Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-04-13
Looker-On In Iona

Union. April 13.-It would be a good
thing if there could be a general Jack
ing up" Of the men in charge of the
town clocks in our Iowa towns. Not
one clock in fifty has the correct time,
but when it is set, and that operation
only occurs once week or SO. AS
rule, they are as much out of the way
as the curfew bell in Nextown which
rings when the night Waterman feels
like II. It's useless for townspeople or
strangers "to catch trains" by these
town clocks, but the bus men seem
to think they are infallible, with irri-
tating results. School children and
teachers fail to agree on tardy marks
because of these inaccurate town
clocks. When 1t comes to the larger
cities, one can set your watch by the
town clock In many county seat
towns in Iowa they are from three to
FIVE minutes fast or SLOW" all of the
time.
Thirty-six dollars month for the
foreman and SO month for all of the
other men on the place, with board and
washing for each man, and board for
one horse owned by the hired man, are
the wages paid on an Iowa farm not
thousand miles away. All Of which is
nice for the help, but makes the owner
of the farm groan and metaphorically
sweat blood when he pays off the men,
And if the owner of an Iowa farm is
paying 5 or 6 per cent interest on s1e5-
an-acre land. if he is paying big taxes,
/ If he has boy at Ames and girl ar
Grinnell, if his wife keeps hired girl
at SO a week, If he lives like white
man, and keeps up his end on church
and charitable matters, well. Iowa dirt
has got to produce something, and that
something has to sell way up in G, or
thereli be trouble.
One upon time there was a man
who had a dog stolen. This man hap
pened to be connected with the Wav-
4 erly Beet Sugar enterprise He heard
the stolen dog was in Livermore and
went there after the dog. Hunting for
the dog he drove into Ottosen The
4 soil therea bouts struck him as beet
sugar soil. Result of stealing or los
/ ing a dog, the farmers near Ottosen
are now offered contracts of s4.62 per
ton for beets next fall f. o. b. Ottosen.
The mandatory also offers to ship
4 in cheap Russian labor for the beet
raisers to hire, and have or will rent
houses in Ottosen for these Russians to
| live in during the growing season. Beet
! seed is furnished at 10 cents a pound
and each farmer must put in at least
fifteen acres if he goes into the beet
raising business. All of this dogoned
story was given the writer recently by
reliable citizen of Ottosen.
1t seems strange that the present
extra session of congress now engaged
in "tinkering with the tariff excites
so little interest in Iowa. AS a matter
Of general conversation it is conspic-
uous by its absence. In the days when
Governor Cumnnins referred to "a shell
ter of monopoly when "the insurance
frauds were small compared with the
tariff, when reciprocity with Canada
was advocated, the average standpat-
tiers Immediately classed any and all
of US as bred bad Democrats if we
even mildly endorsed the governors
utterances when many republican con-
gressmen mention that the consume r
has rights as well as the producer" the
mass of the voters of Iowa, both pro-
gressive and standpatters are dumb. A
few country .weeklies have a paragraph
concerning it perhaps in each issue,
but the Iowa daiiies like the people are
almost silent on the subject Of tariff
reform. Why is it?