Indiana: Her Soil and Light

CTOBER 3, 1923

THERE IS ABOUT IT a charm which I shall not be able to express, I know, but which is of its soil and sky and water-those bucolic streams and lakes which so charm those who see them. And where else will one find such beech and sugar groves, so stately and still and serene-the seeming abodes of spirits and elves that are both friendly and content? Rains come infrequently and then only in deluging showers. Corn and wheat and hay and melons flourish throughout the State. Spring comes early. Autumn lingers pleasingly into November. The winters are not, in the main, severe. Yet deep, delicious snows fall. And a dry cold in the northern portion makes sleighing and skating a delight. The many lakes and streams afford ample opportunity for house-boats, lakeside cottages, and bungalows as well as canoeing and fishing and idling and dreaming. In the beech and sugar groves are many turtle doves. The bluejay and the scarlet tanager flash and cry. Hawks and buzzards and even eagles, betimes, soar high in the air. Under the eaves of your cottage are sure to be wrens and bluebirds. Your chimneys are certain to shelter a covey of martins. And to your porches will cling the trumpet vine, purple clematis, and wistaria. From the orchard and woodlot of your farm will sound the rusty squeak of the guinea hen and the more pleasing cry of the peacock, "calling for rain."

One should not conclude from this, of course, that the State is without manufacture, or that, size for size, its cities and towns are not as interesting as those of other States. To me they are more so. There is something in the very air that sustains them that is of the substance of charm. What it is I cannot say. You will find it suggested in the poems of Riley and the stories of Tarkington, a kind of wistfulness that is the natural accompaniment of the dreams of unsophistication. To be sure the State is lacking in urban centers of great size which somehow, regardless of character, manage to focus the interest of the outside world. Apart from Indianapolis, a city of three hundred thousand, there is no other of even a third of its size within its borders. Evansville, on the Ohio, and at the extreme southwest comer of the State, has possibly eighty thousand. Ft. Wayne, in the northern portion of the State, the same. Terre Haute, the most forthright of its several manufacturing centers, had, until recently at least, a population of seventy thousand. And because of the character of its manufactories which relate to steel and coal it is looked upon by many who are not a part of it as grimy. Its smaller cities such as Gary, Hammond, South Bend, Kokomo, Richmond, Muncie, and several others literally resound with manufacture, being centers for steel, packing, automobiles, engineering supplies, farm machinery, and so forth. Yet contrasted with the neighboring States of Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois-in particular the latter's northern portion-it pales as a center of manufacture. Ohio can boast quite ten centers to its one. In passing from any of these States into Indiana one is reminded of the difference between Holland and Germany or France, the one with its canals, its windmills, and level fields, dotted with simple homes, the other with its plethora of cities and factories and, in the old days, its ever-present army. The one is idyllic, the other almost disturbingly real and irritatingly energetic.

Yet to my way of thinking the State is to be congratulated rather than not upon this limited commercial equipment. Not all of our national domain need to be commercial, I trust, however much we may wish it. A few such pastoral areas might prove an advantage. Besides, as I have indicated, there is running through the mood of the State something which those who are most intimate with it are pleased to denominate "homey" or "folksy"-a general geniality and sociability. And with this I agree. The automobile and the phonograph, plus the dancing which the latter inspires, have added so much to the color of the small town and the farm in these days. Or, if it be the lone cottage, far from any town, with neither automobile nor phonograph, then the harmonica and the accordion are found to be in service. And one may sing and dance to those. It is the light, or the soil, or what?

