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The south line of Kansas is the modified line between free soil and slave territory as those divisions existed down to the abolition of slavery. For almost half a century it was the policy of the Government to send here the remnants of the Indian tribes pushed west by our occupation of their country. The purpose in this was to make the Western prairies the Indian country of America and thus prevent its settlement until the slave-power was ready to utilize it for its peculiar institution. Many things occurred which had not been counted on, and the country was forced open before the South was ready to undertake its settlement. While the crisis was premature, the slave-power entered upon the contest with confidence. It had never lost a battle in its conflict with the free-soil portion of the Union, and it expected to win in Kansas. The struggle was between the two antagonistic predominant ideas developed in our westward expansion, and ended in a war which involved the entire nation and threatened the existence of the Union. Politically, Kansas was the rock about which the troubled waters surged for ten years. The Republican party grew largely out of the conditions and influence of Kansas. When hostilities began the Kansans enlisted in the armies of the Union in greater proportion to total population than did the people of any other State. Here the war was extremely bitter, and in some instances it became an effort for extermination. Kansas towns were sacked, and non-combatants were ruthlessly butchered. The border embraced at that time all the settled portion of the State, and it would be difficult indeed to make the people of this day comprehend what occurred here.

Kansas was founded in and by a bloody struggle, which, within her bounds, continued for ten years. No other State ever fought so well.

Kansas was for freedom. She won, and the glory of it is that the victory gave liberty to America. That is why we maintain that Kansas history stands alone in interest and importance in American annals.

The history of a State is a faithful account of the events of its formation and development. If the account is set out in sufficient detail there will be preserved the fine delineations of the emotions which moved the people. These emotions arise out of the experiences of the people. And the pioneers fix the lines of their experiences. They lay the pattern and mark out the way the State is to go, and this way can never be altered, and can, moreover, be but slightly modified for all time. These emotions produce ideals which become universal and the common aim of the State, and they wield a wonderful influence on its progress, growth, and achievement. A people devoid of ideals can scarcely be found, but ideals differ just as the experiences which produced the emotions from which they result differed. If there be no particular principle to be striven for in the founding of a State, then no ideals will appear, and such as exist among the people will be found to have come over the lines from other and older States. Or, if by chance any be developed they will be commonplace and ordinary, and will leave the people in lethargy and purposeless so far as the originality of the thought of the State is concerned. The ideals developed by a fierce struggle for great principles are lofty, sublime in their conception and intent. The higher the ideals, the greater the progress; the more eminent the achievement, the more marked the individuality, the stronger the characteristics of the people.

CHARLES T. DAZEY

Charles Turner Dazey, author of _In Old Kentucky_, was born at Lima, Illinois, August 13, 1855, the son and grandson of Kentuckians. When a lad the future dramatist was brought to Kentucky for a visit at the home of his grandparents in Bourbon county, whom he was to visit again before returning to Kentucky, in 1872, to enter the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky University, where he studied for a year. In the fall of 1873 young Dazey matriculated in the Arts College of the University. Ill-health caused him to miss the following year, but he returned in 1875 and remained a student in the University until the summer of 1877. He was a member of the old Periclean Society, the society of James Lane Allen and John Fox, Jr., while at the University. When he left Lexington he lacked two years of graduation.

Mr. Dazey later went to Harvard University, where he was one of the editors of the _Harvard Advocate_, and the poet of his class of 1881.

While a Senior at Cambridge he had begun dramatic composition, and after leaving the University he became a full-fledged playwright. His plays include: _An American King_; _That Girl from Texas_--first called _A Little Maverick_--with Maggie Mitchell in the title-role; _The War of Wealth_; _The Suburban_; _Home Folks_; _The Stranger_, in which Wilton Lackaye played for two seasons; _The Old Flute-Player_; and _Love Finds a Way_. In collaboration with Oscar Weil Mr. Dazey wrote _In Mexico_, a comic opera, produced by The Bostonians; and with George Broadhurst he wrote two plays: _An American Lord_, with William H. Crane as the star; and _The Captain_, played by N. C. Goodwin.

The play by Mr. Dazey in which we are especially interested here, is, of course, _In Old Kentucky_, a drama in four acts, first written to order for Katie Putnam, a soubrette star, who was very popular a quarter of a century ago. She, however, did not consider the play suited to her, and it was then offered to several managers without success, until it was finally accepted by Jacob Litt. When first produced by Mr. Litt at St. Paul on August 4, 1892, it had a most distinguished cast: Julia Arthur, the beautiful, appeared as _Barbara Holton_; Louis James as _Col. Doolittle_; Frank Losee as _Joe Lorey_; and Marion Elmore made a most alluring _Madge Brierly_. This was only a trial production, and the play went into the store-house for a year, when, in August, 1893, it began its first annual tour at the Bijou Theatre (now the Lyceum), at Pittsburgh. In that first regular company Bettina Gerard played _Madge_; Burt Clark, _Col. Doolittle_; George Deyo, _Joe Lorey_; William McVey, _Horace Holton_; Harrison J. Wolfe, _Frank Layson_; Charles K. French, _Uncle Neb_; Edith Athelston, _Barbara_; and Lottie Winnett was _Aunt Alathea_. Mr. Litt and his associate, A. W. Dingwall, have always mounted _In Old Kentucky_ handsomely, and this has been an important element in its great success. For twenty years this drama of the bluegrass and the mountains has held the boards, more than seven million people have seen it, and even to-day it is being produced almost daily with no signs of loss in popular interest. It is the only play Mr. Dazey has written with a Kentucky background, and it would be "a hazard of new fortunes" for him to attempt to do so; he could hardly improve upon his masterpiece. In 1897 Mr. Litt had a small edition of _In Old Kentucky_ privately printed from the prompt-books; and in 1910 Mr.

