Roaming in the Gloaming -- Opinion Column in a Minnesota Weekly Newspaper, January-June, 1949

January 6, 1949

  Two hundred years ago it was the custom of some Minnesota Indians, when the old folks were unable to follow the tribe in its migrations, thoughtfully left the old folks with a pile of food on top of a hill and bade them farewell. The Eskimos were more kindly to their old and infirm, when the going got too tough their miseries were ended by a stone hammer. Minnesota in a “civilizing” way but more brutal is following in the footsteps of the Indians and Eskimos. In Minnesota we get rid of some of our aged by sending them to mental hospitals. The statement is made that ten per cent of the folks over 65 in Minnesota are committed to the insane hospital, where they will end their days. Not because they are insane but because they are in the way. Big modern houses, new shiny cars and swell new furniture is no place for old folks, who just want to putter around or sit in the sunshine. That grandpa that the were so proud of, and grandma who had been a real angel of peace in the family when sickness came, are in the way now and while Minnesota is helping to spread culture, civilization and progress to the rest of the world. ---
  Senator Jerry Mullin, a most vigorous fighter for old age assistance, the blind and those unable to care for themselves is taking up the fight for the depressed and lowly. He was shocked the other day when a superintendent of a state institution reported that 10 per cent of the old people who have been committed to the hospital for the insane are not insane and should never have been committed. ---
  There was a time in the early days when the swashbuckling country editors (and there were a lot of them) vied with each other in writing items that bristled with invectives. The towns that were competitors and their editors and even the local people that they disliked came in for their share of abuse, sarcasm, and vituperation. Times bring changes to newspaper men as well as everything else. Here is a welcome change in sentiment from the Storden Times. In his New Year greeting the editor says, “As for us, we ask forgiveness of those we may have wronged and we readily grant forgiveness of those who may have wronged us. It is the sincere wish and thought of this newspaper that it may be able to render a better coverage of news and generally do a better job of reflecting the life of our community in the new year which is about to make itself known. We would like right now to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation to our advertisers and their conscientious, steady support of this newspaper, during the past year and ever since we have been here. Without that support our town would not have a newspaper. With enough support the town will always have a newspaper. We earnestly solicit your support for those businessmen and others who make it possible for a town like Storden to have a paper.”
  Mighty fine sentiments for us all to express. ---
  The village of Tyler is the only village that we know that still retains the spirit of true democracy. Each year the citizens of the village meet and decide on the tax levy for the coming year: it certainly relieves the village council of a lot of headaches when the tax payer comes around and asks, “Why are the taxes so darned high?” ---
  Well, part of the post office deficit is solved. The mailing price on Christmas cards will be 2 cents hereafter. An uppage of 25 per cent means a lot of money. By the way there are close to a hundred dead Christmas cards in the local post office. They came addressed to folks that had once lived here or to people that are dead and the cards cannot be returned as they only have a one and a half cent stamp. Why not comb that next year’s Christmas card list now? ---
  The management has asked us to extend thanks to the members of the Auxiliary for the nice Christmas gift. While we know that at times the Pilot has erred on their reports (please read the first paragraph in the Storden paper editorial above in this column. Them’s our sentiments down to a “T”.) While we are on the subject the Roamer wants to add his bit to a real worth while organization that has always been foremost in nearly every civic drive for the last twenty years. ---
  Wm. Sundell, superintendent of the local school in spite of his many duties, has consented to help the local independent basketball team as coach through the season: it’s the little things like this that makes a little town just a little better: the spirit of cooperation keeps the world’s rolling.
========================

January 13, 1949

  The railroad company has force of men repairing the stock yards and the scales at the stock yards this week. This yard has been used only infrequently for several years, and it is the only left in this vicinity: neither Slayton, Hadley or Woodstock have stockyards. But never has the stockyard meant as much to the village as it does today. The amount of business done there by Bill Steffes is really marvelous and is bringing a lot of extra business to the town. He has taken in over 2,000 hogs since the first of the year, some of them come from a distance of forty miles. The railroad company is doing more than its share in leaving the stockyards here and in maintaining them, but it seems to be a one sided affair as it is not reciprocated by many Lake Wilson business men. There’s a lot of goods coming to Lake Wilson that could just as well come by freight or express. Another thing the Omaha railroad company leaves thousands of dollars in salaries here each month. We can’t get everything and give nothing in return. ---
  The winter of 1948-49 up to last Sunday morning has been very satisfactory. Not a real cold day and only three unpleasant days, but who doesn’t have three unpleasant days in two months. ---
  The movement for the state of Minnesota to take over the handling of all liquor, that is the wholesaling, is meeting with a lot of favor these days. If villages can make money at retail the state surely will be able to make money when it has absolute control of the traffic. ---
  Over a year ago this column assisted in raising a fund for the construction of a modest monument to the lads who lost their lives in World War II. Enough was raised for the plaque, etc. The Legion then had plans for erecting a community hall and the memorial committee was asked to delay the movement as the Legion post had planned on placing the new plaque in the new building. A Legion official tells us that it is doubtful if a memorial building can be erected in the near future, so the memorial committee is planning on putting up the memorial plaque next spring. ---
  If the Republicans want to win a national election, they must select a leader with a pleasing personality and not too restrained. He must be able to use two syllable words, wise crack, leave his dignity at home, and promise everything to all men. That’s the kind of a candidate that wins in this day and age. The market price on dignity has never been as low. ---
  The story about that Ohio woman having a baby one day last week and that neither she or he husband knew anything about it until half hour before it happened. Could be true. Bill Steffes the local stock buyer bought a cow last Wednesday from J. Mattson. The visibility of both men is reported excellent, yet the next morning when Bill went down to the stockyard there was a fine young calf staggering around.
---
  The one story that Jack Benny did not star in was the one he put on to beat the government out of $1,000,000 income tax. There are some things, you know, that can’t be laughed off.
---
  Christmas decorations are down and the old trees that were looked upon so reverently a week ago are now in the alley garbage can, we can now start hating each other again.
---
  The Republicans in congress are acting like a bunch of kids. First thing they did was to raise h--- among themselves at the time when they needed harmony most. When a party gets licked it generally takes stock of itself into a unit that fights together instead of among themselves. All the party can do at the present time is to wait until the Democratic party makes mistakes then jump on them: that was Truman’s tactics last fall.
---
  More power to Governor Youngdahl. We favored and advocated a bonus but we don’t think there is a red blooded veteran in the state that is not in favor of bettering the condition of these God’s Mistakes in the mental institutions. The boys will get their bonus this winter and can afford to wait until these little unfortunate ones are cared for.
=======================

January 20, 1949

  Travel has changed a lot the last fifty years. Back in the 90’s the man that handled the locomotive on the passenger train was tops. With his long peaked cap, big gauntlet gloves and clean overalls he was the hero of the kids and the admiration of the grownups. Congressmen, senators and even presidents would button up their Prince Alberts and walk dignified to the end of the trip and shake hands with the engineer: he had brought them to their destination in safety. Yet how really trivial his job was compared to the man that drives the big busses today.   The engineer would get a clearance card from the depot agent before he left that told him the road was clear to the next station: in fact every move he made came from the dispatcher. The bus driver is on his own after he leaves the bus depot with his load of fifty passengers. Besides being the engineer, he is also the fireman, the conductor and the baggage man and added to the list is the expressman as he carries papers, cut flowers, etc. The bus driver is also versed in “Safety First” work, and has a personality with which he can advise and soothe the nervous hurrying passenger in these hectic days, when anybody is in such a hurry to get places. In fact he’s a sort of a superman when compared to the men in the transportation business of fifty years ago. They do a wonderful job and they do it cheerfully and well. The new Greyhound busses are things of art, with a skillful blending of chromium, plastic and aluminum they really are a joy to ride in. There’s no more grinding of gears and that gasoline odor so common ten years ago is gone. Individual lights and ventilation is available to every seat. The stream lined trains have come a long way and so has the bus in the last few years.
---
  Minnesota is an odd state politically. It goes all out for Truman. Yet both the senate and Minnesota house of representatives are almost top heavy against the thing Truman stands for.
---
  Another new addition is coming to Lake Wilson in the spring. The Phillips 66 is putting in a bulk plant just west of the stock yards. The many additions to our little business world in the last year means that Lake Wilson is not one of the small towns that are going backward: we’re looking ahead.
---
  We missed another blizzard last week, something we’ve been doing all winter. Up to this writing the winter of ‘48 and ‘49 has been a mighty pleasant one and the sun is getting higher every day.
---
  Woman in the winter is a real enigma. She comes tripping down the street muffled up in a big fur coat, big woolly mittens, on her feet contraptions that look like a cross between a felt boot and a navy sea boat. There she goes with all the winter equipment: but her legs are bare.
---
  The majority of the young people you meet are in favor of the state taking over entire control of the hard liquor. Some of the drys are against it, however. They don’t believe in any shape or form even if the handling of it by the state would mean better control and would tend to maintain safeguards for the young.
---
  You think that the bonus bill will be a fight in the coming session of the legislature but it will be nothing compared to the state liquor dispensary bill. The liquor men are out to spend more money this session than has been spent since the old days: a former speaker of the house is legal advisor for the wet boys and he has a lot of influence in among the house members.
---
  One of the real problems that is facing every village and town in Minnesota is the sewer problem. Sooner or later we will have to face it in Lake Wilson. The cost is going to be pretty heavy and the disposal plant will be paid, not by bonds but by a sewer tax on every business lot and home.
========================