In this connection the church life of Indiana, as well as its moral taboos, have always interested me. Morality, one might well assume by now, as well as all important social regulations, is best and most understandingly based upon and regulated by the Golden Rule. Beyond that, among the intelligent, restrictions and compulsions are few. Neither theory nor dogma nor ritual nor custom nor creed is disturbingly binding. Yet in my native State, and despite the steady growth in scientific knowledge, devotion to denominational liturgy and dogma appears to be unmodified. Go where you will, into any city or town you choose, and there will be not one but four or five or six or more churches of the ultrasectarian type and each with a lusty and convinced following. Nowhere, considering the sizes of the various cities and towns and hamlets, will you see larger or more attractive edifices of this character. And not infrequently the Bible school attachments or additions are almost as impressive as the churches them- selves. In short, sectarian religion appears to flourish mightily. It is the most vigorous and binding of all local social activities. The affairs of the church are not only spiritually but socially of the utmost importance. Nearly everyone belongs to one or another of the various denominations and the rivalry between the several sects is not infrequently keen, especially in the smaller places. And in the main, and despite all science, they are still imperialistic in their claim to revelation and devotion. Religious innovations are taboo. Even modern liberalizing theologic tendencies, though sanctioned by a stray soul here and there, are not in the main either understood or approved of. To this day in many orthodox quarters the youths of the hour are still discouraged from attending the State or any other university on the ground that they are "hotbeds of infidelity and irreligion." And the local press, running true to form, as it does everywhere, editorially sustains this contention.

And yet, as the world knows, Indiana has its "genius belt," geographically deliminated even, as "south of a line running east and west through Crawfordsville." And, locally at least, and until recently, there was no hesitation in stamping the decidedly successful literary and art products of the State as the effusions of genius. Well, there's neither good nor ill but thinking makes it so. Certainly the State may well be proud of George Ade and Booth Tarkington and William M. Chase, the artist, to say nothing of those distinguished elders James Whitcomb Riley and General Lew Wallace, the author of Ben Hur. Whether as much may be said for some others still remains to be seen. Certainly from the point of view of current popularity they have nothing to complain of. And as for posterity, well, posterity pays no grocer's bills. There are many aspiring writers who would gladly change place with George Bar McCutcheon or Charles Major, who wrote When Knighthood Was in Flower.

Yet apart from these the State is not without a few personalities whose names will awaken responsive and other than literary thought beyond its borders- William Henry Harrison, the "Indian fighter" and quondam President, for instance, and Thomas B. Hendricks, once a Vice-President. Also Oliver P. Morton, an efficient early governor; John Hay, diplomat, author, and cabinet officer of his day; and John Clark Ridpath, the historian. As a true and loyal Hoosier I suppose I should add that James B. Eads, the distinguished engineer, once lived in Brookville, Indiana, that Robert Owen founded his human brotherhood experiment at New Harmony, in Posey County, that Henry Ward Beecher was once pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, and that Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have studied those few books and caught that elusive something that later gave character and beauty to his utterances somewhere in a log cabin in Spencer County.

But beyond these, what? Well, beyond an agreeable and respectable and kindly social world in which to be and pass one's brief and changeful days, what more is needed? Trusts? There are several in active operation, ye tin-plate and ye steel trust, for instance; the former organized at Kokomo, Indiana, the latter in full and dictatorial swing at Gary and Hammond, where only so recently as July, 1919, a number of very respectable employees on strike were promptly and in true liberty fashion shot to death upon the streets of Hammond, their crime being, apparently, opposition to insufficient wages and certain (as they seem to have assumed) unsatisfactory piece-work conditions. The moral entanglements resulting from this method of adjusting labor difficulties are before the courts of Indiana at this very time. Large industries? Indianapolis, Kokomo, and South Bend are assumed to be automobile manufacturing centers of the greatest import, nationally and internationally speaking. The steel interests of Gary, Hammond, and Terre Haute are assumed, not only locally but nationally, to be second to none in America. Indianapolis has not one but several enormous packing plants. The underlying coal-beds of southwestern Indiana-especially about Terre Haute-are listed as among the important resources of the Central West. The melon- and fruit-bearing powers of the climate and soil of that same area have brought about not only specialization and intensive cultivation but a trademark which is of the greatest value. In addition the State has scenic wonders such as the caves about Wyandotte and such natural scenery and curative springs as have given rise to French ì¥Á 7 ð ¿ ±U
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ntirely possible that I have not even suggested or have entirely missed its truer spiritual significance, as we are wont to say of so much that is but deeply human. Going south through Indiana once with a friend and fellow Hoosier, we two fell into a solemn and almost esoteric, I might say, discussion of the State and its significance, intellectually, emotionally, and otherwise. Previous to what I am about to set down I had been pointing out a number of things-not only those that have always appealed to me, the poetic and folksy charm of the State and its inhabitants- but also a number of other things that rather irritated me, its social devotion to dogmatic religion, for one thing, its rather pharisaical restfulness in its assumed enlightenment and knowledge of what is true and important to the world at large, its political somnolence as suggested by its profound and unchanging devotion to the two ancient and utterly platitudinous parties. With all of this he most solemnly agreed. Then, having done so, entered not so much upon a defense as an interpretation of the State which I will here set down as best I can.