Dazey collaborated with Edward Marshall in a novelization of the play, which was published as an attractive romance by the G. W. Dillingham Company, of New York. With Mr. Marshall he also novelized _The Old Flute-Player_ (New York, 1910). Mr. Dazey has recently dramatized _Fran_, John Breckinridge Ellis's popular novel; and at the present time he is engaged upon a new play, which he thinks, promises better than anything he has so far written. Mr. Dazey was in Kentucky several times between 1877 and 1898, the date of his most recent visit, at which time he found John Fox, Jr., giving one of his inevitable readings in Lexington, and James Lane Allen looking for the last time, mayhap, upon the scenes of his books. He spent several weeks with friends and relatives near Paris; and, like all good Kentuckians, he "hopes to revisit the dear old state in the near future." Mr. Dazey has an attractive home at Quincy, Illinois.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Who's Who in the Theatre_, by John Porter (Boston, 1912); letters from Mr. Dazey to the writer.

THE FAMOUS KNOT-HOLE[12]

[From _In Old Kentucky_ (1897)]

_Act III, Scene IV. The exterior of the race-track. Fence, tree, etc._

_Colonel._ (_Enter L._) I didn't go in. I kept my word, though it nearly finished me. (_Shouts heard._) They're bringing out the horses. (_Looks through knot-hole._) I can't see worth a cent.

It's not hole enough for me. To Hades with dignity! I'll inspect that tree. (_Goes to tree; puts arm around it._)

[_Enter_ Alathea, _R._]

_Alathea._ (_Pauses, R. C._) Everyone's at the races. I'm perfectly safe. There is that blessed knot-hole. (_Goes to hole; looks through._)

_Col._ (_Comes from behind tree; sees Alathea._) A woman, by all that's wonderful--a woman at my knot-hole. (_Approaches._) Madam!

(_Lays hand on her shoulder._)

_Alathea._ (_Indignantly._) Sir! (_Turns._) Col. Sundusky Doolittle!

_Col._ Miss Alathea Layson! (_Bus. bows._)

_Alathea._ Colonel, what are you all doing here?

_Col._ Madam, what are you all doing here?

_Alathea._ Colonel, I couldn't wait to hear the result.

_Col._ No more could I.

_Alathea._ But I didn't enter the race-track.

_Col._ I was equally firm.

_Alathea._ Neb. told me of the knot-hole.

_Col._ The rascal, he told me, too!

_Alathea._ Colonel, we must forgive each other. If you really must look, there is the knot-hole.

_Col._ No, Miss Lethe, I resign the knot-hole to you. I shall climb the tree.

_Alathea._ (_As Colonel climbs tree._) Be careful, Colonel, don't break your neck, but get where you can see.

_Col._ (_Up tree._) Ah, what a gallant sight! There's Catalpa, Evangeline--and there's Queen Bess! (_Shouts heard._)

_Alathea._ What's that? (_To tree._)

_Col._ A false start. They'll make it this time. (_Shouts heard._) They're off--off! Oh, what a splendid start!

_Alathea._ Who's ahead? Who's ahead? (_To tree._)

_Col._ Catalpa sets the pace, the others lying well back.

_Alathea._ Why doesn't Queen Bess come to the front? Oh, if I were only on that mare. (_Back to fence._)

_Col._ At the half, Evangeline takes the lead--Catalpa next--the rest bunched. Oh, great heavens!--(_Lethe to tree._)--there's a foul--a jam--and Queen Bess is left behind ten lengths! She hasn't the ghost of a show! Look! (_Lethe back to tree._) She's at it again. But she can't make it up. It's beyond anything mortal. And yet she's gaining--gaining!

_Alathea._ (_Bus._) Keep it up--keep it up!

_Col._ At the three quarters; she's only five lengths behind the leader, and gaining still!

_Alathea._ (_Bus._) Oh, push!--push!--I can't stand it! I've got to see! (_Climbs tree._)

_Col._ Coming up, Miss Lethe! All right, don't break your neck, but get where you can see. In the stretch. Her head's at Catalpa's crupper--now her saddle-bow, but she can't gain another inch! But look--look! she lifts her--and, Great Scott! she wins!

(_As he speaks, flats forming fence are drawn. Horses dash past, Queen Bess in the lead. Drop at back shows grand stand, with fence in front of same. Spectators back of fence._ Neb. _and_ Frank. _Band playing "Dixie."_ Holton _standing near, chagrined._ Col. _waves hat and_ Alathea _handkerchief, in tree. Spectators shout._)

(_For second curtain_, Madge _returns on Queen Bess_. Col. _and_ Alathea _down from tree and passing near. Other horses enter as curtain falls._)

[_Curtain_]

FOOTNOTE:

[12] Copyright, 1897, by Jacob Litt.

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