As
Chicago Views Paris
Thanks
to Nancy Stone, President of the Monroe County
Historical Society, for sharing this clipping
from a 1931 edition of a Monroe County
newspaper.
“That
the fame of Paris, Missouri, and the Monroe
County Centennial celebration have penetrated
to even the most obscure hamlets of America is
evidenced by the fact that Monday's Chicago
Tribune had more to say editorially about
Paris than it did about Al Capone, prohibition
or Hoover prosperity.
Under
the heading, "Paris, Missouri," the
Tribune said: "Do you know Paris? Not
that Paris where they say 'Oui, Oui,' when you
propose a drink, nor Paris, Illinois, where
they say 'O. Hell' if you don't; but Paris,
Missouri, where they argue with St. Paul to
'Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake,'
and you'd think everybody was ailing.
What, Chicago? You don't know the location of
Paris, Missouri! It is in Monroe county, hard
by Salt River, and it had a noble culture when
Chicago was but a collection of huts sticking
up out of the mud flats of Lake Michigan with
trading Yankees bartering tinware for lodging
in the cheap boarding houses that once
decorated Michigan Boul. For Paris, Missouri,
was plotted by gentlemen from Virginia and
Kentucky,
who brought beying hounds, swift horses and
lovely women, and whose slaves loved them so
much that they lived and died on their
masters' farms in Monroe county, scorning the
salvation overtures of New England spinster
school teachers, who would bring them the
culture of dour Connecticut.
In
Paris, Missouri, it is still believed that
Lee, with twenty thousand more troops, would
have kept Grant out of Richmond as long as Al
Capone will stay out of prison; that Jo Shelby
was a finer cavalryman than "Jeb"
Stuart; that "Pap" Price was a
greater raider than Stonewall Jackson, and
that if Abraham Lincoln had lived the civil
war profiteers in the North would have asked
Jeff Davis to start another rebellion. But the
town is going to fly the Stars and Stripes in
August during the county's centennial
celebration, and the seven remaining
Confederate colonies have agreed to salute if
the brass band will play 'Dixie.'"
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