The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1883-06-20
he-O1d-T1me

with his splendid mentality" has evil
IDENTIFY fallen in with some old .'bum,"
who, seeing in him a fit subject upon
whom to practice and n who was like
ly to swallow any kind of a stiff" has
posed before him as an old-timer and
stuffed the aforesaid f. y. G. full with the
probable object of securing the where
with on which to get "full' himself.
Whether he succeeded in this we can
not tell, but the result is shown in the
string of words in last Mondays issue.
We are inclined to be charitable, and
thereforeIwill not charge any deliberate
intention on the part of the f. VI G. to in
suit the class of men who have done
more than any other toward the settle
ment and development of Montana and
the whole northwest men whose worth
and whose value to the territory in days
gone by and at the present time the
young mans splendid mentality" is
unable either to comprehend Or do JUS
tice to. Rather let us lay it to inability,
born Of his freshness, to distinguish
between the true and the false, the real
and the counterfeit.
But in justice to the old-timers such
articles should not go uncontradicted to
be read by people in other portions Of
the Union who have no means of judg-
ing for themselves, and who, for this
reason, are likely to form a wrong opin-
ion of our people. Let us look at the
picture of the old-timer as drawn by
this young gentleman, who, until the
last two years, never set foot beyond
some committee room in Washington or
some law office in Wisconsin. The fol-
lowing extracts will suffice:
What child in Benton so ignorant as
not to recognize the bell-like clearness Of
the Old Timers profanity at a distance
Of several squares. x y X x Who
is the Old Timer? Everybody knows
him, his haunts, his companions and
his habits. But who is he? We know
that he is an uncouth old man, that he
smells of whisky oftentimes, that he
swears heartily, that his jests are some
times broad, but still we cannot class
him with the low. X X X < We all
know him and we all love him-love
him in spite of his uncouthness, his
rough amer and rough words, his
coarse garb and mahogany face, his
unique lies and appalling profanity.
A nice picture, indeed; a nice sort of
person to set before the people of the east
as a type of the old-timer of Montana
an uncouth, profane, obscene and Whis-
ky-soaked old liar, whose loud oaths and
filthy jests are to be heard on our streets
by our women folks and by the innocent
children growing up among US; and yet
n whom the f. y. g. aforesaid cannot
class among the low. II he cannot class
such a person as the one he describes
among the low, there must be, indeed,
places in the east to which he has pene-
trated and vile characters with whom he
has come in contact lower than any the
general world wots of; but let us hope
not, for we fain would not believe it. To
those who know the genuine old-timer
of Montana such a description will bring
only a smile of pity for the writer's
d~enseness. But to those who do not
hliON l1lC OIo-tl1LICl W Y WOtlo soy . =
not this description give you a wrong
i'm preston. The obscene talk and the
cultivated profanity Of some late imPor-
tations would put many an old-timer of
Montana to shame and cause him to
look with contempt on the man whose
lips uttered them. No man treads the
footstool who has a truer reverence for
~wamankind or care for innocent child
rem who may be within sound Of his
voice, nor who would more earnestly
endeavor to refrain from language which
would wound their se~nsibilities or COR
rupt their innocent minds that the old
timer of Montana. "Who is the old
timer ~ AS a rule the old-timers-men
who in days gone by had to take the law
into their own hands and administer the
primitive justice of the frontier without
fear or fayor-are now the best and most
law-abiding of our citizens, the most in
iuential and respected, and it is an hon
or to be classed among the old-timers of
Montana instead of a reproach, as would
be judged from the description given in
the extract.
We don't know who he is, save that
in early times when there were Indians
in Montana and some of those Indians
were unhappy and could only find hap
piness in taking the capillaries from off
a white mans head, the old-timer was
here. We don't know why he was here.
We don't think he knows.