spring,
An Alum Crck, what shrunk my pony's feet
They'd make a man sit up and look"
You may know much or little or nothing about
James Bridger. You probably know considerable,
If you belong
Out where the world is In the making.
Where fewer hearts with despair are aching
That's where the West begins
Where there's more of singing and less of signing.
Were there's more of giving and less Of buying
And a man makes friends without half trying
That's where the West begins.
For that is the West of today, as Arthur Chap
man has sung 1t, and there Bridger's name, though
he has been dead these forty years and more. is
still one to conjure with.
II you are O student or Americana you know
that the history of the United States cannot be
tolG without the story of Bridger and his fellow
explorers, trappers and fur-traders west Of the
Mississippi.
If you are a movie fam" you may have seen
"The Covered Wagon" and know Bridger as pre-
sented in that motion picture production.
The immediate motive of this article is the fact
that Mrs. Virginia Bridger Hahn of Kansas City,
Kans, Bridger's only surviving child, has brought
suit for damages of a million dollars against 1.-The
Covered Wagon" because of its presentation of
her father. According to the petition in the suit,
1t is reported, the motion picture production de-
picts Bridger as a heavy drinker and a person who
often became intoxicated and as living with two
squaws. Mrs. Hahn charges that her parentage
is brought into question; that her name is dis
graced, and that she suffers great humiliation be-
cause her father is shown in several carousals.
She asserts that her father was an upright. honor
able man, who was Dever known to drink to excess.
The purpose of this article Is not to try out Of
court the case Of Mrs. Hahn against the Famous
Players-Lasky corporation and the Paramount Pic
lures corporation. It's sole purpose is to show that
James Bridger, drunken or sober. is an American
Immortal-and why.
"The Covered Wagon" is a picture based upon
a historical novel of the same name by the late
Emerson Hough, an American novelist and nature
writer. 1t depicts the progress of a caravan over
the famous "Oregon Trail" AS a whole it is a
powerful and touching picture of the times-in
Portland the people in the theater rose in response
to some of its most stirring scenes.
The Interpretation Of James Bridger presented
on the screen by Tully Marshall Is disconcerting
and perplexing, to say the least, to both hero-wor-
shipper and student of history. He drifts In from
the desert, shabby, u2couth, rather maudlin and
quite grotesque, with q prediction for hard liq-
uor and squaws. His produest achievement seems
to be symbolized In his ability to shoot a tin cup
Of liquor from the head Of a boon companion after
a drinkingbout-
James Bridger and his times must be seen In
perspective. The history Of the United States
west of the Mississippi begins with the Spanish
explorations of the Sixteenth century in the South
west. The French of the Seventeenth century at
tempted to build an inland empire along the ST.
Lawrence, Great Lakes, Mississippi and the Gulf
Of Mexico. They lost the st. Lawrence region to
British. The Revolution fixed the western
boundary of the American Colonies at the Missis-
sippi. The French, under Napoleon, staged a second
attempt at empire-building. this time from New
Orleans and west of the Mississippi. NAPOLEON.
forced to choose between war and colonization
elected to fight. So he sold to the United States
or $15,OOO,OOO the territory between the Missis-
ippi and the Rockies. He planned to kill two
birds with one stone :" get the sinews of war
md plant a thorn In the English breast"
So, ct the beginning Of the Nineteenth centurv.