Our Christmas Adventure!

William Allen White's Typewriter

     

For many years, my husband and I have wanted to tour the William Allen White home, and when we were near Emporia, Kansas we would stop by to see if their home was open for tours.  We were never lucky enough to find Red Rocks, the name they gave their home, open for tours.

    So, when we learned that they were having a special Holiday celebration at the house on December 9, 2024, we set the alarm clock to get up in time to drive to Emporia. What a wonderful tour we had!  

    I think the first time I was aware of White was in high school, when we read the Editorial/obituary he and his wife wrote for their daughter.  It is such a lovely tribute to her, and although she died in 1921, over the years it has been read by countless numbers of people.

    He is also famous for his editorial titled "What's the Matter with Kansas?" in which he criticized Populist leaders for failing to keep up with the economy of surrounding neighboring states.

    As a newspaper man, the respect he earned was not limited to Kansas.  Not only did his writing appear in his Emporia Gazette, but his editorials were widely reprinted. His reputation brought him many friends, and among those friends who came to stay in his home were Theodore Roosevelt, Douglas Fairbanks, Edna Ferber, Dorothy Canfield, and Herbert Hoover.

    Among his many achievements, perhaps the most notable was his decision to run for governor of Kansas.  He took the decision seriously, and he campaigned across the state; however, his motive had a bigger purpose than simply running for the office of governor.  The Ku Klux Klan had begun to expand into Kansas, and White used his campaigning to warn Kansans about the danger of the Klan.  He did not win the office of Governor, but his speeches were credited with helping to block the spread of the Klan.

    If you are not familiar with William Allen White, it is worth your time to do some research about this well-known and highly respected Kansan.  He should not be forgotten.  

    A wonderful crowd attended the open house, and a professor from the college entertained us with her harp, playing Christmas music.  The volunteer hostesses were well informed and graciously shared information about each room. It was exciting to me to see the small typewriter that he used to write the newspaper articles and books that brought him fame.

    The house is lovely, and I could not help but look around the room as I enjoyed the music, imagining the famous men and women who had shared the hospitality of the house before me.

    During World War II, the City of Emporia raised $25,000 in war bonds and they were given naming rights for a B-29 bomber.  They chose to name it the William Allen White.  It was part of the same bomber squadron that the Enola Gay was in.

    William Allen White's autobiography was published posthumously in 1946, and it won the Pulitzer Prize for Biograph/Autobiography.  We came home with our own copy of his book, as well as another book and wonderful memories of the day.

Kansas Capitol Mural

John Brown mural at Kansas Capitol

Although the Kansas Capitol was begun in 1866 before Isaac B. Werner arrived to stake his claim and the structure required 37 years to complete, interior details remained to be done even then.  (See "A Kansas Treasure," at 10/15/2015 in the blog archives.)

When my husband and I recently visited the capitol, one of the things I could recall from a much earlier visit was the  mural of John Brown.  This well-known image of the Kansas abolitionist shaped my perception of Brown as a wild-eyed radical, although many in the abolitionist movement regarded him as a hero.

John Steuart Curry, the artist who painted the mural, was born in Dunavant, Kansas in 1897.  He studied in Kansas City, Chicago, and Paris, and the event which brought him attention was when Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney purchased his painting, Baptism in Kansas, in 1928 for her new museum in NYC.

In 1931-32, through the influence of Kansas newspaperman William Allen White (See "What is the Matter?," 9/9/2013 in the blog archives to read more about White.) and Maynard Walker, a Kansas-born art dealer in NYC, an exhibition of Curry's work traveled to Kansas City, Topeka, and Manhattan.  The exhibition introduced Kansans to the work of their native son, and in 1937, with the support of White and artist Grant Wood, Curry was retained to paint the murals in the capitol.  He worked on that commission from 1937-1941 but found himself confronted with criticism.  Some Kansans did not agree with his depiction of John Brown as a hero.  Other criticism related to his depiction of the tornado and his failure to represent the state in a more idealized way.

Source Credit: Don Anderson papers, Smithsonian

His depictions should not have come as a surprise, for he made his reputation painting rural Kansas scenes showing drought, tornadoes, and harsh living conditions.  He was known as a member of the trio of  early 20th century American Regionalists, the other two being Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood.  

The criticism was disheartening to Curry, and in the years prior to his death in 1946 he never recovered from the personal sadness caused by that critical reception by his home state.  It was his intention to depict the courage of self-reliant people surviving through their own hard labor to overcome harsh conditions.  Many of his paintings show his disapproval of racial discrimination and hatred, which may explain why he chose to paint the mural of John Brown.

