TALES OUT OF SCHOOL
February 2004
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE--A KANSAS TREASURE
In 1996 a panel of 15 state experts placed William Allen
White first on a list of the most influential Kansans. High praise
indeed in a state that has produced such notables as Dwight Eisenhower, Robert
Dole, Alf Landon, Amelia Earhart, Carry Nation, and William Inge. But
the designation does indeed reflect the importance of William Allen White
to the world of journalism during his long career. As editor of the
Emporia Gazette he not only brought the news of the world to the people
of Emporia, but he also showed the people of the world how world events affect
lives in a small Great Plains town.
In 1895 WAW borrowed $3000 to purchase the Emporia Gazette,
a struggling newspaper in the city of his birth. Emporia would never
be the same. In the 1880s and 1890s farmers and laborers, frustrated
by their financial conditions, flocked to the Populist Party. One day
in August 1896 a group of angry Populists confronted WAW as he walked to
work. So angered was he by this confrontation that he went right to
his office and wrote his next editorial, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?”
In the editorial he took the Populist Party to task. The national media
reprinted the editorial and it gave the Republicans a theme for the 1896
presidential campaign.
Walter Johnson, in an article in the Kansas Historical Quarterly
in February 1947, told the story of two young Emporia runaway boys who were
found by Kansas City police in 1913. When asked why they had left Emporia,
one of them replied, “Well, there’s nothing there but William Allen White,
and we got tired of hearing of him.” But from the time of his “What’s
the Matter with Kansas?” editorial William Allen White was well-known to
the world outside of Emporia both as an astute political observer and as
a gifted writer.
His philosophy as a newspaper editor encompassed three
principal themes–getting reliable news to the people quickly, fairly representing
all sides in a controversy, and expressing a definite point of view on the
editorial page. White once wrote in Harper’s Magazine (May 1916),
“The country newspaper is the incarnation of the town spirit...The newspaper
is in a measure the will of the town, and the town’s character is displayed
with sad realism in the town’s newspapers. A newspaper is as honest
as its town, is as intelligent as its town, as kind as its town, as brave
as its town.” Although many of his editorials were directed at national
leaders and/or issues, many more were written about items with a local flavor.
Such editorials varied from a touching editorial about the death of a young
girl in Emporia, to an editorial in praise of the Welsh community in Emporia,
to one telling how the women of Emporia should cook baked beans, to suggesting
that “joints” selling bootleg liquor should be closed. Readers never
knew what the topic might be when they opened their daily paper. Under
White’s guidance the Emporia Gazette became a training ground for such future
editors as Roy Bailey (Salina Journal); Rolla Clymer (El Dorado Times); Oscar
Stauffer (Topeka State Journal); John Redmond (Burlington Republican).
Charles M. Vernon became manager of the Los Angeles office of the Associated
Press and Burge McFall became an Associated Press correspondent during World
War I.
White ran for public office only once, in 1924.
At a time when the influence of the Ku Klux Klan was growing and membership
in the Klan was increasing, the major party candidates for Kansas governor
refused to speak out against the Klan. White believed that Klan beliefs
were contrary to the principles of this country and that their tactics were
cowardly, and so he ran for governor as an independent. He used his
editorial writing skills to attack the Klan. Although he finished third
in the race, the Klan disappeared from Kansas and he believed that his campaign
had accomplished its goal.
Without a doubt, White wrote his most poignant editorial
in 1921 after the death of his sixteen-year-old daughter Mary. This
touching eulogy has become a classic and for many years was included in reading
anthologies used by schools.
In 1901 White and his wife Sallie bought “Red Rocks,”
a two-and-a-half story house that features red sandstone brought to Emporia
from Garden of the Gods in Colorado. It is the exterior that gives
the house its nickname. The house was originally built in 1885 by cattleman
and lawyer, Almerin Gillette. When the market crashed, Gillette could
not afford to finish construction and so he and his wife lived in the uncompleted
home for fourteen years. There are rumors that the financial difficulties
caused depression and she eventually committed suicide in the home.
Though the cause of death was never determined, there are stories that her
spirit roams the house. The Whites began renting the house in 1899
and bought it in 1901. The Whites completed construction of the house.
