Mower County transcript., 1906-12-19
FARMER BEN'S
COLUMN

SVAOV14N
That Hamline perfesser that lectured
the other night to the st. Paul Health
League is onto his job all right. He
says that diseases are nearly all self !
limited in duration and if let alone the
sick will often recover without loadin'
the system with drugs. Natur has
great power to resist disease and recup-
crate when she has chance and lots OF
people are only made sicker by takin
drugs and patent medicines. You bet
your boots that's true. Natur's RENE
dies are the best and were in vogue
long before drugs and dopes were in
vented. When my head aches know
my stomach is out of order and diet.
When my rheumatic bothers l eat
apples and celery and carrots. When
hav cold eat onions and rest up.
| tell you layin' off and restln' is my
great forte. [ can do more self-doctor-
in by such mindiu' on Nalur's !nstruc-
tions and hints than barrel Of patent
medicines poured down with funnel
The fust class doctors nowadays don't
dope and drug much anyhow. Thev're
onto Farmer Ren's methods with their
patients aud the less medicine they
hav to Civ the better they like it.
My, but president Roosevelt can slug
when he strikes straight from the
shoulder. That mean printin' of some
of his letters by the Storers because
they were let out from ambassador to
Austria was the lowest kind of betray-
in confidence but Teddy goes after
'em with big stick and shows up the
whole business and / reckon the coun-
try is satisfied with the showin'. The
rumpus grows muchly out of Mrs.
Storer tryln' to represent Roosevelt un-
bidden at the Vatican in behalf OF
raisin' Archbishop Ireland to be car
dinal. The president says she had no
authority to mix her husbands polltl-
cal matters with any ecclesiastical mat
tiers, archbishop Ireland and the Vati-
can deny that they had any idee of
such things bein' authorized by Roose-
velt and the president says f1atfooted
that he certainly did not and would not
CIV anybody authority or license to mix
him up as president officially with
ecclesiastical matters officially. So the
Storers are down and out and they're
feelin' bad but when they get to throw
in stones at our strenuous president
they're likely to have some of their
own Winder lights broken out.
One of the boys says that If the farm
er constituents Of our congressman
could once 60 down to Washington
and see how they blow in the public
money for their own luxurious extrav-
agance they'd make change so quick
you couldn't say Scat. The longer the
congressman stay down there the
prouder and header they get. They
liv like they was kings and nabobs so
fur as the common farmer style of livin'
goes and you'd think they owned the
whole U. $. treasury the way they pour
out the public money foolishly. See
how they're spendin' billion dollars
now for national expense where only a
short time ago when they reached the
half billion marx it took our breath
away with the bigness of the bill. Con-
gressmen simply grow away from the
people. Some of em start in with
nothin' and in a few years are rated at
a hundred thousand or bigger and
where they get it honestly nobody could
fgger. They get so independent that
when the people want any righteous
move the congressman puts his finger to
his nose and spits in your face.
I'm just as childish about Christmas
comm as I was when a five year old.
Some of the happiest days of the year
used to be Christmas when we hung up
our stockin's over the old open fire
place and waited impatiently for the
dawnin' of the mornin'. l never got
over it. We used to get together in
the old nursery and look over the con-
: tents clean to the toe of the stockin'
and then went back and examined
more particularly. Those were the
days when we wore boots and the red
topped beauties was more of a present