Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-12-06
The Sanity Modern Athenians.

/ An editorial entitled Rural VS.. City
i Standards which appears in the Boston
Traveller shows that the Traveller has
at last discovered what every one else
has known for years, that is, that vir-
tue and honesty are not limited to any
one particular locality. The Traveller
suggests that "the old superstition
that all saints are whiskered ruralities
is fading away" After reading the
editorial we should say that perhaps
the Traveller ought to have put it that
the old superstition that all whiskered
ruralities are saints is fading away.
The Traveller cites the Richmond
News-Leader, which recently lectured
Carolina farmers for contracting to
sell cotton at ten cents pound when
the prospect of heavy crop made ten
cent cotton seem a big price, but who,
after the manipulation of the cotton
market forced the price up to Is cents
broke the contracts, driving many mer-
chants into bankruptcy, to prove its
assertions.
The Traveller goes on to say that
Boston has been the target and terri
BILE example of activity for the rural
Massachusetts politicians and grafters
from time immemorial, but if the COM
monwealth can exhibit any more
| tricky, adroit or corrupt individual
clan, he is yet to be seen. In Boston,
the predatory politician is always un-
der fire. and the movement for reform
is never ending, but the most adroit
and subtle type of city rascal is a tyro
in the ways that are dark and tricks
that are vain, compared with the poll
ticians who mismanage our counties
and loot our towns
After further invective against this
terrible state of affairs the Traveller
goes on to narrate that the net result
of the activities of the virtuous far
mers is that Boston is kept up to its
neck in debt, burdened not only with
it's own necessities, but with the lux
uries of every other community in the
state" Isn't it awful! 1t sounds like
the city sport who sat into the rural
poker festival to show the "whiskered
ruralities" the fine points of the game
and walked back to town the next
morning minus his worldly possessions
but rich in experience.
We do not know whether Carolina
farmers bested the cotton brokers or
not. We are rather doubtful of their
ability to do so after having seen some
of the dealings between the parties
Our impression is that the poor mer-
chants who have been driven in bank
ruptcy We're amply able to take care
of themselves. and that in view of the
past relations between the two it ill
BELTS them to ''Squall'' at this time
The general impression has been that
if anybody is suffering from the bad
state Of the cotton market today the
blame does not lie with the farmer but
whom could not tell a bale of cotton
from bale of hay.
AS for poor Boston which has suffered
so terribly from the rural politicians
of Massachusetts we would say that if
Boston is really between the grafters
who claim that town as a residence
on the one hand, and the grafters
whom the Traveller has discovered on
the other, it is certainly in a bad way.
In Boston the predatory politician is.
always under fire and the movement
for reform is never ending, Just as the
Traveller says. 1t never ends for the
reform is never accomplished. We will
venture the assertion that for every
find outside of Boston, two will be
found in Boston who are as much like
him as peas in a pod are like each
other Boston is burdened not only by
it's necessities, but also by it's extrava-
gances its government and its thor
oughly organized parasites on the mu-
nicipal pocketbook. The difficulty
seems to be that the politicians out
side of Boston are of one party and the
politicians in Boston are of another
party. While it is possible that nei-
Their side can claim a clean slate. it is
also probable that the men who live in
the cleaner atmosphere of the rural
communities will have less to answer
for on the day of judgment than those
who made Boston what it was before
the finance commission assumed its
duties.