The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-06-04
JANA WKER JOTS

Noting that the Hearst followers
have decided to name a full judicial
ticket in New York. Fred Trigg rises
to ask why they don't name sober
judicial ticket.
Fashion advice by the Smith
County Pioneer: If you are q married
man don't let your wife convince you
that the new dress with the short
sleeves is cheaper than the other kind
To be in fashion she must have a
pair of silk gloves over two feet long
to cover the bare places.
Recipe turned loose by the Belleville
Telescope: A Kansas fisherman claims
to have discovered a sure method OF
killing mosquitoes. Rub alum on your
face and hands, he says. The mos
quito takes a bite, when the alum
Fuckers his buzzer so that it can't
sting. The "skeeter" then goes and
sits down in a damp place, tries to dig
the quicker loose, catches cold and dies
of pneumonia
Some town that wishes a hrst-class
Memorial day speech next year should
lose no time in engaging the services
of Bert Walker, Of the Osborne Farm
er. No Decoration day orator in Kan
sas said anything better than this,
from the pencil OF the editor OF the
Farmer:
with each succeeding Decoration
day I find myself having more respect
for the gray-haired old fellow who
wears the little bronze button in the
lapel of his coat I hear again the
orators tell of what he did at Bull
Run. at Antietam, at the battle above
the clouds, on Sherman's march to the
sea and at VicksbuTg, and I wonder
that so many Of them are here now,
more than forty years later, to hear a
generation since born sing of their
glories in poetry and prose. [ read
OF the late sufferings of the soldiers
on the frozen hills around Mukden
and by Port Arthur and shudder. But
these old boys in blue went through
the same thing, only worse. Port
Arthur had its horrors. but it had no
Andersonville. Mukden field ran red
with blood, but it had not the fevers
and disease that sta1ked out from the
Wilderness to drink to death the
lives spared by sabre and bullet I
know that some Of the old fellows
are cranky and hard to get along with
and some of them probably have done
things that wouldn't look well in print
but heavens, unbottle a little patriot
ism. look on the stars and stripes, run
your eye back forty years and witness
them in action in charging phalanxes
of solid blue, and then forget the fail
ings of old age. Do you wonder the
old veteran looks solemn as he listens
to the orator? Maybe he is thinking
Of the brother and boyhood chums
Grandmother is seen to wipe a tear
from the dimming eye. Perhaps she
recalls the last parting with the
sweetheart who has slept beneath the
palmettos of the south since Shiloh
I'll tell you. my friend, that there are
very few hearts that beat beneath that
bronze button that do not carry a
tragedy. And what of the sisters and
sweethearts that stayed behind when
they learned that the boy who
marched away would not march back
in his uniform of blue? But Of course
we forget. It is a good many years
since that tragedy happened This is
why we should take a day off every
year and listen to the retelIing of the
story Think more kindly of the little
bronze button. In a few short years
the man who wears one will say, Yes.
it was worn by my father; he left 1t
to me- "