January 27, 1949

  Governor Youngdahl has picked out cigarettes as public enemy No. 1, and placed them first on his list for increased taxes. Cigarettes are taking now about all the taxes they can stand. They are no more a luxury than coffee or Coca Cola. The three give you an artificial kick and if you’re going to tax one you should tax them all. Put a cent tax on every cup of coffee and the same amount on Coca Cola and we’d have the soldiers’ bonus paid in no time. In passing, we don’t smoke the filthy cig., the humble pipe is good enough for us.
---
  The Hoover commission says, “What this country needs is more psychiatrists (men that examine people’s heads) and for the trend of the times we certainly need them. Some time ago Mrs. Fay Water of Washington, D.C., sent out begging letters asking for aid for the needy children at our national capitol. One of the letters got to Mrs. Evita Peron, wife of the top man in Argentina, a country that we’ve been agin’ for some time. Evita grabbed at the letter like a bass does a red and white Bass Oreno and sent enough clothes for 600 of “your needy children.” At the same time the nation was spending $150,000 on inauguration festivities. Three weeks ago the west was clogged with Friendship trains carrying food to the starving Europeans, some of the trains rolling along the edge of the Indian reservation in North Dakota where the Indians were and still are starving: we sure need some kind of a doctor of senses.
---
  Saw a picture of Margaret Truman in the Star-Journal the other day: don’t know just how old she is, but she can’t be that old.
---
  From the way things are going now, Minnesota can well be named “The Basketball State.” The University team, Hamline and the Minneapolis Lakers are attracting nationwide interest.
---
  The suit of Mrs. La Favor versus the village of Windom is going to be of interest to many in the state. Mrs. La Favor slipped on an icy sidewalk on February 28, 1948 and sustained a fractured leg. She is suing the village for a total of $21,500 damages and her attorneys served summons on Mayor Gillan and City Clerk Langley last week. The best protection against accidents of this kind, as well as the cheapest, is sprinkling the streets and sidewalks with sand. Every village can well afford to have a sand stockpile to use during the time when streets and sidewalks are dangerous. If Mrs. La Favor does not get a cent in damages, the suit will cost the tax payers of Windom as much money as it would to sand the sidewalks for ten years.
---
  We’re sending billions of dollars to Europe to assist in rehabilitating the people and bring them back to health, etc., and at the same time, Minnesota and Wisconsin are doing their best to get the doctors out of Europe away from the people who evidently need them more than we do: evidently our right hand does not seem to know what our left hand is doing.
---
  The state game and fish department has a pretty kettle of fish on its hands. Seven officials of the game and fish department and two officials of the state bureau of administration are charged with hunting deer on a game refuge without a proper permit. Minnesota has a game refuge at St. Croix park. The deer had increased so rapidly that the department decided to admit at least 400 hunters provided that they had the proper permits. Evidently these officials thought they could get by without permits and the result has been in the arrest of nine officials. Some of them game wardens, charged with enforcing the laws: two of them had been in the service for nearly 30 years. Seven of the nine pleaded guilty and have been fined. The other two may be sentenced this week. Affairs of this kind bring a lot of grief to the top officials who have been doing their level best to give a rigid enforcement of the law, and unfortunately unwarranted criticism will fall on their heads. Hunters who have been fined for violations of the deer law will certainly be vicious in their comments of the head department officials, who by the way should be commended for their efforts in bringing the official law breakers to trial. The fate of all of those men who have been suspended from their positions is still in doubt: but it’s a dirty mess at the best.
========================

February 3, 1949

  Every eighth person in these United States will be saying this week, “Where in heck is Lake Wilson?” How come? Well, “Look,” the national magazine is running a story with pictures on a paragraph taken from this column of September 16th. Look, top national magazine, has 17,439,000 readers and we’ll bet that two or three of that number have never heard of Lake Wilson. Look devotes a page to the article.
---
  You won’t believe this, but the next time you happen to freeze your face don’t rub snow on it: that’s the worst thing you can do. Cover the frozen part with your hand or mitten. It is not dangerous to eat snow: snow water is the purest of all water. Food is not the most important thing to keep you warm. If you get lost, don’t run around in a circle. Stop and burrow in a straw stack or even a deep snow bank. Liquor will not help keep you warm. Two layers of thin underwear will keep you warmer than a suite of very heavy underwear. Violent exercise will not help to keep you warm. Lean people can withstand more cold than fat ones. Women cannot withstand more cold than men. You can’t get lung frost by breathing cold air. Keep your head and don’t exhaust yourself, this will keep your heart in good shape and the heart is what keeps you warm. You won’t believe all this but it is what Uncle Sam has found with a detachment of men at the Air Base at Ladd, Alaska who have been going through all kinds of experiments this winter.
---
  Murray county was represented at the inaugural ceremonies at Washington, D.C. Got a card from Ed Engebretson of Slayton that said: “A wonderful sight: parade five miles long--two million people--no Republicans in sight.”
---
  With 17,439,000 Look readers and 2,500,000 Sunday Tribune readers this little village of 400 has received its share of clean publicity and publicity is even craved by Jack Benny.
---
  No, the days are not getting longer--but there are more hours of daylight. The length of the day is the same, summer or winter.
---
  The Republicans are not making things much better by running around in circles as they did at Omaha last week. One would think from the noise that the party was almost extinct. Twenty million votes were cast for Dewey. The Democrats have only twelve more votes in the senate--a change of seven votes will make a lot of difference in legislation.
---
  There are only two beaver dams within two miles of Lake Wilson, one of them is under the bridge on highway No. 47 and the other a mile south of there: seems funny but there are more beaver in Murray county now than there has ever been in its history. According to the records of the American fur company no beavers were offered for sale at the trading post at Bear Lake during the years from 1833 to 1838.
---
  See where the Minnesota county commissioners in convention at Minneapolis passed a resolution against the state taking over control of strong drink, giving as their reason that the new department would be looted by the employees. Some county commissioners on the range swiped a lot of money a while back and every so often a postmaster goes bad in his accounts, but the state and the nation still exist. The opposition to the bill has some of the shrewdest politicians in the state on its side and there will be a real fight over the measure during the coming session. A strange combination is fighting the bill: the wet wets and dry drys have joined forces to defeat it.
---
  The candy manufacturers are doing their best in the cause of weight reduction: the bars are half the size they were three years ago.
---
  Why should Russia want to go to war? The victory that the Communists have won in China would have taken millions of lives in battle. The Reds start teaching Communism to their children as soon as they are able to speak. Would it not be good sense for the U.S. to start teaching anti-communism in the schools, starting in the fifth grade?
========================

February 10, 1949

  Here’s a good one. A letter was received at the local post office last week addressed to Miss America, Williston Park, “near Lake Wilson, Minnesota.” The letter came from Arkansas.
---
  Anent that slavery trial at Mankato, looks as if farmer Stark should present a bill to the state of Minnesota for taking care of one its mental cases for six and a half years.
---
  A bill is now in the legislature to abolish all taxes on household personal property. Good idea you say--but hold on a minute. The bill also provides that the $845,000 now paid for taxes on household furniture be replaced by a gross receipts tax. This new so-called replacement bill would squeeze $13,900,000 out of the taxpayers and would be tough on the small taxpayer. Take the veteran: instead of paying $5.00 on his household goods as the average tax payer now does, he would pay $21.00 a year under the gross receipt plan. In twelve years he would have paid in enough to pay his own individual bonus. If you boys are in favor of a law that would give you the opportunity to pay your own bonus in twelve years, write Senator Hans Pederson or Rep. Trig Knutson in care of State Capitol, St. Paul, Minn. If you are not in favor of it write and tell them. Do it now and not beef about it afterward.
---
  The Brooklyn Dodgers are schedule to play ball at Atlanta, Georgia during their spring training and the Klu Klux Klan is mad about the idea of Georgian whites playing against a northern team that has two colored players. The Grand Dragon is trying to prevent Jackie Robinson and Campanella from playing; there are several teams in the National League that would be well pleased if the colored boys did not play, but not for the same reason as the Kluxers.
---
  Several exchanges seem to think that the deer herd in and around Bear Lake consists of fifty animals. Like the report on Mark Twain’s death this statement is a good deal exaggerated. Here’s a tip to law enforcement officials. For several Sundays, gangs of young men and boys have been hunting the deer with bows and arrows. This should be stopped. Chasing a scared deer with an arrow in it is a pretty low idea of the meaning of the word “sport.”
---
  Two thirds of the women in Minnesota are against their darlings being spanked of punished in school. But they’re not always so soft hearted when it comes to that neighbor’s kid next door.
---
  No doubt there has been considerable suffering among humans and animals in the western storm belt, but some of the pictures that appear in the dailies show anything but privation. Take the picture of the farm yard with a sign written “Help” in the snow and in the yard were several horses and not near as much snow about the place as there is in hundreds of farm yards fifty miles north of us. Then there was a picture last Saturday of the farmer and his wife driving a team of horses in a home-made sleigh to do their trading. If these are privations, what would you call the early days here when if people were “snowed in” they stayed snowed in. There were no planes or radios, no snow plows, no weasels or bull dozers. They just had to take it. In the big snow of ‘79, farmers had to go out and dig down until they found their hay stacks, throw up the hay and haul it, sometimes by handsleds, and farmers in later years would put their big flax straw burner on a little hand sled and go for a mile to fill it with straw to keep the family warm. Many and many a farmer has taken a hand sled and walked over the drifts to Currie for a sack of flour. We still think these pioneers had real hard times, but they realized they were on their own and did not expect the government to do everything for them.
---
  One of the real men in the state is Dr. Christianson of the State Extension department. We’ve heard him speak three times and every time we like him better. He’s not an orator: he doesn’t have to be to talk sense. He talks straight from the shoulder, deals in the homely things of life and does not speak with a forked tongue.
========================

