Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1885-03-14
A PLUG-HAT TOWN.

The proposed organization of a plug
hat brigade in Devils Lake leads to the
philosophical conclusion that all towns
or cities are alike, but the people who
inhabit them differ. Now every town
can be a plug.hat town, or it can be a
slouch-hat town, or it can 60 barehead.
ed. We know of some towns that
wouldn't have a plug-hat brigade, but
would think themselves fortunate and
really be happy to get SLOUGH hats.
This plug-hat business simply demon
strates the fact that Devils Lake is in
habited by live, progressive, ambitious
~people-not too ambitious, but just am.
bilious enough to hold over the people
of some slouch-hat towns that we know
of.
And there are other ways of deter
mining the metal in the people of a
town. A good idea Of the extent of
their aspirations can be obtained by
visiting The mercantile institutions of a
town and watching the people come in
to make purchases. If the majority Of
| the customers of the local meat market,
for instance, look with contempt upon
the succulent %sirloin, and buy five
cents worth of round steak, you can
wager all your trade dollars on the
proposition that you are not in a porter.
house town. Sometimes poverty may
dictate in the choice of meats, but not
always We have known people who
had bank accounts and money at inter-
est actually prolonging their existence
and waiting and longing for a rich
uncle to die, who used lard for butter
and had by long practice persuaded
themselves to believe that the best part
of a beef was the last cut on the horn.
Such people don't live in plug.hat
towns and are not porter-house citizens.
They are nickle-squeezers.
These illustrations can be extended
to every branch of business. The man
who selects the ld-fashioned cook
stove when he is amply able to buy an
improved range, don't live in a base.
burner town. That other sad-faced in
dividual who has just stepped into the
store over the way to buy burnt peas for
coffee because the article is cheap and
because his rich relative isn't dead vet,
should i%mmigrate; he has no business in
a Java and Mocha town. And 80 we've
known these same men to celebrate the
death of their rich uncles with a pint of
cider and a gill of peanuts; and one
hide-bound fellow who thus came into
a fortune and painted the town by squan-
dering fifteen cents for cheese and
crackers lost the bulk ofhis inheritance
by going to law to recover his dead
uncle's false teeth. The mar that got
the swag was a slick lawyer, and he wore
a plug-hat.
Without begging the dear readers
pardon for changing the subject, we can
cite n more case that is replete with
gentle suggestions and apt illustrations
tending to disclose to the mind of man
another instance wherein the plug-hat
theory holds over the slouch.ha doc
trine. We refer to the town that sus-
talns a daily paper. Stop and think of
the towns you know twice the size of
Devils Lake that do not half support a
weekly paper. 1t isn't the fault of the
town, but the people init. The citizens
Of Devils Lake may take their choice
they can have a daily town or a weekly
town; O horn.steak town or a porter.
house town a wood-stove town or a
base-burner town; a plug-hat town or a
s~louch.hat town