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
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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.