Morganville, (Pop. 243) Plans Big Pageant for Adopted French Town

Three-Fifths of Village Takes Part

When Morganville (pop. 243) votes for One World, there's One Town behind it. Three-fifths of its citizens will take part in a pageant in the open-air town forum Friday at 8 p. m. to celebrate Morganville's adoption of the French town of Feves.

Almost everybody else in town will contribute something to the program of square dancing, European native songs and dances, and children's horse rides at "ten sous" instead of ten cents a ride. Cookies baked from old family recipes handed down from Swiss, German, French and other foreign ancestors will be on sale.

Robert Sonkin, New York City college speech instructor, is in Morganville to represent Operation Democracy, the organization that helped the Kansas town select the French community it would sponsor.

"I saw the dress rehearsal of the pageant Thursday night," he said Friday, "and it's perfectly wonderful.

"It tells the whole history of Morganville from Indians on, with the object of explaining to the people of Feves, 'We endured hardships too. We knew hunger and suffered to build this land of plenty. But we came thru and there is hope for you in our story.'

"Miss Velma Carson, a member of Morganville's UNESCO committee, wrote the pageant. The pioneers will appear in a covered wagon built by Mr. Herman Merten. Mrs. Velma Young, a school teacher, is the program director. Mrs. Agnes Anderson, a housewife, is the narrator.

"After the early hardships of the pioneers come the arts of peace. A Greek dance represents the influence of the classics on local life. Then the outside world begins to intrude. Morganville's sons go off to wars overseas. The world is seen in travail, turning a great globe in search of her lost children. An American angelus and a French angelus are depicted together, the French poverty-stricken and the American with a full harvest. The American woman asks 'How can we be satisfied knowing there are empty baskets in other parts of the world.'

"Finally the whole company, in costume, sings a song, 'One World,' and the Rev. H. E. Millikan, Methodist minister, a World War II chaplain, will speak a brief prayer in French."

An ice cream social to follow the pageant will be organized by Mrs. Alice Berggen Oetinger. Congratulatory telegrams are expected from M. Henri Bonnet, French ambassador in Washington, D. C., M. V. Iala, French consulgeneral in Chicago, and President Milton Eisenhower of Kansas State college.

Mr. Sonkin will record the whole program for transmission to France over the New York World Radio University station WRUL. He said Morganville was the first Kansas town, and the smallest town anywhere, to seek adoption of a French town thru his organization. Neosho county had adopted Zevenbergen, Holland. So many United States communities had wanted to adopt towns in other parts of the world that "Operation Democracy," a non-profit organization, has been founded as a clearing house.


Topeka State Journal
August 27, 1948