The man in the street: Papers on American topics

by Meredith Nicholson

I lean to the idea that it is not well for us all to be tuned to one key. I like to think that the farm folk and country-town people of Georgia and Kansas, Oklahoma and Maine are thinking independently of each other about weighty matters, and that the solidarity of the nation is only the more strikingly demonstrated when, finding themselves stirred (sometimes tardily) by the national consciousness, they act sensibly and with unity and concord. But the interurban trolley and the low-priced motor have dealt a blow to the old smug complacency and indifference. There is less tobacco-juice on the chins of our rural fellow citizens; the native flavor, the raciness and the tang so highly prized by students of local color have in many sections ceased to be. We may yet be confronted by the necessity of preserving specimens of the provincial native in social and ethnological museums.

I should like to believe that the present with its bewildering changes is only a corridor leading, politically and spiritually, toward something more splendid than we have known. We can only hope that this is true, and meanwhile adjust ourselves to the idea that a good many things once prized are gone forever. I am not sure but that a town is better advertised by enlightened sanitary ordinances duly enforced than by the number of its citizens who are acquainted with the writings of Walter Pater. A little while ago I should have looked upon such a thought as blasphemy.

The other evening, in a small college town, I passed under the windows of a hall where a fraternity dance was in progress. I dare say the young gentlemen of the society knew no more of the Greek alphabet than the three letters inscribed over the door of their clubhouse. But this does not trouble me as in “the olden golden glory of the days gone by.” We do not know but that in some far day a prowling New Zealander, turning up a banjo and a trap-drum amid the ruins of some American college, will account them nobler instruments than the lyre and lute.

Evolution brought us down chattering from the trees, and we have no right to assume that we are reverting to the arboreal state. This is no time to lose confidence in democracy; it is too soon to chant the recessional of the race. Much too insistently we have sought to reform, to improve, to plant the seeds of culture, to create moral perfection by act of Congress. If Main Street knows what America is all about, and bathes itself and is kind and considerate of its neighbors, why not leave the rest on the knees of the gods?

What really matters as to Main Street is that it shall be happy. We can’t, merely by taking thought, lift its people to higher levels of aspiration. Main Street is neither blind nor deaf; it knows well enough what is going on in the world; it is not to be jostled or pushed by condescending outsiders eager to bestow sweetness and light upon it. It is not unaware of the desirability of such things; and in its own fashion and at the proper time it will go after them. Meanwhile if it is cheerful and hopeful and continues to vote with reasonable sanity the rest of the world needn’t despair of it. After all, it’s only the remnant of Israel that can be saved. Let Main Street alone!

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

I

ON a day in July, 1916, thirty-five thousand people passed under the dome of the Indiana capitol to look for the last time upon the face of James Whitcomb Riley. The best-loved citizen of the Hoosier commonwealth was dead, and laborers and mechanics in their working clothes, professional and business men, women in great numbers, and a host of children paid their tribute of respect to one whose sole claim upon their interest lay in his power to voice their feelings of happiness and grief in terms within the common understanding. The very general expressions of sorrow and affection evoked by the announcement of the poet’s death encourage the belief that the lines that formed on the capitol steps might have been augmented endlessly by additions drawn from every part of America. I frankly confess that, having enjoyed his friendship through many years, I am disqualified from passing judgment upon his writings, into much of which I inevitably read a significance that may not be apparent to those capable of appraising them with critical detachment. But Riley’s personality was quite as interesting as his work, and I shall attempt to give some hint of the man as I knew him, with special reference to his whims and oddities.

My acquaintance with him dates from a memorable morning when he called on me in a law office where I copied legal documents, ran errands, and scribbled verses. At this time he was a regular contributor to the Sunday edition of the Indianapolis Journal—a newspaper of unusual literary quality, most hospitable to fledgling bards, who were permitted to shine in the reflected light of Riley’s growing fame. Some verses of mine having been copied by a Cincinnati paper, Riley asked about me at the Journal office and sought me out, paper in hand, to speak a word of encouragement. He was the most interesting, as he was the most amusing and the most lovable man I have known. No one was quite like Riley, and the ways in which he suggests other men merely call attention to the fact that he was, after all, wholly different: he was Riley!

He was the best-known figure in our capital; this was true, indeed, of the entire commonwealth that he sang into fame. He was below medium height, neatly and compactly built; fair and of ruddy complexion. He had been a tow-headed boy, and while his hair thinned in later years, any white that crept into it was scarcely perceptible. A broad flexible mouth and a big nose were the distinguishing features of a remarkably mobile face. He was very near-sighted, and the rubber-rimmed glasses he invariably wore served to obscure his noticeably large blue eyes. He was a compound of Pennsylvania Dutch and Irish, but the Celt in him was dominant: there were fairies in his blood.