National Affairs: Nebraska’s 75th

Doing the thing in a big way, Nebraskans sent to President Hoover an airmail letter 3 ft. x 2 ft. inviting him to Nebraska’s Diamond Jubilee celebration. The President sent regrets, but tens of thousands of other citizens from nearly every State, from Canada, from Alaska, last week journeyed to Omaha to attend Nebraska’s three-day 75th birthday party.

On the first day the celebrating Nebraskans paraded. Governor Arthur J. Weaver led off. Behind him came a history: Francisco Vasquez Coronado. who in 1541, looking for El Dorado, discovered Nebraska; Indians, led by Crow Chief Max Big Man; prairie schooners; oxcarts; stage coaches; a Mormon handcart which had been trundled across Nebraska by foot-sore Mormons So years before. In a stage coach rode the original “Deadwood Dick” Clark, now 83, proudly wearing his many-notched horse pistol, and the original “Poker Alice” Tubbs, now 76. smoking her big black cigar. Eleven appropriately furnished floats represented “The Parade of Nations.” On a twelfth float was a large kettle decked with flags—”The Melting Pot.” Beside the pot, as the Goddess of Liberty stood Miss Jean Redick, who also did service during the celebration as Queen of Ak-Sar-Ben and a Comanche maiden.

Numerous other diversions were provided. Oldtime fiddlers had a contest, rasped out “Money Musk,” “Soldier’s Joy,” “Leather Breeches.” At the live stock and horse show blue ribbons went to Best Steer Lothian Count IV, to Best Mare Margot. Samuel McKelvie Sr.. father of the Federal Farm Board’s Samuel Roy McKelvie, won prizes on his Poland China hogs. Flyers from four States competed in an air derby. Governor Weaver, presented with a Diamond Jubilee plaque, said: “Nebraska has no mines of gold or silver or precious stones, but … a soil that will last forever . . . salubrious climate . . . wonderful water.”

Climax of the celebration was the pageant “The Making of Nebraska” at Ak-Sar-Ben field with 1.300 performers. It began at the geological beginning. Several men carrying torches represented volcanoes and lava. Groups of maidens took the parts of stars, seas, land, flowers. Girls in white garments were the Glacier. Girls in bulky costumes typified Solid Land. In Act II a band of Sioux chased a band of Pawnees, then performed a Sun Dance. Next came Spanish conquistadors, French Jesuits, Scouts Lewis and Clark, frontiersmen, Stephen A. Douglas. To end the pageant all joined in singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and saluting the flag.

The U. S. obtained Nebraska as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Scouts Lewis, Clark, Pike, Fremont explored it. By early pioneers it was called a “great desert entirely unfit for agriculture.” Across it were laid the Oregon trail, the Mormon trail to Utah, the “Pony Express” route, the Union Pacific Railroad. The Diamond Jubilee celebrated not Nebraska’s 75th year as a State, but its 75th as a political unit. In 1854, by the “Kansas-Nebraska Bill” it became a territory, was permitted to decide its slavery status by “squatter sovereignty” (vote of the settlers). It sent troops to the Union Army during the Civil War, in 1867 became a State.

Agriculturally prolific, Nebraska today ranks third in corn production, second in winter wheat. It is developing a lusty sugar beet industry, is a leader in the nurture of cattle and hogs. Famed it is too for its unique and sightly “skyscraper” Capitol building at Lincoln, designed by the late, great Bertram Grosvernor Goodhue.

Famed Nebraskans past, present and sometime: the Bryan Brothers (William Jennings, Charles Wayland), U. S. Senator George William Norris, Union Pacific R. R. President Carl Raymond Gray, U. S. Comptroller General John Raymond McCarl, Author Bess Streeter Aldrich (American Magazine, Ladies Home Journal), General John Joseph Pershing (LL.B. and onetime military instructor, University of Nebraska), Ambassador Charles Gates Dawes (lawyer in Lincoln, 1887-94). Sculptor-Painter-Author-Politician John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum (went through the public schools). Author Willa Sibert Gather (B.A., U. of Neb.), Baseball Pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, Cinemactor Harold Clayton Lloyd (born in Burchard, Neb.). The State has yet to nominate its two most famed sons for the Nebraska niches in National Statuary Hall at Washington.