The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1891-06-27
ABOUT KICKERS AND LIARS.

leaving SdlllOTnld III tHe edTIy udso
settlement disheartened by a succession
of disastrous ventures and filled with
bitterness at their hard fate. They gave
an evil report of the country; declared
the mines were worked out; that the
climate was eNecrable, and that the peo-
pie had become savage in their nature
and given to drinking and gambling,
rioting and murder. The country sur
vived these attacks. however, yielded its
millions of golden treasure to the world,
and became filed with a happy, prosper
Gus and wealthy people, while the poor
fools who. lusting for the lily supplied
flesh pots of theirdwarfed eastern homes.
turned their backs upon the most beauti-
full and promising country save Mon
tana which God created outside of the
garden of Eden, and babbled their
dolorous stories into the ears of SYM
pathizing mothers and tea-drinking old
grannies. 1t is presumed these kickers
settled down neal their old homes.
worked for four bits a day and finally
married some bare-footed daughter of a
near neighbor. lived on potatoes and
buttermilk and found the full measure
of their happiness in the company of a
kennel of NANCY hound pups and a cabin
full of tow-headed children.
This history has repeated itself in the
settlement of other western states and
western cities. Over a quarter of a cen
fury ago men left Montana full of disap-
pointment and cOvardice. and dinned
dismal tales in the ears of their eastern
neighbors and friends concerning this
fair land. now the abiding plnce of a
prosperous. contented people, and the
Mecca of the hopes Of thousands of far
away homeseekers. We well remember
hearing men declare there was nothing
IN Montana that would keep a ~self-re-
speeding person in it no longer than he
could get out; that its placer mines were
exhausted: that it's gold and silver and
copper mines were myths; that stock
would not survive its winters: that its
soil was unproductive: that its growing
season was too short to mature crops
even if they took root. and that in a few
years. at the farthest. the country would
be given over to the Indians from whom
it had been wrested. and to the wolves
and coyotes and other wild beasts that
were lowering on the outskirts of its
then few settlements to take possession
when starvation had done it's work with
the human interlopers. Old timers re-
member hearing these discouraging
stories and how they were repeated by
the drones. and the faint-hearted and
the weakened when they returned to
their mothers apron strings from which
they had been borne by the surging
mass of strong-armed. brave-hearted. ad-
v%cnturous men who came here in an
are now great thriving cities in the
brightest. most prosperous, most prom
Using and most eagerly sought for state
in the union.
But the fools. or grumblers. or crOak
ers, or chronic kickers- synonymous or
convertible terms still find their way to
the west. Now and then one breaks loose
from the scenes of his childhood; his
school-bo loves: his mud pie making and
a fond mothers protecting care and drops
down into Montana. But a few days or
weeks at the fartherst in the busy, bus,
Ting, wide-awake. healthy vigorous towns
of the state destroy all his appetite for
the sometimes wild. oft times woody and
all the time hearty, generous west. and
he returns to the old barn-yard, with its
dOminick chickens: to the old school
house and his blue eyed girl playmate to
the dusty street corners and mud pies
and to the shadow of his dear old moth
er's gown behind whose folds he has SO
often peeped at the incoming stranger,
and tells that same old story about the
worthlessness of the far away country he
visited, which early day Californians and
Montanians have so often heard from
VIC ups Il ul5pliltcu, loulcsiCh pliSTiIHS'
If he happen to live in a town that sup
ports a newspaper he vents his spleen and
his disappointment and his ignorance in
a contribution to it's columns, while the
~good-natured editor. thankful for ''orig-
inal copy takes a day off and goes
a-tishing.
The latest exhibition of this damphool,
ism which has com under our observa,
ton was recently displayed by a young
Pottsdam, PENN freak who came to
Great Falls with a party of young men
from that place. and who. not finding a
fortune under the first rock he turned
over down on the river front, packed uI
his buds and went back to his ma and
his 'bread and lasses" and his butter
milk, and his sweetheart, and published
in the Pottsdam News. for the benefit OF
its Pottsdam readers generally, and the
Pottsdam public particularly a Pottsdan
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