Among the homely philosophers developed through Kansas journalism several are widely known, most celebrated among them all being Ed Howe of the Atchison "Globe," William Allen White of the Emporia "Gazette," and Walt Mason of the same paper.
Howe is sixty years of age. He was owner and editor of the "Globe" for more than thirty years, but four years ago, when his paper gave him a net income of sixty dollars per day, he turned it over to his son and retired to his country place, "Potato Hill," whence he issues occasional manifestos.
Some of Howe's characteristic paragraphs from the "Globe" have been collected and published in book form, under the title, "Country Town Sayings." Here are a few examples of his homely humor and philosophy:
So many things go wrong that we are tired of becoming indignant.
Watch the flies on cold mornings; that is the way you will feel and act when you are old.
There is nothing so well known as that we should not expect something for nothing, but we all do and call it hope.
When half the men become fond of doing a thing, the other half prohibit it by law.
Sometimes I think that I have nothing to be thankful for, but when I remember that I am not a woman I am content. Any one who is compelled to kiss a man and pretend to like it is entitled to sympathy.
Somehow every one hates to see an unusually pretty girl get married. It is like taking a bite out of a very fine-looking peach.
What people say behind your back is your standing in the community in which you live.
A really busy person never knows how much he weighs.
Walt Mason is another Kansas philosopher-humorist. Recently he published in "Collier's Weekly" an article describing life, particularly with regard to prohibition and its effects, in his "hum town," Emporia.
Emporia is probably as well known as any town of its size in the land. It has, as Mason puts it, "ten thousand people, including William Allen White." Including Walt Mason, then, it must have about eleven thousand. Mason's article told how Stubbs, on becoming Governor of Kansas, enforced the prohibition laws, and of the fine effect of actual prohibition in Emporia. "No town in the world," he declares, "wears a tighter lid. There is no drunkenness because there is nothing to drink stiffer than pink lemonade. You will see a unicorn as soon as you will see a drunken man in the streets of the town. Emporia has reared a generation of young men who don't know what alcohol tastes like, who have never seen the inside of a saloon. Many of them never saw the outside of one. They go forth into the world to seek their fortunes without the handicap of an acquired thirst. All Emporia's future generations of young men will be similarly clean, for the town knows that a tight lid is the greatest possible blessing and nobody will ever dare attempt to pry it loose."