February 17, 1949

  The wholesale dealers are plastering the state with printed matter showing up the trouble that some of the states have had with their [liquor] dispensaries: trying to give the public the idea that they are more concerned with the welfare of the state than they are of their own interests: a pretty wily, crafty bunch.
---
  If Stalin isn’t mad at the United States he must be a queer fish. We seem to be doing our best to make him hate us: every time he opens his mouth he’s wrong.
---
  One bill in the interest of human life in Minnesota should become a law. It prohibits installing television in auto radios. Take a rabid baseball fan and there are lots of them--bases full, score tied and the last batter at the plate--where would he be looking, at the road or the television set?
---
  Snappiest editorial page in this section of the state is that of the Balaton Press Tribune. Orville Erickson may be a new man at Balaton but he also has new ideas of conducting a country newspaper.
---
  If you want to get on the ballot at your coming township election be sure and file your name with the town clerk before February 22nd.
---
  The South is not the only section that has its troubles over Civil Rights. Up in North Dakota no city by the vote of the people of that city can install parking meters on its congested streets, even in the busy hours: sounds like an edict from Stalin.
---
  Distance may have lent enchantment to the view of the Kai-Sheks of China. For years they have been in the spotlight in the U.S. and have been treated generously. They have represented wealth and not the people and the Madame carries queen-like ideas. A close-up view of the Madame is reflected in a story from the head nurse of a hospital where Madame Kai-Shek was a patient. “She was the toughest patient we ever had. All the patients were ousted out of one floor to make room for her. Every time she got out of bed the sheets had to be changed. Every noise had to be stifled. Her own servants waited on her and we waited on the servants, and she wasn’t very sick at that.” Is it any wonder the downtrodden Chinese people lost faith in the Kai-Sheks.
---
  The toughest proposition to face President Truman is the reorganization of his own government. Washington is cursed with a bureaucratic form of government. There are 1,800 bureaus in the capitol and they are powerful. When congress starts to reorganize by cutting out one bureau the rest all rally to see that it is maintained whether it is needed or not. Most of the top bureau men were staunch supporters and appointees of either senators or congressmen and to get started on the job is pretty tough. These bureaus cost the government billions of dollars a year, hundreds of them doing duplicated work and many of them are leftovers from World War II.
---
  One of the readers of the pilot said the other day, “Why not publish the names of those old people who are receiving old age assistance?” Brother, just remember that some of those old folks farmed here in the early days when wheat was 38 cents a bushel, eggs seven and butter 10 cents. If they made a hundred dollars a year ... or subsidies, no parity prices but they kept on farming in spite of conditions, hoping that they could get their notes renewed in the fall. their grandsons make more money in two years than they did in forty, and they were hard years, years that meant real physical toil. Why not let these old men and women who have not much longer to live end their journey towards the setting sun in an atmosphere of decency, instead of the limelight of bitter publicity?
---
  A newspaper man wanted to look over the birth and death records of Carlton county. The official got cocky and refused and was evidently backed up by the county commissioners. It took the attorney general to straighten things out, but the commissioners are suing the editor for $17,000 for libel: a lot of money to get out of a country editor.
---
  Love still continues to be in the high bracket column. See where a man and his wife tramped through the midwest selling their affection for prices ranging up to five thousand dollars. Then after they got the money they decamped, leaving their male and female dupes holding the sack: Barnum was right.
========================

February 24, 1949

  Don’t plain women, we used to call them homely, ever smoke cigarettes: we never see any pictures of them in the cigarette ads.
---
  With wheat down a third in price isn’t it about time that the reduction in cost should be reflected in the price of bread.
---
  Pipestone is cracking down on traffic violators. a man was fined $100 for driving while drunk, another $50 was added because he did not have a license: just about as expensive as shooting pheasants.
---
  A Chicago woman sued her bitter half for a divorce last week. The judge made the man promise that he would discontinue arguing with his ball and chain and they walked out of court happy. Just why a woman would give up her greatest pleasure is hard to understand: it did not mean much to the man as he always lost anyway.
---
  The sewer proposition which is being threshed out in many a village these days is an expensive one. The village of Storden paid $800 to an engineer for plans and when it came to a vote there were 80 votes against and 8 for installing the disposal plant.
---
  It takes the republican party a long time to get over the defeat of last fall. The party should hire a few labor union officials to teach it the fundamentals of organization.
---
  The biggest battle in the legislature is still the state [liquor] dispensary law. It has everything to improve the financial condition of the state but the future looks dark: David just don’t lick Goliath very often in practical politics.
---
  Here’s an interesting note from the Lakefield Standard of 60 years ago: “Arrangements are being made to build a hospital at Shattuck. When complete the building is estimated to cost between $20,000 and $25,000.”
---
  Some villages have sent in resolutions against the state dispensary liquor law: they’re against the state going into the liquor business but they seem to think it is O.K. for the village to into the liquor business. Queer reasoning.
---
  Scientists are still trying to improve on the lie detector. They might improve on the machine detector, but there are a lot of lie detectors in every village that some men admit work perfectly.
---
  Miss America, Bebe Shopp, seems to have gotten in bad at the St. Paul Carnival. Looks like the old man kinda gummed things up: one trouble with having a manager in the family.
---
  The folks out in the sticks seem to know just about as much of our foreign relations as they do at Washington. One guy comes out and says, “No more troops for Japan, we’ll lose that country anyway.” The next day another official bobs up and says: “We’re going to hold Japan.” For some time we have been trying to crowd certain European nations to form an alliance with us and after we get them to agree, we turn around and tell them we will write the agreement, but they had better read the fine print at the bottom.
---
  Edgerton youths, or boys living in the vicinity of that town, burglarized a home down at Edgerton one night last week. Youth evidently must have its thrills, but it is really unfortunate that the leading nation in every line of endeavor can’t find some way to curb this increasing “thrill” disease.
---
  All southwestern Minnesota is congratulating Mary Durey of Springfield who won the coveted position as Queen of the Centennial.
========================

March 3, 1949

  If things keep going the way they are in Washington, the republicans will soon be taking off their black crepe arm bands.
---
  Don’t be surprised if there is an extra session of the Minnesota legislature. Things seem to have bogged down the past week.
---
  As usual, we can’t agree with those who favor the retention of the Indian school at Pipestone. There is a bill in the Minnesota legislature asking for an appropriation of $3,000,000 for an agricultural college at Waseca. Looks as if would be a sensible idea for the state to get the Indian school property at Pipestone for this farm school, as it is fully equipped for this line of work. An orphan school does not need the type of buildings that are on the Indian school property.
---
  The wave of economy that has swept through the lower house in the Minnesota legislature means that bills calling for appropriations will have a hard time getting by. As yet the bonus bill, the one measure that the people voted for, is still in its swaddling clothes. Plenty of bonus bills have been introduced but none of them have a very satisfactory method of telling where the money is to come from.
---
  A girl in this town recently received $3.00 as a baby sitter for several hours. Fifty years ago men worked on the threshing machines from sunup to sundown and often longer, for a dollar and a half a day: the world does move, doesn’t it?
---
  The president made a faux pas last week when he called a newspaperman a S.O.B. Presidents have a right to think those things, but not say them in public.
---
  Let’s all get behind the new village band: nothing puts more pep into the human mind and body as music.
---
  Truman is taking to the road again. Don’t do it, Harry, it’s hard to pitch two no-hit games in succession and remember that a lot of those congressmen were elected by the same voters as you were.
---
  The mood of the present legislature portends a big cut in highways and secondary roads in Minnesota during the coming year.
---
  Gov. Youngdahl would have more supporters for his tax bill measure if he advocated a tax on luxuries such as $3,000 fur coats, high priced diamond rings, in fact every expensive luxury should help pay the bill as well as the men and women who smoke and drink: let’s be fair and sensible.
---
  The movement before the state legislature to revive the moneys and credits assessments is causing a lot of uneasiness throughout the state. The banks are building with money and many members look upon the return of the old law as a means of helping get enough money to keep the state going.
---
  The strangest and most fantastical stories of our life time are those coming from Hungary. The actions of the high church men in that country, both Catholic and Protestant, are confusing. Why these leading church men admit they are spies, traitors and tools of other nations is a question beyond the realm of the average mind. To a layman they acted and talked as if they were hypnotized: they tell the same story and all use the same gestures.
---
  There is some talk of a revision of the present social security plan. No changes should be made in the bill until the small business man is given the same rights as his employees. For years he keeps on paying his share of the social security tax for his employees and when the end comes he has but little cash left to live on while his employees live on the social security annuity. ‘Taint fair.
========================

March 10, 1949

  Truman did the right thing when he got Eisenhower and Marshall back into the service again. The country breathes a little easier now.
---
  South Dakota turned right about face on its hunting laws and non-residents can hunt waterfowl and they can start on pheasants from scratch with the home state boys: the lure of outside money that would come into the state was hard to resist.
---
  One legislative measure is going to create a lot of interest among the farmers: the bill to divorce the Farm Bureau from the county agents. For years the county agents have been associated with the Farm Bureau but we have never heard of them not aiding any farmers who needed and asked for their assistance.
---
  Business is getting slack in the east. So slack is it that manufacturers have prevailed upon the government to allow them to sell their wares at 15 per cent on price of article and give the purchaser 21 months to pay for it: there are two sides to this question from the economy view point.
---
  That “Flight of Dollars” slogan is proving to be a real dud. As a slogan it is about as usable as a crow bar made of Jello. Too many over-cultured judges: a good advertising man would have helped get them a slogan that some one could either remember or understand.
---
  Congratulations to Senator Hans Pederson of Ruthton for changing his vote in the committee so that the FEBC bill could be brought out on the floor of the senate where it could be discussed in the open. The voters know but little about the bill and a full frank debate will help more than it will hurt. Too many bills are smothered in committee. We remember one bill in particular that came up eight years ago. It was a measure presented by Miss Kenney asking that a law be passed which would prevent individuals from claiming the “Kenney” treatment for polio when they had never been near the institute. What happened? Various medical associations fought the bill and it was killed in the house committee. We heard two members of that committee gloating over the fact that they had killed the bill: last week Miss Kenney was named one of Minnesota’s great, and the two members have gone to where “the wind bloweth where it listeth.”
---
  Walnut Grove was getting scant of water last year so a new well was drilled. They had to go over 1,000 feet and when the water came in it was so hard that it could not be used without softeners. The water in the old Walnut Grove wells was soft, and the people liked it. Now the council is in a quandary. Lake Wilson is in the same predicament. We all feel that we need a more adequate supply of water but some are against taking a chance on a deep well. They favor doubling the capacity of the present reservoir and as the water supply from the flowing wells is always plentiful in the winter it could be stored up instead of letting the surplus run into the sewer as it does now.
---
  The funeral for the state dispensary bill was held last week. The measure really died at the conservative caucus before the session started. The men who were in control were against the measure and that ended it. One of the members was wrathy and stated that the committee was packed. A new m ember filled with righteousness said the remark was not true. Of course the committee was packed against the bill and every other bill that those in control did not want to become a law. It has always been thus. The party in power has always packed committees and always will. The writer remembers a similar occurrence back in 1907. A liquor bill was smothered in committee and both Klemer of Faribault and Doc Stone of Pokegma said the committee was packed. There was a great uproar, rough old Bob Dunn being among those that objected. H. H. Dunn was speaker and urged on by some of the boys decided to bring the two members before the bar of the house (not a saloon bar but up before the speaker). The sergeant dragged them up before the speaker’s desk. The two “criminals” stuck to their story. It was a real show that afternoon. But it was too hot for the big boys and the liquor lobby and they were glad to drop the whole matter looking like youngsters that had wet their mittens.
========================

