INDEX TO
BIOGRAPHIES
ELBERT HUBBARD
| Elbert Hubbard (Fra Albertus) the popular writer and philosopher who went down with the Lusitania when that ship was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in the Irish sea, was a great admirer of Kansas. Shortly before his death the writer of this book met him at a dinner at the Coates House in Kansas City when he told me he had worked on a farm south of Osawatomie, but he was uncertain which county he was in. He particularly remembered his long days of plowing corn. He became a great writer and publisher, building a wonderful industrial plant at East Aurora, New York, where many things in art work as well as handsome books were produced. He wrote his praise in "Kansas in One Sentence" as follows:
"Kansas-A land of smiling sunshine, of winding streams, and waving corn and happy homes; "Where you have but to tickle the soil to make it laugh a harvest; "A land dotted with school houses and growing towns and villages that call themselves 'cities'-this by divine right, for they have the prophetic outlook, and tomorrow will be what they to-day think they are; "A land of sensitive souls, where nothing is good enough, but must be better; where nothing is but all things are becoming ; "A land of pigs given to adipose, of sleek cattle, of strong horses, of handsome women, of bouncing babies, of homely, rugged men with individuality plus, who feel deeply and write vividly; "A land where hens lay lavishly and cackle in proportion, where mules gambol on the green and are not ashamed of their pedigree; "A land whose finest products are its superb physical health, their proud ambition, their high appreciation, their capacity for useful work and their right intent; "A land where there is so much that is noble and pure and true and beautiful and good that if men in Kansas occasionally lapse, God in love and pity engages Gabriel in conversation, points to the Pleiades, looks the other way, and forgets it-happy, prosperous, smiling Kansas." This song of praise is now copied into all books on Kansas. (History of Linnn County, by William Ansel Mitchell, 1928, Pages 362-363) |