Prairie Gold Part 34

Dr. Edward A. Steiner, of Grinnell, Iowa, a sociologist with a vision, has done more than any other man to bring together in friendly working relationship our native-born and foreign-born Americans. He has not only gone up and down the earth preaching an applied Christianity, but he has also written into nearly a dozen books, all of which have had many readers, his own experiences in the old world and the new, and his valuable observations--those of a trained sociologist bent upon righting the wrongs of ignorance and selfishness as he has found them embedded in customs and laws. The World War has opened a large field of usefulness for the Grinnell preacher of national and international righteousness.

Newell Dwight Hillis, the popular Brooklyn preacher, lecturer and author, was born in Maquoketa, Iowa, but has spent most of his life outside the state.

A new name in fictional literature is that of Ethel Powelson Hueston.

Mrs. Hueston was reared in a family of eleven children, and her popular first book, "Prudence of the Parsonage," written on a claim in Idaho while caring for her invalid husband--who died in 1915--is the story of her own experience in a parsonage in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa.

"Prudence Says So" is a continuation of the story. Mrs. Hueston was recently married to Lieutenant Edward J. Best, at Golden, Colorado.

Margaret Coulson Walker and Ida M. Huntington, both of Des Moines, have added to the information and delight of children by a number of ill.u.s.trated books. Miss Walker's "Bird Legends and Life," and "Lady Hollyhock and Her Friends," and Miss Huntington's "Garden of Heart's Delight," and "Peter Pumpkin in Wonderland" are favorites with many.

Miss Emilie Blackmore Stapp, literary editor of the _Des Moines Capital_, has written a number of popular stories for children. Her "Squaw Lady," "Uncle Peter Heathen," and "The Trail of the Go-Hawks"

have found many readers. She has done more than write stories. She has organized a national club called the "Go-Hawks Happy Tribe," and the Tribe has undertaken to raise a million pennies to help buy food for starving children in France and Belgium. The grand total of pennies reported September, 1917, was 255,000!

Edna Ferber, of "Emma McChesney" fame, and the author of a half-dozen clever novels, the latest of which is "f.a.n.n.y Herself," was born in Wisconsin, but spent much of her youth in Ottumwa, Iowa, where her father was a successful merchant.

Oney Fred Sweet, born in Hampton, Iowa, and sometime a journalist in Des Moines, has made a national reputation as a feature writer on the _Chicago Tribune_ and as a contributor of verse and sketches to the magazines.

Laura L. Hinckley, of Mount Vernon, Iowa, is a frequent contributor to the leading magazines. Recent stories in the _Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_ and in the _Woman's Home Companion_ attest her ability in a difficult field.

A promising young claimant for literary honors is (Lotta) Allen Meachem, of New York, born in Washington County, Iowa. Following several good stories in the magazines, comes her "Belle Jones--A Story of Fulfilment," published by Dutton.

Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd, born in Iowa City, now a resident of New York, was in early life a teacher, but since 1898 has been on the staff of the _New York Sun_. Her "Misdemeanors of Nancy," in 1892, was the beginning of a successful career in authorship. Her "Nancy," "Bettina"

and "Belinda" are better known to many than are their own next door neighbors.

Men who have not learned to deny the eternal boy in their nature find as much enjoyment as boys themselves in reading "Widow O'Callahan's Boys," and everybody enjoys "Maggie McLanehan," both creations of Gulielma Zollinger, of Newton, Iowa. Three other books, not so well known, are added to the list of Miss Zollinger's achievements in literature.

Mrs. Elizabeth (Eslick) Cooper, born in Homer, Iowa, has spent most of her adult life in the Orient and is an authority on the status of women in Oriental lands. She is the author of "Sayonara," a play produced by Maxine Elliot, of many magazine articles, and of a half dozen books, all published since 1910. Her books are vivid pictures of life in China, Egypt, Turkey and j.a.pan.

Among the most prominent magazine writers and journalists of the period is Judson Welliver. He several years ago graduated from Iowa journalism to the larger field, the national capital, and has latterly become one of the regular contributors to _Munsey's_, and a frequent contributor to other periodicals.

Another prominent magazine writer is Joe Mitch.e.l.l Chapple, early in life editor of a La Porte, Iowa, weekly. Mr. Chapple is the founder, publisher and editor of the _National Magazine_, Boston, and the author of "Boss Bart," a novel, and editor of a popular collection of verse.

One of the youngest magazine writers forging to the front is Horace M.

Towner, Jr., of Corning, Iowa, son of Congressman Towner. A long list might be made of his recent contributions to the leading magazines.

A group of new writers, some of them Iowans, have happily been given a medium for reaching the public through the new _Midland_, of Iowa City. Mr. Frederick, the editor, has in the main evinced excellent judgment in the selection of stories, sketches and verse, and has won commendation from our severest Eastern critics. The new _Midland_ has, doubtless, started not a few middle-western authors on their way to the front in the field of literature.