March 17, 1949

  The soft coal miners are on a strike. Labor has not the same ideas as agriculture. Farmers are bent on keeping up a surplus: labor seems to go on the hand to mouth plan, with machinery, etc. Labor knows that if you can keep merchandise scarce people will scrap to get it and will pay a better price. Pretty shrewd psychology.
---
  Coal barons have announced a whole 15 cents reduction on a ton of coal and oil lords have announced a reduction of one per cent on fuel oil: you can’t tell when you look at it whether it is a decimal point or a fly speck.
---
  Missing among the names of the Minnesota great were the nurses and officials that are giving the best years of their lives to the care of our mental patients.
---
  Every village in the state has had a lot of uneasiness of late over the sewer disposal problem. The cost has been prohibitive to most towns. Don’t worry about it any longer, folks, as the Minnesota senate finance committee at its meeting last week cut $800,000 out of the budget which was marked for sewage disposal at some of the state institutions, on the grounds of “economy.” If these men who made the law can ignore it, so can the villages.
---
  The Rankin plan could be a bigger thorn in the flesh of the congress than they are looking for: what if the pension-inclined proponents join up with the Townsend plan. They seem to be headed for the same goal.
---
  The civil rights program has been set back for some years by the action of the U.S. senate. Here’s a measure that seems to have oodles of backers all over the country, but down in their hearts they are not in favor of complete civil rights to everyone.
---
  Taxes are like the weather: everybody talks about them but they never do anything. Here in Chanarambie twp., where tax criticism is a daily diet, only eight taxpayers attended the town meeting where they do have a say what their heaviest share of the taxes should be. There should be less squawking in this one township this year.
---
  The testiness of Roy Dunn in the legislature last week was a poor exhibition of leadership. Criticising citizens for listening or taking notes of the house snow is not a crime. Better calm down, Roy, or they’ll be calling you the Mark Hanna of Minnesota. If the legislature has any dirty linen to wash, do it after the children are in bed.
---
  Some folks are not saying much, but they are doing a mighty lot of thinking over the religious trials in Hungary. Every high churchman in that country has confessed that he was a common crook. The average layman wonders why there was not one of them that had the stamina to stand out and shout the truth to the world. They not only damn themselves but the different creeds they represent.
---
  Look for attempted changes in liquor conditions in the smaller towns. To be consistent the house members who voted against the state dispensary bill will come home and take the municipal saloons out of the picture. It the state can’t be trusted, why trust a village? Main reason why they won’t even try is there are no Lawrence Halls in the villages.
---
  In its wisdom last week, the village council appointed the Roamer a justice of the peace. Thanks, gentlemen, but we’ve had ours. We were justice for twelve years at a stretch, back in the real early days and did a lot of marrying and sentencing, which is almost the same thing. But one day a villain came to town: he was a blacksmith and about as hard as his horseshoes. After he had been here about six months he rushed into the post office out of breath, threw a dollar bill on the stamp window and said, “I just slapped heck out of a guy, here’s my fine.” We would not take the fine and boy he got real wrathy and left after foreboding dark things about what would happen. The injured party came in that same forenoon, asking for a warrant, which he got. All he had said to the blacksmith was to ask him for a board bill. The culprit was arrested and we fined him fifteen bucks and the costs. He was real mad then and wrote the Post Office dept. In a few days we received a letter from Washington, D.C. curtly asking us whether we wanted to be postmaster or justice? We sent our judicial robes, law books and blanks to the powers that be and a copy of our resignation as law giver to the dept. at Washington and as long as we were postmaster we took no part in politics.
========================

March 24, 1949

  Right now this section is in a somewhat pessimistic mood. No one looks for a depression but folks today ain’t talking so big as they did several years ago. Looks as if the honeymoon is over and they are doing just a little more thinking.
---
  A man never knows how much nerve he has until he gets a toothache.
---
  A hundred and seventy off years have brought many changes to the world. Then, this country was the most important colony of Great Britain; today Great Britain is our most important European colony. This little isle is going to be our European outpost and our biggest army base. It will be a big saving to us in money, men and material as we will be closer to our enemies.
---
  One of the most important changes in villages and townships that is on the way is the abolishment of assessors. Personal property tax payers can just as well list their property and mail it to the county assessor. Uncle Sam uses this method in the collection of the income tax and from the looks of things it works out pretty well.
---
  One of the newspaper boys writes that he “...would be willing to increase the postage on his newspaper when members of congress buy their own stamps.” Poor argument. Every class of postal matter should pay its own way. Some of the newspaper men who object to an increase are the same guys that have been berating the administration for granting subsidies on potatoes and other commodities.
---
  Great Britain is experimenting with universal medical treatment. The plan may not be practical on account of its cost but to our mind it is one of the foremost measures ever presented by any government. A healthy nation means cleaner minds as well as a happier one. After all, the most important thing in life is good health.
---
  President Truman has one outstanding virtue. He stands by his personal friends with a loyalty that you could do well to emulate. He may be wrong in picking his friends, but folks say the same thing about you.
---
  The wide, wide world honored a well known Scotsman last week. His name was St. Patrick who was born at Dumbarton and his good works and deeds left him eternal praise. In the little town of Ayr, about fifty miles from Dumbarton another famous Scotsman was born. His name was Robert Burns. All over the civilised world celebrations are held in their honor every year.
---
  Our sympathy goes out to Mrs. Sullivan of Boston, Mass., who was arrested for concealing her 12 year old illegitimate son since birth. What a price she has paid for her sin: she’s more to be pitied than censured. Already she’s been ten years in grief and shame.
---
  We get a kick out of the American newspaper men who travel abroad and give their impressions. They generally report that the people are pessimistic. Who wouldn’t be? If the steak-fed boys had been compelled to live on a half a pound of meat and the picture of an egg a week, wear the same pair of pants day in and day out for months with his nights lit up with ten watt bulbs, we doubt if his heart would be filled with gladness and optimism.
---
  Conductor Mitropoulos has bid farewell to the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra which he has conducted for several years. To our untutored untrained and uncultured mind his going means little, but for the folks who got their ecstasies, thrills, and emotions out of his classical music his going means a distinct loss to this section. When it comes to real thrills, however, you should have heard the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders bagpipe band as it swept up old Port street in Stirling at the head of the regiment. Twelve pipers and three drums made up the band. With their kilts aflashing, their unique sporrans dancing up and down, the pipes askirling, their tall bonnets anoddin’, the gay ribbons on the pipes asparkling and the throb of the huge drum got every butterfly in the pit of one’s tummy a wiggling and tumbling like a Hula dancer: to us in our kid days, that was “the” thrill. These days, our plebeian taste leans to the Bohemian band at WNAX and others of that ilk. They have a lilt , a snap and a swing that brings back to the old folks memories of the days when their blood ran just a little faster than it does now.
========================

March 31, 1949

  The lower house of the Minnesota legislature voted to add ten new members to that body last week: they talk long and loud about pruning every appropriation with the right hand and then add ten new members with the left hand. They must be ambidextrous.
---
  Anyway, the state of Minnesota needs ten new members about as much as it needs another trotting horse atop of the capitol. Ninety per cent of the voters believe that the lower house is too large the way it is and that it should be cut at least sixty per cent: we would get better legislation at a lower cost and in a darned sight less time.
---
  This Toni hair wave that is spreading all over the country brings a lot of headaches to the beauty parlor operators. They claim that when the fad is over it will take months to restore the hair to its former luster and beauty: that may all be, but when it comes to telling a woman what to do with her hair, the best time is: well, don’t do it.
---
  Balaton is without a doctor now. He is moving over to the Tyler clinic. The army and navy makes too large an inroad into civilian doctors. The two branches should make its own medical men and let us have some in the rural districts. We’ll need ‘em all when we get socialized medical care.
---
  Many farmers think they are not getting a square deal when their commodities take a slump. Not that they did not expect it, but they thought that other lines would decline in price to sort of even things up. They are absolutely right in their contentions. In what other line of business has the decline been as much as in farm products.
---
  Murray county is quite a good sized corporation. Its value is close to $50,000,000. In charge of the corporation are five men charged with the responsibility of handling all its affairs. The salary of each member of the board is $780 a year, a total of $3,900 to handle the corporation: there’s one bunch of men that you can’t say are overpaid.
---
  A large share of our taxes comes from the vast iron ore deposits in northern Minnesota. They have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. How to the states of Iowa, North and South Dakota and Nebraska ever manage to get along without iron mines to pay their taxes? Yet they get along and some of them even have higher accredited school systems than we have: maybe a little Hoover commission could earn its board here in a two-year survey.
---
  It is not legal to spear fish in Minnesota until May 15th. Some folks object, saying they “would like to get a mess of rough fish.” They had a chance during the winter months. The best time to take rough fish is in the early summer when the carp take to the sloughs to spawn. Game fish spawn earlier and they are the species that every fisherman and the game and fish department are trying to save from the spearer.
---
  Every hog, critter and chicken that goes to a county fair must be vaccinated, tested and re-tested before they are allowed to get on the grounds. Yet five hundred boys and girls are thrown together during the same fair with nary a test. Odd, isn’t it?
---
  The farmers in Murray county have never been as sincerely interested in the control of noxious weeds as they are today. Ninety-five per cent of them are doing their best to destroy the weeds that have slowly been depreciating land prices and crop yields. Nearly $500,000 was spent by the farmers of Murray county last year on weed eradication. This growing interest taken means a more strict enforcement of the weed laws. No doubt there will be laggards, but with force behind the movement it is going to pretty tough on those who willfully neglect to do their share.
---
  Ramsey county received bids for asphalt and other blacktop ingredients last week, and in every case prices took a drop: not a big one, but enough to show the trend.
---
  Sportsmen all over Minnesota are anxious to increase the price of game and fish licenses but a peanut bunch of resort owners are fighting, because they think it will scare away the tourists. If things keep going the way they are, the time may come that hunting and fishing in Minnesota will be restricted to Minnesota sportsmen only.
========================