"You should go sometime to an automobile speed contest such as is held annually at the Speedway at Indianapolis, as I have often, year after year; in fact, since it was first built. There, just when the first real summer days begin to take on that wonderful light that characterizes them out here-a kind of luminous silence that suggests growing corn and ripening wheat and quails whistling in the meadows have gone over into the woods inside the course and lain down on the grass on my back.

"There, about me, would be the same familiar things I have always known and loved since I was a boy here, but that getting out into the world for a time had made me think that I had forgotten, though I hadn't-the sugar and hickory and beech trees, the little cool breezes that come up in the middle of the day and cool the face and hands for a moment, and rustle the leaves-the same fine blue sky that I used to look up into when a boy. But circling around me continuously, just the same, to the south and the north and the east and the west, where were the banks of the track beyond the woods, were these scores of cars from all parts of the world, with their thunder and dust, the thunder and dust of an international conflict. Then I would get up and look to the south along the immense grandstand that was there and would see, flying in this Indiana sunlight, the flags of all the great nations, Italy and England, France and Belgium, Holland and Germany, Austria and Spain. And it came to me then that the spirit that had been instrumental for some reason in distinguishing this particular State from its sister States, as it unquestionably has been distinguished, was and still is, I think, effective. It has won for Indiana a freedom from isolation and mere locality which is worldwide. It has accomplished here, on this quiet Hoosier soil, a very vital contact with universal thought."

"Universal thought is a pretty large thing to connect up with I-," I con- tended genially. "And this is all very flattering to dear old Indiana, but do you really believe yourself? It seems to me that, if anything, the State is a little bit sluggish, intellectually and otherwise. Or, if it isn't that, exactly, then certainly there is an element of self-complacency that permits the largest percentage of its population to rest content in the most retarding forms of political, religious, and social fol de rol. They are all, or nearly all, out here, good and unregenerate Democrats or Republicans, as they have been for, Lo! these seventy years, now- come next Wednesday. Nearly all belong to one or another of the twenty-seven sure-cure sects of Protestantism. And they are nearly all most heartily responsive to any -ism which is advertised to solve all the troubles of the world, including those of our own dear nation. I call your attention to the history of the Millerites of southeast Indiana, with their certain date for the ending of the world and their serious and complete preparation for the same; the Spiritualists and free lovers who fixed themselves ran northwestern Indiana, about Valparaiso, if I am not mistaken, and Mormon fashion ruled all others out; the something of soil magnetism which drew Robert Owen from Scotland to New Harmony and there produced that other attempt at solving all the ills to which the flesh is heir. Don't forget that the Dunkards-that curious variation of Mennonism-took root out here and flourished mightily for years, and exists to this day, as you know. Also the reformed Quakers. And now I hear that Christian Science and a Christianized form of Spiritualism are almost topmost in the matter of growth and the enthusiasm of their followers. I have no quarrel with any faith as a means to private mental blessedness. But you were speaking of universal and creative thought. Just how do you explain this?"

