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Show PIUTE COUNTY NEWS. JUNCTION. UTAH Shaft of a Mexican Mine. (Prepared by the National Oeoirraphlo ciety. Vnshlnstim. 1. O.) THE Is the "Good Gray Poet Coming Mo Pis Own? By JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN WALT WHITMAN, the good gray poet, coming into his own at last? New York city, anyway, seems to be scrambling hard to overtake his fame. The Authors' club has 'decided upon a 0 ten-fobronze stat ue and Jo Davidson has been commissioned to make it. Anyone who feels so inclined can contribute to the cost. Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries! wrote Whitman in one of his poems. Libraries have been known to do that. And now comes forward the New York Public library with an exhibition of Whitmanla in aid of the statue project it is the first time any library has honored the poet with a special exhibition. The Whitmanla consists of books, editions of all sorts, translations into foreign languages, newspapers and magazines to which he contributed, manuscripts, paintings, busts, caricatures, books about him and a great variety of other material illustrative of the life and work of New Yorks greatest poet." The exhibition has been assembled and arranged by Alfred Goldsmith, the Whitman biographer. The editions on view are thus summarized: "Here is shown Franklin Evans, Whitmans first volume, a puerile temperance melodrama. Seven copies of the famous First Edition of Leaves of Grass. The Second Edition with the I greet you at the beginning of a great career, from Emerson spread upon the backstrip is fully displayed, as are the various quaint bindings of the Third Edition. Accompanying Passage to India, is the original manuscript. This poem was, as he said, that which expressed his deepest self. The Osgood Edition of 1881-2- , which caused such a furor because of threatened legal prosecution, is shown, as well as the Rees, Welsh Edition, which paid the author the largest royalty checks of his career. A rarely seen volume is Memoranda During the War, of which less than one hundred copies were printed. The edition which Whitman himself thought his most handsome one was the autographed Tocket-boo- k Edition of 1889. But ten years after his death in 1892 his collected works were published de luxe by Putnam in ten highly illustrated volumes. The Deathbed Edition was hastily bound for Whitman just before his death in order that he might make a farewell present yto his friends. The display of editions closes with the latest, Issued a year ago, the Inclusive Edition." t The committee on sculpture includes Prof. George S. Heilman, chairman, and Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, Aymar Embury, Otto H. Kahn, Charles De Kay, Guy Egleston and Prof. Emory Holloway, chairman of the Walt Whitman Memorial committee. Professor Heilman has this to say about the selection of Mr. Davidsons model for the memorial: No formal competition was held, but designs were submitted by six sculptors, who requested that their At the recent works be considered. of the sculpture committee meeting S $60,-00- ot well-know- n blind-toole- d Davidsons design was declared the most fitting and arrangements were begun with him looking to the completion of the work. Mr. Davidson took as his theme Whitmans Song of the Open Road the long, brown path before me leading wherever I choose. His idea is to have the statue raised slightly above its surroundings on a sort of hillock, suggesting an open road. On the ground in front of the statue he visualizes a big stone slab upon which would be set in bronze the first stanza of The Song of the Open Road. When completed the statue will be in bronze and of heroic size, probably ten feet or more in height. Here are lines from The Song of the Open Road, which show that Mr. Davidsons idea for a statue is a happy one: d I take to the Afoot and open road. Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. Mr. light-hearte- Henceforth I ask not good fortune, I myself am Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road. From this hour, I ordain myself loosed of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating. Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. I inhale great, great draughts of space, The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine. good-fortun- e, Camerado, I give you my hand! I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law: Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live? Foreigners insist that It was Walt Whitman who put us on the literary map and keeps us there. However that may be, John Burroughs probably expressed the American viewpoint of a generation ago pretty closely when he wrote this: report that So- the worlds gold mine" has been recently in Mexico, even If literally true, would add only a chapter to Mexicos volume of minUnder Spanish dominaing history. tion the country poured out n seemingly inexhaustible stream of wealth, and save during acute political disturbances, the flow has continued since. Cecil Rhodes, who knew something of the mineral wealth of the world, prophesied of Mexico that from her hidden vaults, her subterranean treasure houses, will come the gold, silver, copper, and precious stones that will build the empires of tomorrow and make future cities of this world veritable new Jerusalems." Guanajuato has been the great treasure chest of Mexico. Its huge supply of silver was first tapped 68 years before the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, and by 1557 the wonderful mother lode, the Veta Madre, had been found. of Walt Whitmans verse, both in reIlaron von Humboldt, spect to its subject matter and his writing at the beginning of the Eightmode of treatment of it, that so astonished, when it did not repel his read- eenth century, asserted that Guanaof the total ers. He boldly stripped away every- juato had yielded thing conventional and artificial from amount of sliver then current In the man clothes, custom, institutions, world. etc. and treated him as he is, priThe actual mint and government marily, in and of himself and in his relation to the universe; and with records show a production of gold and equal boldness he stripped away what silver from the Veta Madre in exwere to him the artificial adjuncts of poetry rhyme, measure and all the cess of one billion dollars. But we stock language and forms of the are traveling too fast; let us halt schools and planted himself upon a to get our bearings and locate this spontaneous rhythm of language and Eldorado on the map, then rest the inherently poetic in the common awhile and enjoy that which It has to and universal. offer. was born Walt Whitman (1819-189The state of Guanajuato Is iri the on Long Island and was educated in of the Republic of the public schools of New York and Mexico. The part estimated population is Brooklyn. On his fathers side he was 1,100,000. is most the It important English and on his mothers side Hol- mercantile center in the country, the land Dutch. Ills maternal grandmoth- total trade valued at $67,000,000 being er was a Quakeress. He learned printper annum. The leading industries ing and carpentering and also taught are mining, agriculture, and cattle school. He began his writing in 1841 raising. with conventional stories. Next he The city of Guanajuato, capital of was editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. the state, is picturesquely situated, After a leisurely tour of Middle West in a small basin, surrounded nestling he and Southern states joined the staff on all sides by the Sierra de Guanaof the New Orleans Crescent. A little de Marfll affords a Canada The juato. later he established in Brooklyn the to the the cordon pass city through short-liveorgan of the Freeman, a hills from the fertile valley lands From 1851 to 1854 he of of Silac, a station on the line of the was busied with building and selling Mexican Central railroad, 14 miles to houses. And in 1855 appeared "Leaves The railroad grade from west the most of of Grass, for which he set Silao rises rapidly following the the the type himself. Leading citizens, tortuous course of the Rio de Guanapreachers, lecturers and the general juato to an elevation of 7,000 feet, public combined In denouncing him as where, in the Cordilleran poised high abandoned a revolutionary, voluptuplateau. Is this historic city of 40,000 ary, unredeemed pagan, people because of the revolt and literary charlatan and so on. As brigandage of recent years a wasted aulate at 1881 the Massachusetts shadow of its former greatness. on sale the to its thorities objected Scenes in Guanajuato. ground that It was immoral. In the soft sunshine of summer From 1892 to 18G5 Whitman was a the first vista of the city is strikvolunteer war nurse in the army hos- days indeed. Churches of magnificent ing, pitals of Washington; it Is said that proportions; ancient and modern he visited and administered to 100,000 architecture strangely blended In the sick and wounded, Union and Confedsame edifice; stately buildings; imerate. Out of these experiences came stores of all descripDrum Taps (1865) and other vol- posing markets; and dwelling places, rudely umes. His labors as a nurse brought tions; bare, variously colored with neutral from which he illness serious on a tints of calsomlne, their grated winnever recovered. In 1865 