April 7, 1949

  Notice that the government has decided to continue the “Indian” school at Pipestone. This is the same government that is trying to abolish “White” schools in the south. “Consistency, Thou Are A Jewel.”
---
  The revered title of “Mother” got an awful slam when that Milwaukee mother pled for the young fellow who brutally murdered her youngest daughter. Looks as if the whole darned family was in love with the young guy.
---
  One of the really important things that has been overlooked in our public and Sunday schools is the teaching of anti-communism. Over in Russia the school children start getting “Communism” pounded into them when they are six years old, and every year thereafter they hear of the good that Communism is doing for the world. Over here our kids flit from grade to grade and when they arrive at college age know ten times more about basketball and football scores than they do about Communism. Some of them naturally fall easy victims to some loudmouthed by clever idealist and they get ideas which are hard to get rid of. Anti-communism should be taught in every grade in school. If they don’t the kids will grow up as dumb as we are about it. “As the Twig is Bent so the Tree Will Grow.”
---
  Edgerton, eleven hundred strong, paid tribute to Dr. De Boer and his good wife last week. And so they should; anyone who has followed the medical profession for forty years is entitled to a word of praise when he is alive. No sense to put on Doc’s tombstone, “Here lies a country doctor who spent his life for the betterment of humanity in his own community.” If each of the boys and girls that he brought into this world had brought just one rose, Doc would have had fresh roses for the next ten years.
---
  Up at Hendricks last week, a young fellow gazed on the wine a little too long and the marshall started to take him to jail. The brother of the young fellow heard what was going on and put on a brother act, which proved to be more sentimental than financial in value. He pried his brother from the arms of the law. Next morning the sheriff came and took them both before the village justice who promptly fined the boys a total of $146 in fines and costs: here’s a justice that should be on the supreme bench.
---
  Every newspaper man learns a lot of the quirks in human nature as he trudges along the pathway of life. About the first jolt he gets, and he gets it early, is when he happens to drop a line or two of favorable comment on a subscriber, or it could be his wife, son or daughter. In the next day or two some individual, or it might be a woman, sidles up to you and in a husky whisper mutters, “You sure spread it on so and so in your last issue.” Others come in and add to No. 1, only their talk lapses into the same strain as that used on rare occasions by presidents. They make the young editor feel uncomfortable. But when the editor says something nice about them or their’n, it’s just as acceptable as manna from Heaven and the down-trodden editor is not only a leader in his community but one of the best in his profession: ain’t it the Gospel Truth.
---
  Several farmers tell us that they believe the abolishment of the township assessor would be saving about $300 to the township and result in a more equitable and intelligent assessment.
---
  Now comes another mutt from Minneapolis suggesting that the members of the legislature, that is the lower house, be elected for four years instead of two. Which would mean that the people would have to wait four years to make a change: nuts to that idea.
---
  Isn’t it about time for the bakers and ice cream manufacturers to start reading the daily papers? Wheat went up to over $3 and bread went up to 18 cents a pound. Butter fat went up to a $1.00 and ice cream crawled, no that’s the wrong word, jumped to 80 cents a quart. Last week the government bought 25,000 pounds of butter in Minnesota at 59 cents but ice cream still remains the same. Quiz programs on a nearby radio station have not been able to discover why bread does not go down. That would be a sixty-four dollar question on that particular program. Their zippers seem to be only one-way zippers.
---
  If you study the workings of the present legislature you can see here and there the fine Italian handiwork o Lawrence Hall, former speaker of the house and now head counsel of the liquor interests.
========================

April 14, 1949

  Murray county farmers have the top spot in the state for the wonderful fight they made last year against weeds and insects: it’s too bad we can’t get some kind of a DDT that would remove the noxious thoughts from the human mind.
---
  A lot of fuss has been kicked up in New York lately about telephone wire tapping. Out here, wire tapping is as old as the telephone. Make a call on the rural lines out of Lake Wilson and you hear the click, click of many rubbering neighbors and they generally get there before the party you call. Worst feature about it is that the most severe critics of the phone service are the ones that are always sitting on the line. A telephone service man tells of going into a house and found the lady with the receiver fastened to the rocking chair on which she rocked to and fro while she was knitting: she did not want to miss anything. Remember, no operator can give you good service when all the receivers are off the hook.
---
  Looks like Fulda will be one of the “must” spots when it comes to baseball this summer. The town has hired a colored pitcher who was formerly a relief man for Old Satch Page, peer of them all. Last year this pitcher had a team of his own. Fulda is advertising for bids for a new grandstand: they’ll need it, if this bird is half as good as advertised.
---
  Notice that the legislature is adding over 600 miles to our present highway system. What’s the sense in that? The department has been unable to do work for the last ten years on sections of the original system which was authorized by a vote of the people. What do these birds up there feed on? They seem to be working the slogan, “The people be d----” just a little too often.
---
  Minnesota railroads have a bill in the legislature that provides that when the receipts of a railroad station sags, the station can be closed. They want to close every station in the state whose receipts are less than $3,000 a month for three successive months. If you are interested in keeping a depot in Lake Wilson and a telegrapher as well, write your senator or representative at St. Paul. We’re telling you this, but we know that you won’t do it: this another one you’ll let George do.
---
  There are some farmers in this vicinity that are not subsidy minded and naturally they shy at the new farm plan presented last week. They are unable after studying it, to determine whether it will make surpluses or will curtail crops to the danger points in bad years.
---
  The Minnesota lower house passed a bill last week which would require all lobbyists to register. The bill also provides that members of the house and senate who are retained by any concern interested in present legislation, to make a statement as to their business connections. The bill passed the house without a dissenting vote: bet you a nickel’s worth of ginger snaps against a baby grand that it does not pass the senate.
---
  Gov. Youngdahl’s plan for the improvement of mental hospitals went through the house on the dead run. Of course there was no appropriation made, but they’d better be. If a holocaust like the one that swept through the Illinois hospital hits one of ours in their over-crowded conditions, the state will not be slow to point their fingers at those members who thought more of trading votes for their pet measures than they did of God’s unfortunates.
---
  See where a justice of the peace fined two fishermen $105 apiece for taking fish illegally: a man could have beat his mother-in-law to a pulp and got off with a lower fine.
---
  Fat, a main factor in the last war, is now going abegging. Radio commentators who filled the air years ago, pleading with the women folks to save fat as it was urgently needed, are still. The local merchants don’t want your fat, neither does the processor who is trying to get rid of his stock at a cent the pound. This apathy in the used fat market would indicate that some of the powers that be are not anticipating an early conflict.
---
  Our new colonies in Europe were prompt in asking for weapons of war to defend themselves against aggression, and the U.S. will have to send war material of all kinds. We are not going into this deal from a humanitarian view point. Europe is our first line of defense against Russia and as long as they are willing to do the fighting we should see that they get the weapons to fight with.
========================

April 21, 1949

  A well known economist asked last week, “Should workers be invited in when the profit melon is cut.” They certainly should: providing they are asked in when there is no melon.
---
  Minnesota has had a lot of unfavorable comment for years on account of our winters. We’ll admit that some of them are cold, but we’d rather live here than be shook to death in Oregon and Washington, chilled to the bone in California, blown away in a Florida hurricane or cycloned upward in Texas. We have our shortcomings here, but did you notice that a hundred times more Minnesota folks are able to go south, than one resident from the so-called lands of your dreams is able to come to God’s country.
---
  A well known doctor told a bunch of nurses that the first thing they should learn to do, is to look cheerful. Lots of truth in that. Friends of ours who have been hospitalized say that a nurse with a smile, a little personality, and some charm brings more sunshine and health into the sick room than all the hard boiled, short tempered, intellectual nurses you could lock up in an operating room, and what is true in the nursing profession is true in everyday life: remember frowns bring more wrinkles to the face than smiles.
---
  In the recent Minnesota Poll, some voters were frank enough to say that they were “In favor of the soldiers’ bonus, if it does not raise my taxes.” That’s the way with all of us. We want better schools, better streets and roads, more improvements, etc., providing our taxes are not raised. Don’t make any difference what it is, just look at the price of any commodity, whether it’s labor or coal, and you’ll find that your taxes have not been raised in proportion.
---
  See where another Roosevelt marriage is on the rocks. This family has certainly been unfortunate when it comes to the picking of life mates. One thing we should not overlook, the parents are not the blame for the actions of their children any more than the children for the parents who brought them into this world. Just why Franklin D., Jr. gave up his bitter half is a mystery, as she is a Du Pont and filthy with money: she must have had both B.O. and halitosis.
---
  (Last week, errors did not creep into this column--they galloped in and some were ludicrous.)
---
  Roy Dunn, leader of the conservatives in the Minnesota legislature, seems to have gone all out for the wets this session. His recent move was to force his county, which is dry via county option, to allow villages from a population of 125 to vote on the liquor question by a special law.
---
  The legislature is running true to form. All the big bills are held to the last minute and the smart boys get the things they want.
---
  When steel drops in price one can really look for a downward trend in the market--steel is the real heart of industry.
---
  Farmers are having a hard time dissecting the new Brannan Farm Bill. To us it is simple. The government puts the price of eggs, say, at 30 cents a dozen. The farmer takes his eggs to the produce market. He gets a slip stating the amount received and the date, etc. He sends in the slip on the eggs he sold below the set price and government sends him back a check for the difference. What’s holding it up is, “Will it cost more than the present subsidies?”
---
  The village of Tyler is wrestling with sewage. That every home and business place in that town will be paying a tax is assured. The people in Lake Wilson have never paid a sewage tax. Neighboring villages have a sewage tax and in a number of villages you are compelled to construct your own septic tank. This sewage tax in the village is put in a separate fund to be used some day for a sewage disposal plant.
---
  Fishermen in this section owe a vote of thanks to the Balaton Sportsmen’s club. We notice that they are going to stock Current Lake with fish this year.
========================