The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art

After seeing the exhibition in 1931-32, Kansas State Agricultural College began raising funds to purchase a painting for their collection.  They achieved their goal and purchased Sun Dogs in 1935, becoming the first public institution in Kansas to acquire a work by Curry.  Because his mother had attended the college, Curry reduced the painting's price from $1,200 to $500, and he also donated a water color and four lithographs.  His generosity in reducing the price was very important to the college's ability to raise the funds during those hard depression years.

At the time of the 1996 opening of Kansas State University's Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Mrs. Ruth Ann Wefald and Mr. Don Lambert developed a friendship with Curry's widow, Kathleen Curry, and as the friendship grew, Mrs. Curry decided to donate a large and important collection of her husband's work to the museum.  It would surely have pleased him, after his disappointment over the criticism given his work in the capitol, to know that Kansas State University now proudly houses his collection.

Photo credit:  Larry D. Fenwick

What is the Matter?

William Allen White

Since others have to tolerate my weaknesses, it is only fair that I should tolerate theirs.  --William Allen White

 

William Allen White came upon the political scene about the time Isaac exited, but it is certain that had someone posed the question, What is the matter with Kansas? to both of them, the two men would have answered quite differently.  In fact, White used that very question for the title of an editorial critical of the Populist Movement.  He blamed the populists for the lack of economic and population growth, writing sarcastically:  "Give the prosperous man the dickens!  Legislate the thriftlessman into ease.  Whack the stuffing out of the creditors...Whoop it up for the ragged trousers; put the lazy, greasy fizzle who can't pay his debts on the altar and bow down to worship him."  In short, White believed that populist politicians had scared businessman and investors away from Kansas with their policies and their rhetoric. 

 

At the time White wrote those words, he was not yet thirty, and he was the editor of a little-known small-town newspaper.  The editorial "What's the Matter with Kansas?" brought national prominence to White and his newspaper, The Emporia Gazette, gaining particular attention because it was written by a Kansan attacking the Populist Movement in the region of the country where the movement was strongest.  (To read the full text of the editorial, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" go to http://www.kancoll.org/articles/what's_the_matter_with_kansas.html.)

 

I have never been bored an hour in my life.  I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing is going to happen and it happens at fairly regular intervals.  ---William Allen White

White's Emporia Home

 

William Allen White was born in Emporia, KS in 1868, but his family soon moved to El Dorado.  His newspaper credentials began when he was still a teenager, working as a press apprentice before attending the College of Emporia and the University of Kansas.  He worked as an editorial writer for the Kansas City Star and married before moving to Emporia and buying the Emporia Gazette, still operated by the fourth generation of his family.  Located at 517 Merchant Street, the family business maintains a small museum with old newspaper equipment, photographs of which you can see at http://www.kansastravel.org/emporiagazette.htm. 

 

A little learning is not a dangerous thing to one who does not mistake it for a great deal.  --William Allen White

 

It is said that on his way to work the morning he wrote "What's the Matter with Kansas?" he suffered some unpleasantness with a loafer spouting populist rhetoric.  Still bristling from that encounter, White wrote the editorial without time for his emotions to cool.  Whether the incident actually happened, the editorial is more confrontational than his other writings often were, especially in later years.  He won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for his editorial in support of free speech titled "To an Anxious Friend."  He wrote:  "...you can have no wise laws nor free entertainment of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people...This state today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because, in the end, suppression leads to violence.  Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression.  Whoever pleads for justice helps to keep the peace; and whoever tramples on the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood.  When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line."  (Full text at http://www2.ku.edu/~jschool/school/waw/writings/waw/newspaper/editorials/anxiousfriend.html.)

 

White's car with GAZETTE license plate

White died before I was born, and my first encounter with his writing was as a student reading the heartbreaking eulogy written to his daughter who died from injuries sustained in a riding accident.  Titled simply with his 16-year-old daughter's name, "Mary White," he described her with these words:  "She was mischievous without malice, as full of faults as an old shoe."  The eulogy is still widely read, and you can find the full text at http://grammar.about.com/od/classicessays/a/Mary-White-By-William-Allen-White.htm. 

 

In 1924 White ran unsuccessfully for Kansas governor on an anti-Klan platform, and although he was not elected his effort probably contributed to Kansas becoming the first state to outlaw the Klan.  In 1940 he served as chairman of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, but what he was best known for was his gift of championing small-town values with humor and wisdom.  Late in his life he was sometimes referred to as an "old progressive," quite a change from the young author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

 

He died in 1944 in Emporia, where he was working on his autobiography.  His son, William Lindsay completed the unfinished manuscript, and it won another Pulitzer Prize for White.  The William Allen White House in Emporia is open limited hours to the public.

 

Reason has never failed men.  Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.  --William Allen White