Introducing the American Spirit

e Spirit

gs American which have not yet lost their

er husband the fate of the children they had left behind them-in the event of our being captured by the Indians. However, the probability

them had even been in Chicago-but beyond, still hidden in the romance woven about them by Bret Harte (her

them only through Cooper's fascinating Indian stories, and he was eager to throw off the

to him. The little towns he had known had grown into cities, and the fu

ns with Doric pillars-the men and women he met had a new outlook upon life. While they still boasted of this and that thing in which their city was like Chicago or w

grined to find nothing but farm lands and great fields, not so well groomed as those we ha

prairies. She could not know of the loneliness of women and the hardihood of men, of the season's drought and famine,

, middle class prosperity which stretched out in the unv

ndent of schools, himself a product of the prairies. Having grown up among the cattle, he is consequently shy of men. He drove his automobile as if it were a broncho, and we all uttered

d of the youth of the town, even as under like circum

d-thousand-dollar hotel, a Grand Opera House, neither big enough nor good enough to boast of, numerous churches and this schoolhouse. It is not only a place in which boys and girls learn the "three

and child in the county through his educational and recreational program, his annual budget of some seventy-five thousand dollars, and a faculty of men and women

off his coat and threatened to thrash one of the members who refused his vote on an important measure. As we looked at this six foot three, erstwhile cowboy, his

their high school yell; they "rah rahed" us individually and collectively, and "what's the matter withed" everybody, and indulged in a

he was in high spirits. He thought the most hopeful characteristic of the American is this faith in education, the practical, far-reaching methods employed, and the daring all sorts of educational experiments. At the sa

wives who studied kitchen chemistry, farmers' children who tested seeds, and to whom these prairies, to which

den prairie had been transformed into a glorious campus, and uncultured boys and girls into enthusiastic tea

stay because of an engagement I had made to address a certain club. I did this because it gave me a fine chance to introduce that particular Ameri

ourse, and found the finest rooms in the hotel reserved for us. Big, high, gen

o speak during the evening. One of them, a most brilliant woman, a well-known social worker. The second a United Stat

nd the Frau Directorin, but he protested when after the meal, without even a chance at a nap, we we

nds; its schoolhouse, churches, and clubs. We heard much of its pr

ommittee in the city, to which they had come from all parts of the coun

cency, law and order, and the health and happiness of children, which has been waged there and is not yet

who had defied the monied interests of her state, who had jeopardized her comforts and

ipe out brothels and evil dance halls, broken up the connivance of the police with the crim

e were told the story (not by himself) of how a brave and good man, single handed, struggled against bosses, political cl

them; a raging river which they meant to control, and ugly, sickening slums which were doomed to go, and th

s was a new type of fighters, much less picturesque, but fit successors to those valiant pioneers. I rescued my guests from a visit to the stock-yards (why any one should

a reception, I have not seen it, unless it be a reception with orchestral accompani

e this was one of the few occasions on ou

a limited degree, it is true), that they had, at the most, two servants, and that some of them had none; that they were interested in Literary Cl

d. The Frau Directorin, who has servants for the kitchen and the children, upon whom the third K, the Church, lays no burden in the way of missionary meetings, fairs and suppers, who doe

black coffee, they all disappeared, and the toast-master rose and began unbottling his stock of stories. Nowhere in the world is ther

ctedly, among them the Herr Director; a Glee Club was to sing before, between and

lear, so aptly put, so well reasoned through and so within the limit of time assigned her, that when she finished, the enthusiastic Herr Director shou

s a revelation of the attitude of large industrial interests towards labor. It showed the fair-mindedness of the men there, that they listened so approvingly, in spi

forgotten his subject, but that does not matter, for it had no relation to what he said. It was the kin

second, when to stop. When his final finally was finally spoken, the Glee Club sang again, after which the Herr Director was ca

and the club adjourned to meet again the next month, when it would receive other more or less distinguished guests, ea

ople who told him how much they enjoyed his address, he retired in

y lovely," he said; "but

e children; and, like chil