April 28, 1949

  The pettiness and impudence of a group of the English Protestants who have petitioned the government to forbid Princess Margaret to visit the Pope is indeed childish in this age. Jesus Christ taught love and tolerance--this group of preachers have replaced this teaching with the words Intolerance and Hate.
---
  An effort is being made here to organize a troop of Boy Scouts. Hope the effort succeeds. This organization creates in the youngsters a love for the outdoors and conservation.
---
  The housing situation must be easing up in southwestern Minnesota. Up to this time last year the village council of Slayton had issued 28 building permits. Up to date only two have been issued. the Tracy Headlight said last week, “The acute need for housing seems to be at an end.”
---
  A 17-year old Indian lad shot and killed his mother because she would not let him take the auto. He is a product of our so-called modern civilization. There’s hardly a home in the United States that is not full of toy pistols, revolvers and tommy guns. “As you sow, so shall ye reap.”
---
  Every once in a while you’ll hear someone say that they had fished in a lake that had no bottom. Don’t you believe it. The deepest lake in Minnesota is only 210 feet deep. Speaking of Minnesota history, how many Minnesotans know that the mighty St. Lawrence river rises in Minnesota. This river which is 1,900 miles long starts in the St. Louis river in Minnesota.
---
  Technically farmers have done a lot in recent years in developing a strain of livestock, oats, barley and corn. Wish they would turn their attention to fish and cross the walleyed pike with the carp: what a fine hunk of good eating fish they would be and how they would add to the fisherman’s pleasure.
---
  Lincoln county expended $20,000 in snow removal last winter and at the last meeting of the county board, it made application to the Board of Investment to borrow $20,000 to construct two and a half miles of much needed road. The cost of snow removal has been creeping up and it means quite an addition to the taxes. In spite of the tax arguments isn’t this still the best country on earth.
---
  U.S. Senators in Washington “discovered” last week that slum conditions equal to that in Europe exists within four blocks of the capitol. Charity should begin at home and we should wipe out these unfortunate conditions in the U.S. before sending billions abroad to people that are not as much in need as we are at home.
---
  The actions of the late Minnesota legislature ran true to form. It has always been thus. The wise boys in senate and house have always made it a practice to hold the important measures where they could handle them. They found out years ago that it was the best plan. Everything is in a turmoil during the dying days of the session and a few men from both houses decide what important bills should become laws, while the rank and file twiddle their thumbs.
---
  Wonder if Roy Dunn and his playmate Lawrence Hall, during the last days of the session, ever though how that ten million dollars the state would have received from the dispensary bill would have saved the last three days’ expense.
---
  See where the Pipestone Legionnaires are giving a “Hard Times” dance. In the early days here, one needed no “make-up” to qualify. Like everything else, “Hard Times” dances were a stern reality. We can remember walking to Johnny Mihin’s log house one night to attend a dance. The fiddler, who sat on an upended rain barrel, was a versatile cuss. He chawed tobacco, called off, spit and played the fiddle all at the same time. There only three ladies at the dance, and for some reason we were in the right place at the right time. We were unanimously elected fourth lady. Four ladies were necessary, as nearly every dance was a square dance. A red handkerchief was tied around our arm to distinguish us from the other males. The tickets were 25 cents. Ladies did not have to buy tickets. We were Scotch, which perhaps accounted for us taking up the role of a female. The men danced with more vigor than grace in those days and we were mauled and manhandled. Often wondered why they tied a hanky around our arm, but remember we were younger, slimmer and almost as timid as we are today.
========================

May 5, 1949

  Nearly every village in the state will be interested in a law suit that was decided at Redwood Falls last week. A Lamberton man was sold liquor in the Lamberton municipal store after he had had too much. He staggered out into the street, a car knocked him down and killed him. The widow brought suit against the village of Lamberton and a jury in district court gave her $3,000 damages because the village of Lamberton sold her man liquor when he was intoxicated.
---
  See where a couple of kids got mad at their teacher and started gunning for him. They could not find the prof so they shot his wife instead. The way the young generation is soaking up this toy pistol, tommy gun fad would indicate that this country won’t want for sharpshooters in the wars to come.
---
  A Texas woman, wife of an American soldier in Berlin, gave a striking example of Texas justice last week. She suspected that a Berlin maiden was stealing the affections of her husband so she took her maid and proceeded to the suspect’s home. They cut the girl’s hair, then stripped her and saturated her with a house cleaning disinfectant. After her lust for revenge had been satiated she beat it for Holland and boarded a ship for the good old U.S.A. The moral, heck there ain’t no moral to it: only it proves that women really know who is to blame when men go wrong.
---
  After violating the spirit of the law for over a hundred hours the legislature finally adjourned. That body can laugh at the law, but when a taxpayer is ten minutes late with his taxes, he pays a penalty. But the legislature didn’t, they raised their salaries.
---
  Congratulations to President Truman on the fine work he is doing towards the unification of the armed forces. The fight does not come out in the open like a bill in congress, but the scrap is there. Changing the views of admirals and generals is a hard thing to do and the president is doing it the hard way and getting results.
---
  Gov. Youngdahl came out of the recent session far better than was expected. His main ambition was to do something for the mentally afflicted and with the aid of the legislature, Minnesota has a program now for the care of the afflicted that is a credit to both the executive and legislative departments.
---
  Garden seeds have doubled in price but tradesmen say the packages contain more seeds. T’would be fine if the label would not only indicate just how many feet the seed in the package would plant. Now the poor gardener either sows them too thick or too thin.
---
  Leaders of the last session of the legislature were Jerry Mullins in the senate and Ed. Chilgren in the house. Jerry, a democrat, did more for the governor’s program than any other senator. He stood by it when the going was tough. Ed. in the house headed the minority or liberal group in a practical way: there was none of the flag waving, business baiting as there has been in the past. The liberals were shrewd and alert: the O’Malleys were kept under wraps. A change noted in the house was the switch of the liquor interest when the republican party under the leadership of Roy Dunn took over the leadership for the wets. First time we can remember in the state when a national committee of any party ever took up the banner for booze as Roy Dunn did in the last session.
---
  Back in the early ‘80’s one of the favorite hymns was “God Be With You Till We Meet Again.” Services were few and far between those days. There were no churches and services were held in the homes of the small schoolhouses. Itinerant preachers or sometimes a local “Elder” was in charge. Nearly every creed attended three meetings and there was a lot of newcomers that knew but little of the language, but they went not only for religious stimulant they sorely needed, but for the social side as well. They sang this old hymn at the close of each service and while they were not always in tune with voice they were in spirit, and they sang with a feeling of reverence that brought them a little closer to God and to their neighbors. You hardly ever hear this hymn any more, with its pledge of hope, faith and friendship. But the memory of “God Be With You Till We Meet Again” can never be forgotten by the early day settlers.
========================

May 12, 1949

  The Chiang Kai-Sheks certainly made a mess of things in China. Millions of dollars has been poured into that country, not only by the government of the U.S. but in private contributions. If it had gone to the Chinese people the U.S. would not feel so badly about it, but most of it went into the coffers of the wealthy Chinese. American weapons of war were taken by so-called led Nationalists, who sold them in turn to Reds. The loss of China is a terrible one to the many religious groups that have sent untold sums for the propagation of their faith in that unfortunate country: all is lost now. Chiang will soon be heading for the U.S. to live on his ill-gotten gains.
---
  The U.S. senate has just passed a measure giving the states $3,000,000,000 in school aid. Minnesota’s share will be $3,000,000. Minnesota needs $100,000,000 to get her schools in shape. There is no place in Minnesota, except the ghost towns of the iron range, that has enough room for its pupils today. The new trend is to give the country kids a better opportunity for education. To do this, they must be sent to better schools. Some folks are against it. There is always a group against progress, some honest and sincere and others not so sincere. We lived here when some folks fought a four month term of school, saying it was “too much.” This county is traversed by a network of fine graveled roads. They cost $200 a mile to maintain and the trend today is to use these fine roads to get the kids to larger and better equipped schools. The germ is working and some day you will see three high schools in Murray county, one at Fulda, one at Slayton and the other at Lake Wilson. IN the north the kids will go to Balaton, Ruthton and Tracy. In the west some to Edgerton and Pipestone. Well equipped modern schools will be maintained at these places, giving the students a variety of subjects that they are unable to get now. Years ago we can remember when road bosses sought to stop the use of autos by making culverts so high that autos would be damaged and so kill the craving for cars, but they could not stop it any more than you can stop this movement towards giving the country kids a better education. The Roamer may not live to see the day, but some of you will.
---
  This column is not a hundred per cent perfect: neither are you.
---
  Now that things are cleared up in Berlin we wonder if the guy who lives across the track in Slayton will abstain from calling his better half “The Gold War.”
---
  Henry Wallace is doing a lot of good with his talks throughout the country. He is helping arouse the people against Communism: a movement that is in need of little stimulant.
---
  Can’t see why labor is against the Taft-Hartley labor law. It does not seem to keep the union men from striking and getting raises in pay, and in the final analysis that is the main goal of labor unions.
---
  Irked because her husband beat her and refused to give her any money, a Wisconsin woman took an axe and with three deft strokes severed the husbands head from the body as he lay asleep. This dame was no low brow or moron, but was a college graduate. So boys if your wife knows more than you do, better hide that axe or put something in the pot.
---
  Ingrid Bergman, former beloved and honored start of the screen, has been dragging herself through a muddy scandal in Italy of late. The odor became so strong that her husband flew over there to see if all the stories were true. They were, in part. We were all disgusted when Fatty Arbuckle disgraced himself. Of course he was a man and you can expect anything from a man. it’s different with Bergman. She has held the role in many a semi-religious picture and had endeared herself to the whole nation and the story from Italy brings chagrin to her adopted country. Wasn’t it Kipling that wrote, “For a woman is only a woman, and a good cigar is a smoke”?
---
  Two of those pestiferous magazine salesmen were arrested in Wisconsin last week for assaulting two young girls. Of late, this section has been infested with both these male and female harpies that are always needing just a few more points to win a scholarship in some unknown college. They should all be booted out of the state. If we want to help, let’s aid Minnesota boys and girls to get an education before we dip into Texas, Kansas or Oklahoma.
========================

