I J
T
THE COURIER.
&,
him not to Imve anything to do with
the women folks," and that hereafter
he will first find out what they (mean
ing women folks) wantand then decide
that way.
Just as it Is with men's organiza
tions, thu principal difference of opin
ion concerned the ofllces. In addition
to the usual president, secretary, treas
urer and auditor, the D. A. H. elects
twenty vice-presidents general, so
that there Is uhmit. five times the or
dinary number of honors to lie divided conscientiously and Intelligently.
Own Peoplo." Edmuud Gobso said, yours
ago when Kipling was in hie first vogue
and bio place in literature not at all as
sured, that if tbo British empire in
India should become a thing of the past,
those stories would be more valuable to
the historian of the futuro than all the
tuns of government reports over mailed
to England. When Zola wrote "L'As
sommoir" bo declared that it was "the
first story of the people that had the
smell of the people." Certainly Mr. Kip-
among the members of the order. It
Is not unnatural thut there Bhould be
an extraordinary effort to divide them
with some fairness among the states
represented by the delegates. The
newspaper correspondents have seen
lit to make fun of the meetings of the
organization, the discussions and the
lobbylngs. They are Ignorant of the
spirit which animates the organiza
tion and are of course entirely out of
sympathy with the ambitions, legiti
mate and honorable though they may
be, of the members. Any meeting of
men, however turbulent It may be, Is
treated with a semblance of intelli
gence and respect, but these meetings
of women have been reported by the
Washington correspondents with an
imbecile facetiae that would be un
pardonable in a good circus clown.
The I"). A. II. has ati admirable ralson
d'etre, a dignified membership and
an enviable and honorable, if short,
history. There is no reason at all
why tlic annual sessions should not be
treated by the press with respect or
falling, in which it should not be
excluded altogether. .
What is fame? The beautiful little
poem published three weeks ago in
The Couuieh vailed "The Weaver,"
by the late Mr. Oscar A Million was
copiqd in a Nebraska paper called The
Surprise, which is too frequently a sur
prise In the way of typography and
make up. In this case the editor gave
no credit either to the author or the
paper from which it was taken, for
the poem was signed Mr. Oscar A.
Muldoon and it appeared to have been
written for The Surprise, whose in
sides recently appeared upside down.
"
Although nothing has been defin
itely proven by the committee Inves
tigating Auditor Cornell, conclusions
from Palm's letters are unavoidable
and the populist and republican mind
seems to be made up so 'strongly as to
his guilt that whether the investiga
tion reveals anything further or not,
the result will be the same.
This account of Mr. Sage's posthu
mous generosity Is interesting: By
the will in which Russell Sage dis
poses of his estates, fully nine-tenths
of his enormous fortune are devoted
to purposes of charity, education and
art. It will be the grandest bequest
to the public ever made by an indi
vidual since the time of Artemisia.
During his lifetime, of which the
"great dallies" publish such beautiful
stories, Sage has been a miser, a skin
Hint, a usurer; he has perjured himself
for years and years to evade payment
of his just share in the communal ex
penses; he has been pretty much
everything that a patriotic and useful
citizen of the republic should not be.
But It was only that he might increase
the magnificent fortune that he pur
poses to devote to posterity. He would
have preferred to maintain his ugly
Secretary of War Mclklujohn to Illus
trate Its cover this week. From Its
editorial comment of this eminent
Nebraskan I extract the following:
Assistant Secretary of War George
I). Melklcjohn impresses tub as a man
of force, a man of thought, and there
can be no question as to his marvelous
capacity fur work. He has done a
great deal for the war department
tiring our lit tic "set to" with Spain.
Mr. Melklcjohn has had pretty nearly
all of the details of this late war to
look after, and he has looked after them
ling is the first English author who buB
Mr. Melklejohll iS ail energetic man, l,i.nrlnn.wl lhnmn,r ntnrulnnint nf tho
possessing a high order of executive .t.jnnr,i,njnMn,n,in,i1ut
ability, a clear, comprehensive Insight qu-rtsrdock and gjno down to find what
of human nature, a quick and Just de- life was like before the mast. 'Ihe
vision, which is relieved from brusque- Bridge Builders" is one of tho meet
ncss uy 11 Kindly courtesy, all or which characteristic stories in tho present vol-
hundreds of box cars, loaded, locked and
chalked."
enable him to execute the multitudin
ous and harassing duties of his oUlcc
without friction and to the great
benefit of the war department. One
leaves his presence with increased
faith in humanity. The members of
the International Brotherhood League
are particularly indebted to him for
the valuable assistance he rendered in
the war relief work.
