The Sauk Centre herald., 1909-08-19
TELEPHONES IN THE WEST

o n e. Il n S mlddle-WeStern
wheat-raiser isn't the the hay
seed of the conventional comic
weekly sort. A paragraph that
appeared in a recent issue of the
New York Post, tucked away
among the financial notes, had
this. to say:
Putting down his Haviland
breakfast coffee cup and folding
his linen napkin the farmer
takes up the telephone extension
and calls his neighbor. Is that
you John? Well, John, in the
pit gossip of your Chicago paper
you will see that the croppers
have started this way again.
Yes, Patterns man and two
others. One of them ought to
be in this morning. I'll run over
to the station in my car to see
if can pick him up, I'll bring
him back through the meadow
road so that he can see that poor
wheat over there on Henry's
place. Then I'll turn him over
to you. Show him the worst
wheat you've got, understand?
Yes, that's it. Pass him on to
Jackson. He hasn't any wheat
worth looking at. Telephone on
down the line. Goodby-Oh,
say, John! That one cylinder
car l told you about is a marvel.
Oh, forty miles. Be as pessimis-
tic as you can. There's a crop
per out from New York who re-
presents a bear house. He is
coming to find the wheat I'll
look out for him at this end.
Goodby.' "
This conception of the coun-
tryman, so vastly different from
the generally accepted bewhisk-
cred Rube, comes as somewhat
of a shock to the country's read
ers, east and west. For here is
a farmer with his fast motor car,
bent on fooling the wise men of
the wheat-pit, with a telephone
at his elbow and on his break
fast table luxuries only few of
his city neighbors can enjoy.
And if this conception is at all
true to life perhaps there is
something in the generally ac-
cepted distrust of the govern
ment's so-called short crop re-
port which was back of the Pat
ten wheat corner. Who knows
but it might have been the worst
wheat on each farm that the fed
eral forcaster was shown? This
financial editors views differ
materially from the old time
gold brick" stories, for here
the operation is reversed, and
the farmer is selling the brick
that was foisted upon him on the
momentous occasion of his first
visit to New York.
But whatever the merits of the
financier's picture of the wheat
grower, it has attracted a deal
of attention. And it is true to
life in that particular in which
it draws attention to the orga-
nized state of middle-west farm
ers. Telephone on down the
line, was the speakers instruct
ion to John. 1t is presumed that
John communicated with all of
his neighbors by the same meth
cd, and all were apprised of
the coming of the troopers" in
a very few minutes.
This is the part that is most
true to life and that tells the in
teresting story. For the tele-
phone, extending throughout all
the rich farming sections of the
country has organized the rural
residents as no other agency
could have done. Time was
when farmers had no mode of
exchanging visits and converse
ton save by journeys over miles
of muddy roads. In those times
loneliness and backwardness
were the bugbear of every tiller
of the soil. Then along came
the rural free delivery-now de-
veloped into a sort of agency
for general distribution of gos-
sip and news US well as mail.