"Well, I can and I can't," was his rather enigmatic reply. "This is a most peculiar State. It may not be so dynamic nor yet so creative, sociologically, as it is fecund of things which relate to the spirit-or perhaps I had better say to Poetry and the interpretative arts. How else do you explain William M. Chase, born here in Brookville, I believe, General Lew Wallace, James Whitcomb Riley, Edward Eggleston and his Hoosier Schoolmaster, Booth Tarkington, George Ade, John Clark Ridpath, Roswell Smith, who founded the Century Magazine, and then Lincoln studying and dreaming down in Spencer County? All accidents? I wonder. In fact I am inclined to think that there is much more to soil and light in so far as temperament and genius are concerned than we have any idea of as yet. There may be, and personally I am inclined to think there is, a magnetic and also generative something appertaining to soil and light which is not unrelated to the electromagnetic field of science in which so much takes place. I look upon them as potent and psychogenetic even, capable of producing and actually productive of new and strange and valuable things in the way of human temperament. Take little Holland, for instance, and its amazing school of great painters. And Greece, with its unrivaled burst of genius. Or Italy, with its understanding of the arts. Or England, with its genius for governing. There is something about the soil and light of certain regions that makes for individuality not only in the land but in the people of the land."

"For instance," he continued, "I insist that the Hoosier is different mentally and spiritually to the average American. He is softer, less sophisticated, more poetic and romantic. He dreams a lot. He likes to play in simple ways. He is not as grasping as some other Americans and some other nationalities. That may be due to the fact that he is not as practical, being as poetic and good natured as he is. If he be poor and uneducated he likes to fish and play an accordion or sing. If he is better schooled he likes to read, write verse, maybe, or books, and dream. In a crude way, perhaps, he has the temperament of the artist, and so I still look to Indiana, or its children, at least, to do great things, artistically. And all this I lay to the soil and light. Why? I don't know. I just guess that they have something to do with it.

"Nothing else explains to me Edward Eggleston and his turning to letters at that early time and in the region from which he hailed-the extreme south-eastern part of Indiana. Or General Lew Wallace writing Ben Hur there in Crawfordsville, under a beech tree. Neither will anything else explain to me why the first automobile this side of France was built right here at Kokomo, and almost at the same time that the first one was perfected in France. Nor why the first automobile course, after Brooklands, England, was built here at Indianapolis-not near New York or Chicago, as one might have expected, perhaps. Or why an adventurer like La Salle should come canoeing up the Maumee and the St. Joseph into this particular region. The French, who first had this territory, chose to fortify at Terre Haute and Vincennes. Why? They might just as well have fortified at other points beyond the present State borders.

"What I am trying to get at is this: Via such a soil and such light as is here cooperating you have a temperament more sensitive to the resource above mentioned. In the case of those who wandered in here, like La Salle and Lincoln, you have sensitives affected by the conditions here. Their dreams or aspirations were here strengthened. This is a region not unlike those which produce gold or fleet horses or oranges or adventurers. There are such regions. They are different. And I look upon Indiana as one such."

"Bravo!" I applauded. "Very flattering to dear old Indiana, to say the least, and as an honest native, and moved by self-interest, I hereby subscribe. But-" And then I went back to the churches, the hard-headed conventionalities, the fact that the "inventor" of the first automobile here was accused of robbing the French of their patents, that Robert Owen was a canny Scot who saw to it that he never lost a dollar in his idealistic enterprise but held the whole town of New Harmony and all that thereunto appertained in fee simple, so that when the idea proved groundless he was able to shoo all his assembled theorists off the place and sell it for what it would bring. But my friend was not in the least abashed. He reproached me with being incurably materialistic and clung to his soil and light theory, which, I may as well admit, appeals to me very much. His final rebuke to materialism was that human nature in toto is nothing but a manifestation of forces which unavoidably assume opposite phases, which same we label good or evil, but which really are found to be supplementing each other in any manifestation which can be labeled life. So you may see how far Indiana, with its temperament, carried us.

But admiring and even revering the State as my native heath I am perfectly willing to admit all of his claims and even more of such as may be in its favor.


Source:

An essay included in:

Borus, Daniel H. These United States: Portraits of America from the 1920s. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1992.