Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1885-07-30
A FOOL FRIEND.
Htll Nye Thinks ne Is Worse than a
Bitter Foe.


Bitter Foe.
There is certainly grim and CONS
+ rtable joy in going in search of a
bitter and implacable foe. There is
an exciting hunger in the eye and in
the heart as we follow him by day
and camp on his trail at night. Then
when we meet and mix him up with
the green sward. and knock his front
teeth loose and swell up his proud
nose, and put an olive>green and
cadet blue dado over his eye and
cigarette pocket on his cheek, and
erect little knobs all over him in
places where nature did not design to
have them, we walk away with the
idea that we are taller and Wider and
draw more water and exert more in
fuence than we did before Even
when we ask the police judge how
much it will be if we pay it IN advance,
and we use up the funds 10 that way
when we had intended to invest them
in other channels, we can not say
that we regret it If the cause seemed
Just and the provocation great.
But whatshall we do with the warm
personal friend who sits up nights to
love us, but hurt us in every corner
by his discretion? We can not whip
him and throw him away. We can
not get him shut up in an insane
asylum, as it was not designed for
idiots. It was made for people who
once had brains. It is conun0rum
which more than one of us has given
up.
IF the fool friend could have his
jaws locked with a time lock, and
then be fed by an attendenant through
the vest pocket, we could then set the
time lock to open after election or
just before breakfast On the day of
judgment, or at such other date as We
desired, and all would be we'll, but you
can not do that. The jaw of the fool
friend wags on till the goose of the
one he loves best on earth is cooked
to a ricn, deep brown.
An enemy may say mean things of
you, but they lose force because peo-
pie know at once by his bitterness
that he is your enemy; but he who
knows, your inmost heart, who knows
what salary you receive and how
much 1t lacks of maintaining you,
how mean you are in your family and
how pleasant you are In other people S
families, how you smile through the
day and snore through the night, how
earnest you are in your lapors toward
reform IN everything except your own
habits, and q thousand other little
glimpses into your home life which
none but 9, friend may know, when
he has no brains to balance his warm
affection for you, think what ruin he
can furnish you at carload rates.
In matters wholly political it is
really safer to have the Endorsement
of one who is wise and wicked, some>
times, than the earnest but misguided
efforts of the man whose motives are
good but whose brains, in the hurry
and confusion incident to creation,
were bestowed upon a large mouse
colored mule.
When your friend forgets himself,
forgets his business, forgets his own
interests and his hopes of bright inns
mortality beyond the grave IN order
to go about and do you good, when
he goes without food and sleep that
he may labor for you, and at last
when the campaign is drawing to 8
close, and all at once you come upon
the wreck and ruin that mark the
pathway of the hurricane, and you
follow it IN great bitterness for miles
only at last to find that it is the work
of your friend, what can you do3 Can
you take club and mash his smiling
facet Can you stab his warm heart,
whose every thr0b has beat for youi
Can you send the swift-winged bullet
crashing through the massive skull
of your friend, thus tearing the cob
webs loose from his Uranium and al
lowing the gas to escapes
All, no. Better far to accept defeat
than to stain your hands with blooC
of one whose very devotion to you
has showed you under SO deep that
you will have to live on the leather
ends of your suspenders till relief car
come.
/ sometimes think that if the fool
killer would give little more atten
ton to his business, and would try {
little harder to earn his salary, there
would be less complaint and less dis
satisfaction on the part of the intelli
gent taxpayer. Now, for instance
suppose that he should, prior to each
election, hold kind of competitiv,
examination of fools, to close with 8
a grand tournament of fool shot a
thirty yards rise; or the fool could b.
made to pay each year for license
the revenue to 60 to the government
partial fools to pay a $50 license
chronic fools 800. and hopeless fool
5000 per year I'd like to be instru
mental ia getting such a law passed
and then get out of the country be
fore it went into effect.