The World War has already added the names of several Iowans to the literature of the great struggle. The best known is James Norman Hall, of Colfax, Iowa, whose "Kitchener's Mob" and articles in the _Atlantic_ have added greatly to popular knowledge of conditions at the front. Already twice wounded, the first time in the trenches; the latest--may it be the last!--in the air, this brave young American can well say with Virgil, "all of which I saw and part of which I was." After his discharge from the English army, Mr. Hall went abroad commissioned to do literary work for Houghton, Mifflin & Company; but his zeal for the cause of the Allies, combined possibly with a young man's love of adventure, led him to re-enter the service, this time in the Aviation Corps. He is now (in September, 1917) slowly recovering from a shot which penetrated his left lung.

The Gleasons, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Gleason, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and of New York City, have both won honors in the Red Cross work in Belgium and incidentally have made valuable contributions to the "human interest" story of the World War. Mrs. Helen Hayes Gleason was the first American woman knighted by King Albert for meritorious service at the front. Mr. Gleason in his "Young Hilda at the Wars"

begins his charming story of Hilda with this tribute to the state in which his wife first saw the light:

"She was an American girl from the very prosperous State of Iowa, which if not as yet the mother of presidents, is at least the parent of many exuberant and useful persons. Will power is grown out yonder as one of the crops."

"Golden Lads," by Mr. and Mrs. Gleason, is a vivid recital of experiences with the Hector Munro Ambulance Corps at the front in Belgium.

Though the evaluations in this review are confined chiefly to _belles lettres_, it would not be fair to the reader to omit the state's large indebtedness to Dr. B. F. Shambaugh and his scholarly a.s.sociates of the State Historical Society, of Iowa City, for their many valuable contributions to the general, social and economic history of Iowa; to Dr. Jesse Macy, of Grinnell, for his valuable studies in the science of government; to the late Samuel Calvin, also to Dr. Thomas H.

McBride, of the State University, Dr. Louis H. Pammel, of the State College, and Dr. Charles Keyes, of Des Moines, for their contributions to science; to Dr. Charles H. Weller, of the State University, for his "Athens and Its Monuments," and other works throwing light upon an ancient civilization; to George E. Roberts, of New York, a native Iowan, for his clear elucidation of national and world problems; to the late Judges Kinne, Deemer and MacLean, and other jurists for standard works on jurisprudence; to Carl Snyder, Woods Hutchinson and a host of other Iowans who are contributing to the current literature of our time.

This review, incomplete at best, would be unfair to the president of the Iowa Press and Authors Club were it to conclude without mention of the inspiration of her leadership. Mrs. Alice Wilson Weitz began life as a journalist at the Iowa State Capital. In the course of her busy and successful later career as wife, mother and public-spirited citizen, she has somehow found time to write on literary and timely themes. Her latest contribution to the state of her birth is a scenario ent.i.tled "The Wild Rose of Iowa" which was to have been produced on the screen in all the cities of the state; but, unfortunately, the film, prepared with great labor and expense, and with the aid of some of the best dramatic talent in Iowa, was destroyed or lost on the way from Chicago to Des Moines. It is to be hoped that this may soon be reproduced, for Mrs. Weitz' scenario admirably presented in symbol the whole story of Iowa's wonderful development from savagery to twentieth-century civilization.

A list of Iowa State University publications--a pamphlet of forty-one pages--includes hundreds of monographs, dissertations, etc., covering a wide range of original research.

It must have become evident from this incomplete review that Iowa is literarily, to say the least, no longer inarticulate. It is equally apparent, to those who really know their Iowa, that, far from being a dead level of uninteresting prosperity, our state is rich in suggestive literary material, ready and waiting for the authors of the future. Topographically, Iowa abounds in surprises. In the midst of her empire of rich rolling prairie are lakes and rivers, rugged cliffs and wooded hills, villages and cities set upon hills overlooking beautiful valleys through which streams wind their way seaward, her east and west borders defended by castellated rocks overlooking our two great rivers. Ethnologically, within these borders are communities of blanket Indians still living in wigwams, surrounded by communities in which are practiced all the arts of an advanced civilization.

Sociologically, side by side with her native-born and native-bred citizens, are communities of Christian Socialists, also remnants of a French experiment in Communism, Quakers, Mennonites, anti-polygamous Mormons, and whole regions in which emigrants from Holland, Germany and Scandinavia are slowly and surely acquiring American habits of thought and life. Historically speaking, we have the early and late pioneer period with its rapid adjustment to new conditions, with its multiform perils developing latent heroism, its opportunities for character-building and for public service. Later the heroic period, during which a peace-loving people quit the plow, the workshop, the country store, the office and even the pulpit, to rally to the defence of the Union. Then, the reconstruction and the new-construction period, in which Iowa prospered under the leadership of _men_--men who knew their duties as well as their rights, men who recognized, and insisted upon recognition of, that "sovereign law, the state's collected will." And now, an epoch of reviving patriotism coupled with a world-embracing pa.s.sion for democracy, in which the youths and young men of the state are consecrating their strength, their talents and their lives to a great cause.