Chapter I: Front Matter

THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD

LIST OF THE BOOKS OF VACHEL LINDSAY

Prose:—

A Handy Guide for Beggars.

Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty.

The Art of the Moving Picture.

The Golden Book of Springfield.

Verse:—

General William Booth Enters Into Heaven and Other Poems.

The Congo and Other Poems.

The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems.

The Golden Whales of California and Other Rhymes in the American
Language.

THE GOLDEN BOOK OF SPRINGFIELD

BY
VACHEL LINDSAY
A CITIZEN OF THAT TOWN

Being the review of a book that will appear in the autumn of the year
2018, and an extended description of Springfield, Illinois, in that
year.

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920

_All rights reserved_

Copyright, 1920
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1920.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Campbellite, the Florist and the Hostess 3

II. The Prognosticator’s Club 10

III. How People of 1920 Think the Book Will Come, in 2018 19

IV. History of the Michaels 49

V. I Myself Enter into the Springfield of 2018 66

VI. Kopensky Versus Boone 90

VII. The Drug Stores, Coffee Houses and Dance Halls 103

VIII. The Springfield Flag 117

IX. The Beginning of the Flying Machine Riots 137

X. The End of the Flying Machine Riots 154

XI. St. Friend, and His Two Religious Orders 171

XII. The Yellow Dance Halls Are Abolished 192

XIII. Surto Hurdenburg is Lynched 209

XIV. In the House of the Man From Singapore 226

XV. Further Experiences in That Strange Mansion 243

XVI. The Return of Joseph Bartholdi Michael 266

XVII. The Lynching of Boone. An interregnum of the Diary. How
The Golden Book Appears 287

XVIII. St. Friend and Avanel Read From The Golden Book 305

XIX. Avanel and I Ascend to the Jungles of Heaven 318

THE PROGNOSTICATOR’S CLUB

1920 2018

David Carson, Campbellite minister,
becomes St. Friend

Anne Morrison, a florist,
becomes Roxana Grey

Eloise Terry, the hostess,
becomes Patricia Anthony

Clara Horton, a school teacher,
becomes Josephine Windom

Gregory Webster, an artist,
becomes Sparrow Short

Nathan Levi, a Jewish boy,
becomes Rabbi Terence Ezekiel

Margaret Evans, a Christian Scientist,
becomes Rachel Madison

Daisy Pearl Johnson, a negress,
becomes Mary Timmons

Nathaniel Davidson, an evangelist,
becomes Cave Man Thomas

Ruth Everett, a welfare worker,
becomes Gwendolyn Charles

John Fletcher, the doubter,
becomes Dr. Mayo Sims

Joseph Bartholdi Michael, I,
becomes Joseph Bartholdi Michael, II

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED TO ISADORA