May 19, 1949

  Why all this fuss about Communist Eisler? We’ve been trying to get rid of him and his kind for years. He left of his own free will and left Uncle Sam with a $23,000 bond forfeit. Looks like a pretty good deal for the United States.
---
  School consolidation must be “catching” in Lincoln county. Another district will vote this week to join up with the Tyler district. Up to date seven adjoining districts have voted to belong to the Tyler school district: looks as if there must be some merit in the new school re-organization plan.
---
  A feminine reader of this column hands us the following bits of wisdom. “Satan finds mischief still, for idle hands to do,” and “An idle brain is the devil’s workshop.” The lady says these little bits of wisdom are just as applicable today as they were fifty years ago.
---
  This section of the state is not given to intolerance when it comes to the color line: Slayton, Fulda and Pipestone have negro pitchers for this season.
---
  See where a practical nurse in Minneapolis shot a man four times, then clubbed him over the head with a beer bottle. The authorities put her in jail for the time being. In the same paper was an announcement stating that the Marine corps was in need of female recruits: this gal seems to have the proper “esprit de corps.”
---
  Gov. Youngdahl is to lay the corner stone for a new hospital at Baudette on May 22nd. Murray county folks are hoping that he will soon be down here on a like errand.
---
  Senator Langer of North Dakota has introduced a bill that would stop interstate shipments of magazines and newspapers from carrying alcohol beverage advertising: there will be a lot of white pages in the national magazines if this bill ever becomes a law.
---
  Folks who are on a diet might be helped by this little bit of information. There are more calories in a pound of bacon than there is in a pound of each of the following foods combined: beets, cabbage, oranges, tomatoes, fish, eggs, lamb, and sweet milk and cream. The combined totals of calories in the above foods is 2,793. Bacon contains 2,840 calories to the pound: better go slow on the bacon, Priscilla.
---
  One of the problems that confronts a small town newspaper is how to increase its circulation. There is only a small area in which a small town newspaper can function. It lacks the background of a county seat newspaper with its court house, always a number one spot for county wide news, its larger population and the larger amount of advertising. The duty of a small town paper is to try and dispense the news and to bring at all times the advantages in the village to the public notice. News alone, however, would never support a small town newspaper any more than it would a large town paper or magazine. An important function of the paper is to bring prices from the merchants to its readers. These are the days when the public is price conscious as it never has been before. Some people look for the ads before they look at the news items. If a newspaper is going to survive it must have the cooperation of all: the people who read the news and the people who read the ads from the local merchants.
---
  Bob Refsel, one of the best columnists in this section of the state, has resumed his column, “Short Takes,” in the Murray County Herald. His column is always timely and interesting.
---
  “Bob Forrest in the Lake Wilson Pilot complains that garden seeds have doubled in price. Bob has evidently neglected to pay his 1949 personal and real estate taxes, else he would have more to say on the subject of rising costs. Keep you ear close to the ground, Bob, and you will hear more of the rising thunder.”--Jackson County Pilot.   Shh, John! The Roamer is the assessor in the village, and by some folks has been blamed for all the rise in taxes, but we never thought we reached out as far as Jackson County.
========================

May 26, 1949

  Iona is one town that has gone back--back to the community spirit that was a real virtue of the small town of fifty years ago. They, the citizens, have performed miracles. They bought a grandstand at Lake Shetek, tore it down and rebuilt it in Iona; they scoured the country for steel windmill towers for the electric lights; and they fixed up a first class baseball diamond. And the work was donated by the Iona folks, not in the spirit of charity but in the pride and loyalty they had in their home town. Iona may not top their baseball league this season, but it will top any town in this section of the state when it comes to whole-hearted community baseball spirit.
---
  Our government for over a hundred years has taught thousands of our bright young men at Annapolis and West Point how to kill human beings. If a government can raise and educate youngsters to slay, why can it not install colleges so that more human lives could be saved. Give the medical students the same advantages that the future captains are receiving and there will be no trouble in filling the classes. There is and will be a shortage of medical men for some time and the federal government should get busy. On of those “pork barrel” river dam projects would go a long way in starting federal medical schools: but what is human life in comparison with an engineering project.
---
  About the best money the good folks in the U.S. has expended in the last forty years are the funds that the various churches have poured into China. The missionaries with their churches and schools have saturated China with Christianity and no matter how many Reds may trample over China, it will still remain a Christian nation. The movement in China has been purely voluntary and the money these good folks have expended in that land will bring rich harvests in the years to come. When you contemplate China, one comes to the conclusion that a dollar spent the Christian way is worth a hundred of those spent by various government ways. The government dollar evidently has gone into pockets that were well filled before, while the Christian dollar gave faith, hope and a better understanding of life to millions.
---
  All this talk down at Washington about raising the taxes four billion dollars next fall just don’t strike a responsive ear out here in the sticks: wonder how many of you have written your senators or congressman about it?
---
  Funny how we can get along without what we think are the really important things in life: there has been no bus service here for two weeks on account of the strike, yet no one complains.
---
  When you attend a baseball game remember you do it at your own risk. A Michigan woman attended a hockey game one day last winter and one of the players hit a glancing blow at the puck. It flew up in the stands, hit the female in the mouth, knocking out two front teeth. (It must have been before Christmas.) She sued the management for $600 for damages to the front of her face and dignity. The district court judge said curtly, “No cause for action,” and dismissed the case: better keep your eye on the ball this summer.
---
  Come July 1st, a state tax of one cent a gallon will be added to gas: best way to beat it is to stay home some Sunday from some trip that is not actually necessary.
---
  The doctors in the east have changed their ethics on advertising and they can now have signs and carry ads in newspapers: for a real snappy and brief sign why not have “Body Shop?”
---
  Central Minnesota has a right to feel proud these days: one of its sons, Capt. Gallagher, was honored by his home town of Melrose last week for being the first air pilot to make a non-stop round the world flight. A youngster, Donald Olson of Dawson, started a trip around the world Saturday. Donald is a carrier for the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune and instead of delivering Sunday’s issue to the Dawson folks is delivering them to the heads of governments and what few crowned heads there are left.
========================

June 2, 1949

  One of the eternal problems that comes up for discussion is the “Freedom of the Press.” Editors have a good deal more freedom than they ever use. When the press is shackled, it is not curbed by evil force as much as it is by the big advertisers.
---
  Over in Wisconsin the senate passed a law that would bar “dry” counties from sharing in the state liquor taxes: evidently the senators believed that if those dry folks don’t like the taste, why bother them with the odor.
---
  A doctor was convicted last week for killing a man that seduced his wife. Why kill the man and not the woman? She was the one that promised to be true to him: few men ever seduce anybody without some little encouragement. Poor man, he always pays: that’s why there are so many more women than men.
---
  Of course you won’t believe this one, but a guy told us last week that he drove into a farmer’s yard. His car ran pretty smoothly, making but little noise. Finally he blew his horn sharply and his friend jumped two feet into the air: he was trying to make a connection between a big gas tank and little one in the rear of his car.
---
  Three of the county commissioners in Meeker county have pled guilty to taking bribes in the purchase of motorized road machinery. The salesman who coaxes them into taking $100 bills turned state’s evidence. The men who took the bribes should pay the penalty and also return to the county the money they received from the salesman, who should get twice as heavy a penalty as the commissioners.
---
  President Truman is slowly but surely doing something that many a president has tried, but lacked intestinal fortitude, and that is the unification of the armed forces. In recent wars there as always been a division of forces. In the Pacific there were Navy Shows or an Army Show. Mr. Truman is going to make one Big Show out of the Army, Navy, Marines and the Air Force.
---
  Can’t see how socialized medicine can fail to pass congress: senators and congressmen alike enjoy its benefits while they are in Washington.
---
  From all appearances Murray county is going to have its best ball season in years as well as the most acrimonious for some time.
---
  Fifty-one years ago the Roamer got a call from the late Capt. Gilmore of Pipestone saying that he was leaving Pipestone for St. Paul the following morning with the company he had recruited for the Spanish-American war. He wanted us to get word to one of his recruits at once. We saddled the pony and rode out and notified the young man and he got up early and got to Ruthton in time to catch the train. That same man rode in the band wagon in the Memorial Day parade here Monday: his name is Theodore Ziemann. His brother went with the folks to Ruthton to see him off and when the train pulled in his brother Gus got interested and asked, “Is there room for another?” Cap said, “Hop on.” Gus was not in the parade Monday as he could not find his old blue suit and he was disgusted.
---
  See where the government is going to give the farmers 12 cents a bushel for storing their grain this year, as that amount of storage room is not available. It will mean that many a granary will have to be built and the people interested in housing are not looking with a lot of favor on the project.
---
  While in another town the other day we put the question to six high school students, “What is Communism?” Not one of them could even give an idea. They just didn’t know. They knew all about history, geography, Latin, algebra and physics but nothing about the greatest evil that threatens the welfare of the nation. They knew all about the birds and bees, but about Communism, nothing.
========================