One of the changes they made in the original design was in the living room
area, originally designed as four small rooms. Because the Whites enjoyed
entertaining, they took out walls and opened up the space to accommodate
large gatherings. Frank Lloyd Wright redesigned the original plan into
a modern, oblong shape. However, White thought that the design would
not be well-accepted in Emporia. White did incorporate Wright’s design
for the main staircase into the renovation.
The Whites opened their home to locals and notables.
Legend has it that six presidents visited the home. Theodore Roosevelt
certainly did and Herbert Hoover probably did. The four-post bed they
slept in is now in the west room on the second-floor. Other notables
who visited the Whites included novelist Edna Ferber and journalist Ida Tarbell.
Edna Ferber once wrote: “there is no ocean trip, no month in the country,
no known drug equal to the reviving quality of twenty-four hours spent on
the front porch or in the sitting room of the Whites’ house in Emporia...”
William Allen White lived in Red Rocks for forty-five
years. After his death, his son William Lindsay White kept the house
and lived there part of each year. When WLW’s wife Katherine died in
1988, their daughter Barbara White Walker inherited the house. In 2001
the Walkers donated the house to the Kansas State Historical Society.
With funds appropriated from the federal government, work is now underway
on renovations and cataloging at Red Rocks. The house will be opened
for public tours when the renovations have been completed. The site
is a rare addition to Kansas state historic sites. Not only is it important
historically, but it also contains furnishings, artwork, etc. that were used
by the White family. It looks almost as it did when William Allen White
died in 1944.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt eulogized White: “As
a writer of terse, forcible, vigorous prose, he was unsurpassed. He
ennobled the profession of journalism.”
Terms for further study:
Ku Klux Klan Populism
People’s Party Editorial
Pulitzer Prize Mary Elizabeth Lease
Bull Moose party
Other Resources:
The Story of William Allen White produced by Sagebrush Video http://www.sagebrushvideo.com/waw.html
White’s Printing Press http://www.kshs.org/cool2/coolwhit.htm
“What’s the Matter With Kansas?” editorial http://www.ku.edu/~jschool/waw/writings/waw/newspaper/editorials/editorals.html
“Mary White” editorial http://www.ku.edu/~jschool/waw/writings/waw/newspaper/editorials/editorals.html
“To An Anxious Friend” editorial http://www.ku.edu/~jschool/waw/writings/waw/newspaper/editorials/editorals.html
Quotations http://www.creativequotations.com/one/2621.htm
Postcards from Lyon County http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ks/lyon/postcards/ppcs-lyon.html
“Red Rocks” http://www.ku.edu/~jschool/waw/memorials/house/house.html
Books by William Allen White
Fiction:
1896- The Real Issue: A Book of Kansas Stories
1899- The Court of Boyville
1901- Stratagems and Spoils: Stories of Love and Politics
1906- In Our Town
1909- A Certain Rich Man
1916- God’s Puppets
1918- The Martial Adventures of Henry & Me
1918- In the Heart of a Fool
Political and Social Commentary:
1910- The Old Order Changeth: A View of American Democracy
1924- Politics: The Citizen’s Business
1925- Some Cycles of Cathay
1926- Boys–Then and Now
1936- What It’s All About: Being a Reporter’s Story of the Early Campaign of 1936
1939- The Changing West: An Economic Theory About Our Golden Age
Biography:
1924- Woodrow Wilson, The Man His Times, and His Tasks
1925- Calvin Coolidge, The Man Who is President
1928- Masks in a Pageant
1938- A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge
1946- The Autobiography of William Allen White
Verse:
1893- Rhymes by Two Friends (with Albert Bigelow Paine)
Biographies of William Allen White:
Agran, Edward Gale– Too Good a Town: William Allen White, Community, and the Emerging Rhetoric of Middle America
Clough, Frank C.– William Allen White of Emporia
Griffith, Sally Foreman– Home Town News: William Allen White and the Emporia Gazette
Jernigan, E. Jay– William Allen White
McKee, John DeWitt– William Allen White: Maverick on Main Street
Quantic, Diane D.– William Allen White