The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-25
A DEFENSE OF NATURE TAKERS.
Some Who Have Not Received What
 Is Due Them.

| A A(AAH AA-NE3AL UT MAJ fLAe9.
 Some Who Have Not Received What
 Is Due Them.
 We who stand with Roosevelt for a square deal to everybody must shuf- fle the cards when we think he is not giving it. It is not for us to strike a name from that bright galaxy of names appearing in one of the sep- 1 tember magazines, wherein the pres ident designates the few who know nature when they see it or hear it. Nor shall we challenge his right to say that all names not written there are not the names of seers. What we object to is the broad imp licatlon that all others who may harb sn to nature in her many moods are nature fakers. Deluded they may be, but a faker is one who, not being himself ldeluded, seeks to delude others. An 1 honest man may even be deceived by his own eyes. Take, for instance, Whiss Sweitzer of Northwestern Ar kansas. No name is better known in all of that regian. As far south as Fort Smith on the Frisco, and as far east of Harrison as the Francis-Scul- lin line has yet been built toward it's contemplated junction with the Iron Mountain, the name of Whiss Sweitzer is a household word. And everywhere it is a synonym of honesty, veracity, and the qualities which make for ,.ffr |, ,Gon t01 sr known as that of a man skilled in wooderaft learned in the mysteries of field, forest and stream, and hard to beat in swapping tales of adventure Yet even this man has been deceived.
 It may have been his love of the study of nature which led him to ire quent contemplation of an imprisoned squirrel in a Eureka Springs store. The speed attained by the little anl- nal in making the wheel go around moved Whiss Sweitzer to admiration and sympathy. The death of the little gray prisoner moved the cage and wheel off the front counter and Whiss Sweitzer to much more infrequent visits. When he came again there had been revplution in Eureka Springs An electric plant had been introduced, and in the place where the wheel had once stood, whirring electric wheel famed the air at such velocity that the eye could not fol- low it's revolutions or distinguish it's parts. The eyes and the mouth of Whiss Sweitzer. opened to their fullest until, satisfied that he could not be mistaken, he cried out; Billy, your new squirrel beats the old one all to pieces" and rushed out to spread the ends over the countryside of a marvel of nature such as had never been dreamed of in Arkansas or elsewhere. We deny the implication that he was q faker. When he. told of a miracle of animal speed he thought he had seen, he was only as honest in his mistake as a president might be who would dismiss a battalion of troops for the unsoldierlike conduct of squad. Let us be careful in our use of words. S
 Again, we have known men whose names the president mas not put among those of the immortals, but who. know nature and can give it voice. Springfield, III, has heard the baying of a foxhound in full cry, and until those of her citizens with hunts man blood had run down the trail, even their trained ears could not tell that it came from what the president would doubtless call a. faker. He was an old man, living somewhere in the military tract. Wind and sun had done their worst, or best, upon him. He smacked of the soil, and of the old-fashioned roonly houses, with wide chimney stack at each end, and full-length porches, up and down. stars, both in front and rear And didn't he know nature? Ask any man of the great crowds which have thronged hotel Hobbies, and even the grand rotunda of the statehouse it. self, to near him give chase. And how he gloried ins 1t! Feeling himself to be master. he felt an obligation to the uninitiated which led him to short in- teriectional remarks of explanation. He knew the hounds cry for every change of mood in the stress of hunt ing, and we would willingly lay a wager that not man in the presi- dents list or even the president him. self, would dare enter a competitive vocal exhibition with him to find who is the faker. It is such men as these, in every State and in every county, around whom the American people will rally against an insinuation that, because their names are not printed in magazines, under official sanction, they are fakers when they. talk of out doers. The right to talk of outdoors is one of our dearest rights and we will not surrender it without gtrug- gle, Whether or not the shark turns upon his back to fight, the great American people will if need be turn Upon theirs, and, with their backs to the ground, fight up from there wit. hands and feet, every attempt to dis courage their hunting and fishing stories-St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
 SEQ, 1000 FOR HIGHWAYS.