"A Trained Mind..."

"...is a mind that can listen to me for three minutes without yawning."  William Allen White

Known mostly for his name attached to an annual listing of books for children, White was more a fascinating man of politics, both domestic and international, causes, and, best of all, the editorial desk.  When I graduated high school in 1979, my uncle's sister, her name was Vera Clark, gifted me with to books from her library collection.  The Selected Letters of William Allen White  and The Autobiography of William Allen White. Both first editions, I was immensely thankful to her...I remember the exchange quite well. She gave me the books wrapped very simply in plain, brown paper saying, "I hope you enjoy these," she told me. There were clippings and Emporia Chamber of Commerce brochures honoring Emporia's golden boy, reprinted articles discussing his courtship letters and why writers should avoid slang (the back side of which advertising all you can eat chicken livers for $2.50 at the Holiday Inn on West 18th street), and a few hand-written notes of marginalia. 

I didn't read the books for three years.  I began college with an emphasis in pre-Med and believed I needed to focus on Math and Chemistry, my weaknesses.  It was only when I had changed my major to English that the books resurfaced on my own shelves.  It was when I read them that I realized how writing could influence a person's life.  White's opus of writing had had great influence from his friendship with Theodore Roosevelt; it was Roosevelt's policies when he ran for Presiden that, as White said, "gave color to my writings, and formed the policy of the Gazette." 

From that point on, White became very prolific, became the target of a D.A.R blacklist for his liberal progressive views (they believed him to be a communist though he detested the communist party), and even became the recipient of a Pulitzer.  When a Mr. Kloos wrote White commenting graciously on his editorial "What's The Matter With Kansas," White wrote the following response:

Dear Mr. Kloos: 
I thank you most kindly for your interest in my work.  I am sending you some material herewith.  You ask me to what I attribute my success.  The answer is I haven't had a success.  I have lived happily because I have been busy and never have been bored a minute or out of a job.  And for the same reason, I don't have any hobbies.  I touch life at many points: in business, in editing, in writing books, on the political side, on music, and a happy family.  You ask in what sports I am most interested.  I never saw a basketball game.  I haven't seen a baseball game for forty years.  I don't like football.  I am but a poor and fumbling pallbearer.  I don't know how to play bridge.  I don't know how to bowl.  But I am the rocking chair champion of the Emporia Country Club.  And that's all...

That letter was dated April 16, 1940, and later that year, White had become frustrated with how complacent the American public had become regarding the war in Europe.  In that same month Germany invaded both Norway and Denmark and people were finally beginning to sense Hitler's real plan to conquer what White considered was "aimed at the heart of the human spirit."

Perhaps it's time to go back and reread my two White books, gifts from a very progressive thinking Aunt Vera, a teacher herself who began in a one-room school house and ended in the Teacher's Hall of Fame.

"Make your words dance..."