"THE DEMOCRATS never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."

You don't know about the College of Emporia. That, for one thing, is because it does not exist. It was an obscure little campus in an almost obscure little Kansas town out on the plains, out in Bluegrass Country, out on the Flint Hills on the Great Plains of America. But if you went to school in the days gone by; if you went to school when I went to school, you probably read two essays - some time before you graduated from junior high, by one of America's most powerful small town editors: William Allen White. William Allen White was Emporia's most famous citizen. He was Kansas' most famous citizen.

You should know about the College of Emporia if for no other reason than that it was William Allen White's college, his undergraduate school before he went on to study journalism at the University of Kansas. William Allen White was a powerful force in the Republican Party back in the early years of the 20th century, and he was a personal friend of President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt often stayed at the White home when he traveled across the country. Later he was a friend of FDR.

Emporia was definitely a Republican town, but it was a stop on the Santa Fe route to California, and as such there was a community of Mexican families living near the tracks, families of the men who worked on the railroad. That was the Democrat section of town.

William Allen White first made a name for himself and for his little hometown in 1896, when he wrote an editorial for the Kansas City Star titled "What's the Matter with Kansas." That's a title reintroduced four years ago by Thomas Frank, who asked the same question.

The two essays I read as a young scholar were "Mary White," his eulogy written for the funeral of his daughter, killed when her horse ran under the low branch of a tree. And an essay titled "To an Anxious Friend," a Pulitzer Prize winning essay written in defense of free speech.

I taught sociology at the College of Emporia from September 1967 until July 1970. Yes, those were the fateful years of the 1960s. The college was on its way down, and closed its doors a few years after I moved to West Virginia. Little did I realize how tenuous was the survival of that little school.

The college was a conservative institution. The administration and the college faculty were, for the most part, very provincial native Kansans. I confess that I, though a Kansan, was seen as an outsider. My graduate degrees were from Boston. I was left of center in all that I did and said. So I attracted a lot of students caught up in the chaos and the turmoil of the late 1960s. We played guitars, listened to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and the Weavers. We marched for peace and freedom, and participated in the civil rights movement. We opposed the war in Vietnam. I was popular with the students, but definitely not with the administration or most of the faculty. I learned that I was on the short list for dismissal. I didn't care.

In 1968, a senator from Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy, stepped forward and offered an alternative to the war mongering politics of Washington. Judy and I joined the McCarthy campaign, and volunteered to walk the streets of Omaha and Nebraska City on two consecutive weekends prior to the Nebraska primary. That decision turned out to be fortuitous for us.

You don't know about the College of Emporia. That, for one thing, is because it does not exist. It was an obscure little campus in an almost obscure little Kansas town out on the plains, out in Bluegrass Country, out on the Flint Hills on the Great Plains of America. But if you went to school in the days gone by; if you went to school when I went to school, you probably read two essays - some time before you graduated from junior high, by one of America's most powerful small town editors: William Allen White. William Allen White was Emporia's most famous citizen. He was Kansas' most famous citizen.

You should know about the College of Emporia if for no other reason than that it was William Allen White's college, his undergraduate school before he went on to study journalism at the University of Kansas. William Allen White was a powerful force in the Republican Party back in the early years of the 20th century, and he was a personal friend of President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt often stayed at the White home when he traveled across the country. Later he was a friend of FDR.

Emporia was definitely a Republican town, but it was a stop on the Santa Fe route to California, and as such there was a community of Mexican families living near the tracks, families of the men who worked on the railroad. That was the Democrat section of town.

William Allen White first made a name for himself and for his little hometown in 1896, when he wrote an editorial for the Kansas City Star titled "What's the Matter with Kansas." That's a title reintroduced four years ago by Thomas Frank, who asked the same question.

The two essays I read as a young scholar were "Mary White," his eulogy written for the funeral of his daughter, killed when her horse ran under the low branch of a tree. And an essay titled "To an Anxious Friend," a Pulitzer Prize winning essay written in defense of free speech.

I taught sociology at the College of Emporia from September 1967 until July 1970. Yes, those were the fateful years of the 1960s. The college was on its way down, and closed its doors a few years after I moved to West Virginia. Little did I realize how tenuous was the survival of that little school.

The college was a conservative institution. The administration and the college faculty were, for the most part, very provincial native Kansans. I confess that I, though a Kansan, was seen as an outsider. My graduate degrees were from Boston. I was left of center in all that I did and said. So I attracted a lot of students caught up in the chaos and the turmoil of the late 1960s. We played guitars, listened to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and the Weavers. We marched for peace and freedom, and participated in the civil rights movement. We opposed the war in Vietnam. I was popular with the students, but definitely not with the administration or most of the faculty. I learned that I was on the short list for dismissal. I didn't care.

In 1968, a senator from Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy, stepped forward and offered an alternative to the war mongering politics of Washington. Judy and I joined the McCarthy campaign, and volunteered to walk the streets of Omaha and Nebraska City on two consecutive weekends prior to the Nebraska primary. That decision turned out to be fortuitous for us.

On one of those lovely warm April weekends the students at the college decided to hold a "Love In." What that meant was a party in Peter Pan Park, named for Mary White, William Allen White's daughter. Judy and I were invited to the "Love In," but we could not attend. We had committed to the McCarthy campaign. Turns out that some of the students smoked "grass" at the Love In, and the college administration sent a photographer to record the event for posterity. Three faculty members attended the party, and when the camera showed up, everyone gathered to get in the picture. Like, "we don't care if you take our picture," we have nothing to hide. I think some students even showed their "weed" between thumb and forefinger for the camera. And the three members of the faculty were among them, but certainly not smoking!

Surprise, surprise! Three members of the faculty were given their walking papers. And I was not among them.

Early in 1968 Eugene McCarthy nearly whipped Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, and Johnson opted out. One April afternoon a student asked me if I had heard that Martin Luther King had been assassinated.

On June 6, Judy and I were camping with our children in Mesa Verde National Park, when we overheard the car radio in the next tent site over - reporting that something had happened to Robert Kennedy. We pricked up our ears, turned on our own car radio, and heard the tragic news.

The Democrats held their convention in Chicago that year. Jerry Rubin and the Yippies gave them all a hard time. They played havoc in Chicago's Lincoln Park, fought with the police, nominated a pig for president, and they secretly got themselves invited to help serve a fancy dinner to Democrat dignitaries. At a given moment they all stripped their clothes off and, naked, carried into the dining room the raw heads of newly decapitated hogs. The fine ladies and gentlemen were not amused.

The Democrats were divided. The peaceniks wanted Gene. "All we are saying," they sang, "is Give Peace a Chance." "Clean with Gene," they promised. The Old Guard nominated Hubert Humphrey. In doing so, the divided party did, in effect, elect Richard Nixon, what with the peace party just staying home in November.

I tell this story because I see its reflection in the mirror of today. The Democrats are divided again, and hardball politics is taking over. It's getting nasty out there, and each side is determined to have its own way. If my candidate is not nominated, I just won't vote. John McCain, here is the election, handed to you on a platter. Sing along with me: "Those were the days, my friend, I thought they'd never end..."

Warner, professor emeritus at West Virginia Wesleyan College, is a Gazette contributing columnist.