June 9, 1949

  Next Wednesday is Father’s Day, boys and girls. You may think he’s cranky and stern at times, but remember he’s still your father and while you are a little dubious about his knowledge of the world he didn’t so bad by you. When Wednesday rolls around, you boys remember him with a little gift; if you can’t find one drop him a card: we know the girls will.
---
  See where a disparaging, maligning and just plain ornery mother-in-law was thrown out in the street. It was raining at the time and the old gal’s dignity besides being hurt was also soaking wet. She had the lad arrested and he was fined $25.00: bet it was worth more than that.
---
  The members of the local band are mighty grateful to Leslie Oberg. He polished up his swell new truck, put some seats in it and drove the band to the lake and then to the cemetery and the schoolhouse on Memorial Day. Pretty good type of citizen is Leslie Oberg.
---
  The small grain crop is not going to be a bumper one in this locality. There’s a very poor stand of oats in places and some fields have been plowed under. Some blame the weather but a young farmer said the other day, “Next year I’m going to test the seed before it goes into the ground.”
---
  Eisler got to Poland at last, thank the Lord: what this country needs is more stowaways.
---
  A good name for the perjury trial being staged now in New York would be, “The Chamber of Hisses.”
---
  This is for the dieters--medical authorities and beauty specialists assert that exercises will not cut out the suet and that if you want to slim, stop eating. Yet jockeys have often taken off a couple of pounds a day by exercise and sweating and even prize fighters in order to make the proper weight have lost five pounds in two days through extensive exercise: these authorities should get together sometime.
---
  Years ago this section depended solely on the wheat crop for its living. It was the main crop. Everybody raised wheat until three quarters of the growers went broke. Last year not one bushel of wheat was handled by the two Lake Wilson elevators. Intelligent and intensified farming has put wheat in the discard.
---
  Two more negroes were added to the roster of the Minneapolis baseball club last week. If this sort of stuff keeps on growing, white baseball players will soon be demanding a Civil Rights Bill.
---
  The laws that were passed by the legislature are now free to you, if you have the time, patience and stamina to wade through seventy pages of eight columns to the page filled with closely set type. The whole thing is ridiculous. The next legislature should get a good newspaper write-up man and a lawyer with the gift of brevity, condense and rewrite the new laws, cut out the whereases and the rest of the crap and boil them down into common sense language so that everyone can read and understand them. No one will ever read them as they are: not even the senators or members.
---
  The Star-Tribune of Minneapolis has been holding open house for the past two weeks in honor of its new home. The Sunday Tribune is a big paper and Minneapolis is a big city; both are really bigger than we who have grown with them can appreciate. Take the Tribune, for instance: the Sunday issue is tops in the Midwest and is read by over three million people, and Minneapolis is one of the leading metropolitan cities in the country. Every fifth person you meet in Minnesota lives in Minneapolis. Celebrities from the industrial and sporting world were flashed on the stage as well as topnotchers on the paper’s staff. One name was missing. We failed to see the name of the man who came to the Journal when it sorely needed help. It was around the turn of the century and was in ill repute with agriculture. Rightfully or wrongfully it was dubbed the mouthpiece of the “wolves” of the grain exchange and the “jackals” of the milling industry. The northern part of the state as well as the western part were fertile recruiting grounds for the spread of the political cults that swept the state. Into the picture came a quiet political reporter. He was painstaking, honest, sincere and he won the confidence of the members of the legislature by his complete fairness and honesty. Many members would bring him their bills for advice and around the hotels, members would wait in the lobbies to see what Charley Cheney said the Mpls. Journal about their bills.
========================

June 16, 1949

  Wisconsin has chosen the sweet maple tree as its state tree: most states seem to prefer the “plum” tree.
---
  Chiang Kai-Shek stated last week that he’d either recapture Shanghai within four weeks or commit suicide: bet a nickel against a can full of cutworms that he does neither.
---
  Lured by the peace and quietness of the cemetery south of town, a mother pheasant built her nest about three weeks ago on one of the graves. She was carefully noticed by the workmen and there were sixteen eggs in the nest one day last week. One morning they failed to see mother pheasant. There were a few feathers at the nest, the eggs were still intact but down in the fence corner was the body of the mother pheasant, the victim of a mink: wild animals seem to be almost as vicious as human animals.
---
  Was laid up last week with a cold that settled in the larynx: we couldn’t speak a word. So for a change we listened, and the change was good for us. People who talked to us had the opportunity to say something without being interrupted, and they did a swell job of speaking and we did almost as well at listening. There’s a lot of folks who could stand an attack of laryngitis for a few days: they’re not all men, either.
---
  See where the doctor who slew the man that invaded his home is out on bail. We agree with Mike Oelrich on the doctor, “He should be freed.” The Roamer would also add that the wife who betrayed her husband be sent to prison for adultery: or is that a forgotten commandment and law.
---
  Taking up a collection for the widow and children of the policeman who was stricken down in the performance of his duty at Richfield is just another weakness in the American armor. All men who enter service for the protection of human lives and property should become automatically insured, up to a reasonable amount. Village councils are sometimes indifferent about insurance and in the end the taxpayers pay the bill.
---
  These are hard days for congressmen, most of them want to curtail expense, especially those who live in reclamation areas where appropriations run up in the hundreds of millions. They would like to cut them, but the dear people who do the voting urge them to get more: looks as if it’s the people who need damming, not the rivers.
---
  Just got through writing the above when the following item comes from Washington. The house voted themselves $3,000 for another clerk and $500 yearly for telephone and telegraph. Why the latter is not understandable: most of those birds don’t have anything to say anyway. This congress reminds us of a Swede friend we had years ago. He talked dry 364 days in the year but always voted wet.
---
  The state of Minnesota could well follow in the footsteps of the little state of Delaware. The legislature there passed a law providing for the payment of 2 cents on a pack of cigarettes and 1 cent on each cigar. Delaware should have gone a little farther and made the one cent tax on cigars on smokes up to ten cents in value, and increase the tax according to the sale price. A big, fat, pushy guy who smokes 50 cent cigars can better afford to kick in a dime than the man in overalls can 2 cents on his coffin nails.
---
  Did you notice that the same group of politicians that praised Henry Wallace for killing the little pigs are now criticising Lewis for doing the same thing with the coal.
---
  Coming to Pipestone with his father the late Isaac I. Hart in the late ‘70’s who hauled the embryo Star by wagon into the new town of Pipestone, Charley Hart has been in the newspaper game. He started setting type just as soon as he could reach the type cases. Of late years he has been associated with several Midwest dailies and these papers gave him fine acknowledgment last week for his work. It was a column article and was a well merited recognition to one who has grown gray in the service.
---
  Murray county farmers continued to lead Minnesota in the fight on weeds. This season another $500,000 is being spent to eradicate these soil and pocket robbers.
========================

June 30, 1949

  Cedric Adams, clever and voluble columnist, got clear out on the end of the limb last week when he started telling about the women who were enamored with him. Middle aged women hate to be sneered at, and anyway there’s not much use in going into love affairs at that age. Our observations of sixty years tell us the neighbors do a good deal better job of spreading the love lights in a man’s life than the press. The press only comes out once a day, but a scorned and snubbed woman lives forever.
---
  Those poor duck hunters: the Minnesota legislature upped the hunting license to $2.00 and last week the senate raised the price of a duck stamp to $2.00--a total of $4.00. It would not be so bad if they would give the sportsmen in Minnesota a season when they could shoot a few ducks.
---
  Editor MacIntosh of Luverne hit the nail on the head last week when he criticised the lawyers for taking retainers when they happened to get elected to the house or senate. A little Hoover commission could bring to light a lot of things in our legislature. Members who take money from the big interests to look after their affairs are not so far from the commissioners of Meeker county. Instead of taking a non-Communist oath they should be asked, “Are you taking money from any business or organization to represent them during the coming session.”
---
  We don’t know a darned thing about the merits of the Linnenthal case, but to us he looks like spitting image of what a bureaucrat would look like. If Truman can only trim down that bunch of human leeches he will go down in history as one of the best presidents in history.
---
  Fish life in Minnesota has been pretty groggy for years and every year it gets groggier. Another deadly enemy to fish life is the sea plane. These planes come from out of state, land in a lake along the boundary, start fishing and put out gill nets at night and are ready to beat it for home in the morning. One outfit hit an air pocket on their way out and two fishermen were killed. Strewn around the wreckage was a hundred and thirty illegally caught walleyed pike: the wages of sin are death.
---
  Some parents urge that all comic books be barred as they have a bad influence on the kids. Better start in with Dad. The average business man turns to the funny pages first. He seems to be more interested in the doings of Dick Tracy, Orphan Annie and Blondie than in green aphids, red spies or the atom bomb.
---
  Strikes are getting the people into a dither: the day may come when labor will drive more voters to Communism or a dictator than will big business.
---
  When you jump out of that auto of yours, take the keys with you. You agreed to that when you signed your insurance application. The supreme court of the U.S. held recently that if you leave your keys in the car you can’t collect if the car is stolen. Be wise.
---
  The Meeker county commissioners came to the end of the trial last week. One of them, over seventy years old, paid a fine of $2,000 to keep from going to jail. His worries will soon be over: the shame and the stain will not be his to carry. That load will be thrust upon his sons and daughters and his grandchildren. For generations, whenever necessary, the case will be rehashed by the neighbors. The motto, “Stop, Look and Listen” should be seen in more public places.
---
  Paul Robeson came back from Europe last week and said that he loved Russia better than he did the U.S.A. Why in h--- didn’t he stay there.
---
  This must be the reason why the price of bread is so high. A lady in this village less than two weeks ago bought a loaf of bread. It was the unsliced type. She cut off three slices, the family ate it. The bread tasted good and they wanted more. The next slice brought out something that looked like a tail: it was. The next slice entered the tomb of the mouse and there it lay, its troubles over. While the price of meat has gone down, evidently it did not go down far enough to affect the price of meat loaf.
---
  A poor old guy by the name of Engel is in jail in Chicago, accused of swindling a handful of love thirsty widows. Great moments in one’s life come high and many a woman who had enjoyed the friendship of this kindly old man will never mention it. Here’s a tip to you old guys who have thoughts of “Roaming in the Gloaming,” be a gentleman, act a gentleman and send red roses: we always raised white roses, darn it.
========================

Home

1949 Columns, January - June
---

Roaming in the Gloaming

With Bob Forrest

Things Material and Immaterial

July-December 1948 Home July-December 1949

Home

1949 Columns, January - June ---