Is that not a record to be proud of?
Yes.
000M
MMM0t)l
There is jupt ouo otbor man alive who
could have written that paragraph, and
that is Zola himself. But he would not
have stopped there; he would have gono
at length into the Bufferings of the hearts
in the stock cars, and insisted that the
potatoes were rotten, and that the hides
dripped with blood; ho would have de
scribed tho reapers and binders individ
ually and separately; it is not unlikely
that he would have catalogued the dif
ferent bridge castings, and he would re
morselessly have extracted every evil
smell that is to bo got out of a freight
yard. Yet these two men, different as
they are, are the only living writers who
have at their command tho virility of
the epic manner, unless one include the
author of "With Fire and Sword." Each
is, in his own way, a maBter of detail,
and their management of it is different
as the men themselves. The one at his
Herculean tasks throws up mountains of
facts that it is impossible to remember;
the other concentrates all his knowledge
into a few sharp, stinging sentences that
cut clean to the heart of the matter and
that it ip impossible to forgot. It is the
old story of tho hammer and rapier.
It is in this vast and minute knowl
edge and in an effective and amazingly
original use of it that Mr. Kipling has
grown. But in depth, in grace, in uoble
seriousness ho has advanced not at all.
For the last ten yeaVs his development
has been of the hand rather than spirit
ual. Had "Captains Courageous" and
"Tho Day's Work" been his first pro
ductions they would have made, doubt
less, a noise in the world, but they
would not have done for their author
what "Plain Tales from tne Hills" and
"Soldiers Three" did. 'In his new book
one finds no euch masterpieces as "The
Man Who Would be King" or "On the
City Wall," no such poetic paragraphs
as once kindled tbo dullest imagination,
no Buch depth of tenderness as awed the
most irreverent of us in "Without Bene
fit of Clergy." I find in "The Day's
Work" no such passages as this, from
"Dray Wara Yow Der."
"Come back with me to the north and
be among men once more. Come back,
when this matter is accomplished ana I
call for thee! The bloom of the peach
orchards is upon all the valley, and here
iaonlyduBt and a great stink. There
is a pleasant wind among the mulberry
trees, and the streams are bright with
snow-water, and the caravans go up and
the caravans go down, and a hundred
fires sparkle in the gut of the pasB, and
tent-peg answers hammer-nose, and the
pack-boree squeals to pack-horse across
the drift smoke of the evening. It is
good iu the north now. Come back with
me. Let ub return to our own people!
Come!"
That, by your leave, is worth all the
descriptions of all the freight yards in
the world. Time was when Mr. Kipling
brought into our liveB a beauty wild and
Btrange, when he promised to create a
literature ns uniquo bb the "Arabian
NigbtB," when he was very hear indeed
to the face of "Thu True Romnnce."
A part of the greatness of a man of
genius iB to know what subjectR are
worthy of him, what of all the things he
can do well aro best worth his doing.
In tbiB instinct Mr. Kinlins seems to be
reputation to the end, but some of the sweating and dying In India, in nsla and and truck-wagonB full of market stuff; woefully deficient. He in dangerously
'great dallies' that have learned his the Soudan for a century or more, yet it flat carB loaded with reapers and binders, clever and ho has a taBte for farce, and
noble Intentions prefer that his real was Kipling who first introduced the all red and green and gilt under the slzz- these two propensities lead him into
Intentions should be discovered while English eoldier to the English people, ling electric lights; flat cars piled high many a tour do force unworthy of bis
he Is still with us to enjoy the surprise. The nucleus of Anglo-Indian society, with strong-scented hides, pleasant hem- high talent. Admitting that the "Mrs.
waa formed when Clive'B troopers lock plank, or bundles of shingles; fiat .Hawkslie" stories were cheap in their
The capital, a wccKiy ronuxui nuaii- umrcueu imo me iniouor, yet no one cars creating 10 tne weigni ort miriy-tnn icnowingneB? that "The Story of the
!