he was given dows and open doors exhibiting to a clerkship in the Interior department, all the sparsely furnished Interior, but was discharged by the secretary, where bird, beast, and human eat and who objected to the "Adamic" pas- live The sordid squalor of together. He was sages in Leaves of Grass. contrasts the many strikingly with given a new place under the attorney the oppressive opulence of the few. general and held it until a stroke of The cobblestone streets are crooked paralysis in 1873 compelled hi3 re- and narrow; so narrow, in fact, that tirement. He went to Camden, N. J., Caballeros must take to the sidewalk where he lived till his death, March to permit of the passing of any kind 26, 1892. of vehicle. The dingy tram-car- s are Walt Whitman, anticipating abusive drawn by relays of mules, three criticism, said he was willing to wait abreast, beaten into subjection by to be understood by the growth of the the stinging lash or coaxed into actaste of himself. Is the long wait tion by the curses of the youthful one-fift- h south-centr- d Free-Soiler- s. Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude, hankering like the great elk in the forest at springtime: gross as unhoused nature is gross; mystical as Boehme or Swedenborg; and so far as the concealments and disguises of the conventional man, and the usual adornments of polite verse, are concerned, as nude as Adam in indeed. It was the nudity over? paradise, free-thinke- r, drivers, whose vernacular is wonderfully expressive and effective. Guanajuato is a city rich in historic record, in its mines, in its natural beauty, and In Its architecture. To describe, even briefly, the many things of Interest would occupy more space than could he given to this article; but mention must be made of a few. El Teatro Juarez faces the plaza in the center of the city. It Is an Imposing pile, perhaps out of keeping with its surroundings ; but Guanu-juat- o is a city wherein the picturesque and strictly practical are irreconcilably mixed together. The design Is modern and highly decorative, built of the local green tuff and sandstone. The superb portico with Its bronze eight figures, Is borne on 12 Ionic pillars; the imposing steps with stately flambeau, the wrought-lro- n grille work, the spacious foyer, the richly decorated Interior by Ilerrara are truly magnificent. Cradle of Liberty. The Alhondiga de Granadltas (prison) is as constantly full us the theater is empty. It Is one of the most historic buildings of the republic, and will always be remembered as the place the first blow was struck for the liberation of Mexico from Spanish rule. At each corner is a large hook from which, In the days of the struggle for Independence, were bung four Iron cages containing the heads of the great liberators the patriot priest, Hidalgo, his military chief, Allende, and his comrades, 'Alduma and Jimenez. Here they hung for years until removed by a worshiping nation to the altar of kings in the cathedral in the city of Mexico. After the Grlto de Dolores and the first ringing of the bell of Independence, Hidalgo and his followers moved on to Guanajuato, stormed the improvised fortress of Alhondiga, and killed all the Spanish troops that had taken refuge there. This was the beginning of the eleven years war of independence. On the summit of the Cerro del Trozada, to the west of the city, is the Pantheon. The four high walls surrounding the cemetery consist of vaults, tier upon tier, In which the remains of the dead are placed pro tem, or in perpetuity, according to the ability of the surviving relatives to pay the rent. For a small fee the attendant will admit the visitor to the "chamber of horrors. A winding stair leads to the crypt, where ghastly, mummified remains are placed in a ghostly row. The mining history of Guanajuato vies with that of the Nevada camps of our days, only that Instead of the mushroom unsubstantial growth, typifying the American mining booms, permanent and lasting monuments were raised, and remain as mute though eloquent testimony of former In the year industry and wealth. 1600 there were 4,000 men at work along the mother lode. A few years later the Sierra vein system was found. The deepest shaft on the mother lode, until very recent years, was the Tiro General at the Valenciana mine. It was sunk by Obregon at a cost of 1,000,000 pesos, but the bonanza it uncovered yielded over three hundred times its cost It is 1,807 feet deep, 32 feet in diameter, octagonal in section, and lined with solid In masonry for the first 100 feet striking contrast to our modern shafts, not a stick of timber was used to support the walls. Hoisting was accomplished by mule power. |