Mower County transcript., 1907-09-04
FARMER BEN'S
COLUMN

One of the big causes of the railroad
accidents is rotten rails that are made
so quick out of wrong ores that they
are brittle. My paper says that if they
we're made slower in open hearth plants
they would be tough and strong same
as they used to be but the steel trust
wouldn't be maxim so big profits. L
was just thinkin' if there was a big
competition same as there used to be-,
whether this condition wouldn't be
changed. If there were a hundred
competin' companies and the demand
was so great, wouldn't there be big
inducement to build bigger plants and
hav the slow and open hearth method
and turn out rails that the roads would
prefer to buy? Bnt now the indepen-
dent companies don't amount to any
thing. The trust has to furnish nearly
all the rails anyhow and they can make
the companies wait their pleasure and
take just what they make or 60 with
out. It's the rottenest kind of policy
to leave big protective tariff on such
monopolies as steel trust rails and when
we get the Tawneys out and the
peoples agents IN somethin' will be
doin'.
Down at Pittsburg the race for social
supremacy has become so mad that
many owners of houses which they've
got by years of toll and savin' are mort.
gagin' 'em to buy automobiles so as to
keep up with their naybors and not be
outshone. This same thing is report
ed from other sections The fool killer
ought to get out in time and swat these
crazy lunes who are willin' to sacrifice
their homes and risk beggarin' their
families to pay for an auto. They'd
rather glitter like June bug and go
bumpin' round the world than to hav
sure home and be content to ride like
common folks. They don't seem to
think of the day comm when the mort
gage will be foreclosed and they'll be
cut down like the grass. [ tell you the
man that's gettin' a hundred dollars a
month income can't afford to put on
the style and show of a hundred dollars
a week. It's like a woman with a
muskrat salary wearin' seal skin. So
fur as Farmer Ben is concerned, he's
got no envy of the auto crazy. Sassiety
can't tab him up on that stake. He's
to be judged by other things he's got.
William Allen White down in his
Kansas home can't be tempted to move
to New York where his literary genius
might shine louder. He says he could
not forsake his lawn and garden in
Emporla. He sits and imagines himself
moved to New Y ork and at nightfall
forlorn among the skyscrapers while
the grass withered and the pinks droop-
ed for water in his Kansas home and
just puts the temptation away. He's
got q head on him like Aristotle.
He's best off where he is and he's got
sense enuf to know it. Some times
when 60 up to Austin and 60 by the
fine houses and see what slaves women
are to care for the big mansions and
with hired help round . m 8 o.
there's never any privacy of home and
the men just strainin' and strugglin, to
pay interest on their debts to keep up
the show and style, Farmer Ben just
looks around his leetle garden patch
and his happy home and thinks Of the
old farm down in the country and not
a cent of debt and leetle money in
Shaw's bank and he knows that he'd
be the biggest fool this side of St. Peter
to change places with the best of the
city dudes and sassiety folks.
A prominent Minneapolis lawyer givs
out that in his opinion the proposed
tax on bachelors will be constitutional
and will stand the courts. He says
that we tax dogs and saloons and
license marriages and all such things
now already for the public good and
these stand and tax or license on
old baches will stand just as good. 1t
looks reasonable. I can't see why q
old batch shauldn't be made to walk up
to the clerks offs every twelve months
and pay fifty dollars for q tag to re-
main single for year and be COMPEL
ed to wear it. OF course little matter
of fifty dollars year or hundred
wouldn't phase most of these single