4
:the passing show:
W I LLA GATHER
Mr. Rudyard Kipling is a force to be
reckoned with. You can count upon the
fingers of ono hand the Englishmen
from whom a new volume could excite
as much interest throughout the entire
English speaking world, or could mean
as much to English letter?. He is read
with pleasure by admirers of Miss Cor
elli, and ho is read with unfailing aston
ishment and-admiration by tho clientele
of Henry Jam 3s, limited. He has been
published in the "Ladioa Home Journal,"
side by side with Mr. Bok's advice to
young men, and he has been taken Beri- world, and his sympathy for workmen
ously in tbo pugeB of the Edinburgh
'Review." In short, ho ib a fact in
English Literature, known and felt by
tho many, disputed, perhaps, but always
adraUted by the few. Aside from his
prodigiouB dexterity of execution, hiB
methods, always unusual and often un
precedented, which compel the admira-
umo. Findlayeon was a civil engineer
who was building a bridgo over the
GangeB. He had been building it for
three years. He had changed tho face
of tho country for mileB around; bur
rowed out pits and thrown up embank
ments, and seen a village of workmen
grow up and about him. "He had en
dured heat and cold, disappointment,
discomfort, danger and disease." Mean
time the bridge grew, "plate by plate,
girder by girder, span by span," and
"Fiudlayson" built his life into tho
bridge. Even "Peroo," tho native over,
seer, sayB, "My honor is the honor of the
bridge." That is Mr. Kipling's idea of
work- I fancy, moreover, that it is the
spirit in which ho works. He 3ndB
energy the most wonderful and terrible
and beautiful thing in the universe; the
energy of great machines, of animals in
their hunt for prey, of moj in their
hand-to hand fight for a foothold in the
world. He haB found in tbiB energy sub
ject matter for art, whereas it has pre
viously been considered the exclusive
province of science. An inevitable ac
companiment of this worship of force is
hiB keen interest in the entire physical
in
every field, and his insatiable avidity
for the details of every trade. Give him
the routine of a man's business, and be
will make the man for you. Where be
has acquired all his minute technical
knowledge of bridge building, cod fish
ing, railroading, jungle creatures, army
and civil life, his accurate and smypa-
tion of all loveas of good craftsmanship, thetic Knowledge of topography, that is
he has an impaspioned. never wavering a part of hiB genius and nature's socret.
interest in things vital and present Enumeration, which has Bomehow come
which appeals to all men of affairs. So to be reckoned as one of the innovations
be has accomplished the seemingly im- of. realism, is as old as the Catalogue of
possible, and is Greek to the Greeks and the Ships in the Iliad, and Mr. Kipling's
barbarian to tho barbarians, honored by use of it is not unlike Homer's. He can
two factions that love not to mingle take a list of facts as dull as an extract
their incense.
The title of Mr. Kipling's last volume,
"The Day's Work," might be said to
cover his entire literary output. No
man haB ever written more persistently
or more vividly of the affairs which en
gage the daily life of men. If Mr. Kip
ling knows that there are men of leisure
in the world, be haB nnvr said so. The
dilettante, who has always so important
a place in novels, and who is still not
without honor in the fiction of Mr. Rich
ard Harding DaviB and Mrs. Constance
Caiy Harrison, Mr. Kipling holdB bb be
neath hie contempt. The world has
been a great many centuries in evolv
ing its present gigantic industries, but
Mr. Kipling is the first man who has
ever written of them seriously or sym
pathetically. Steam was discovered in
1769, yet mechanics and poetry first met
n "McAndrew's Hymn" and De Mussot
half a century before, had declared them
forever incompatible and antagonistic.
The English army has beon fighting and
from a report of the treasury bureau of
statistics, and with a few deft touches,
behold! it is a-throb with life, clear and
vivid, and complete as a sketch by Meis
Eonier. Take the following extract from
his temarkible tailroad story, "007," de
scriptive of a freight yard in a great
city.
"007 pushed out gingerly bis heart in
his head light, so nervous that the
Bound of bis own bell almost made him
jump the track. Lanterns waved, ad
vanced up and down before and behind
bin; and on every side, six tracks deep,
sliding backward and forward, with
clashiDgs of couplers and squeals of
hand brakes, wore cars more cars than
007 had ever dreamed of. There were
oil-cars, bay-cars and stock cars full of
lowing beaBtB, and ore-cars and potato,
cars with stove-pipe ends sticking out in
the middle; cold-storage and refrigerator
cars dripping ice water on the tracks;
ventilated fruit and milk cars; flat cars
h
V
)-
ton matters national, political and
social uses a protect of Assistant
know anything about it untjl
naaranna nt 44Qn,Vnn Tk.n.
uuninuwu wt vjwiuiuid iuiuu
ntjl, the sp- castings, angle-irpns and rivet-boxes for Gadsbys'' wob an atrocious precocity in S
and "Mine gome new bridge; and hundreds and a youth of 20, tbey were betfer worth v