Morris tribune., 1910-03-25
qCopyyight 1909 by C. II. RIETH0

1t has ventilating fan,
A roof, skylight and a spray;
And how it sleeps, eats, drinks and
feels,
And how to safeguard it from harm,
Ia all they think and talk about
These piping days upon the farm.
The farmers lie awake o'nights
Devising prophylactic troughs,
The doctors fly from farm to farm
- Examining hiccups and coughs;
And nowadays when farmers meet
Each other out upon jog
Their first and most solicitous
Inquiry is, "How is your hog?"
March was the favorite month of
the old Romans and the beginning of
their year. It was named for Mars,
their god of war, and continued to
rank the other months until A B. c.,
when the peace party in the Senate
allied with the insurgents and reduced
it to third place on the calendar.
Brutus and some of the others thought
the empire ought to make less of war
and more of business, so they made
January, named for the Two Faced
Janus, the beginning of the year, and
the month of Februus, who typified
the dark and evil ways of business, to
Immediately follow. Caesar, who
was speaker of the Senate, stood pat
on the old calendar upon the ground
that while war, as someone had said,
is hell, business, when it reaches the
trust stage, is good deal heller. A
few regulars Of the war party sup
ported him, but the allies were ire
sBistible, and he was finally stabbed.
Revising the calendar was as great
AN issue in Roman politics as revising
tthe tariff has become in our own, and
more than one brave leader laid down
[his.life for the division of time as he
thought thought to be or his party
had pledged. The Romans discovered
very early in their history that it is in
the nature of man to revise some
thing, and they finally agreed upon
the calendar as the thing over which
the politicians could fight with the
least damage to the peace and pros
perity of the people as whole.
The melancholy days will pass, and
spring will come again to freshen up
the faded grass and wake the hearts
of men. The grounding will awake
again, borne out upon the whole, and
? the geese will march across the sky to
1seessbout the pole. The thrill of
spring will run along the backbone of
the calf. He'll buck and dance upon
the mead and hoist his hinder half.
He'll dream of blooming clover fields
and waving curly dock, and gambol
with his rigid tail stuck up at 6
, O'Clock.
The blithesome meadowlark will
. sing the g]ories of the dawn, and the
robin will turn somersets upon the
greening lawn. The spring g-intoxicat-
,sed colt will do-si-do about, the festive
frog will wake to help the Weather
Bureat, out, the poor consumer will
rejoice and hope. for better luck, and
the trusts will sit around and dam the
coming garden truck.
On the 4th Mr.. Taft will celebrate his
efirst anniversary in the White House
with a masquerade. There has never
been, a masquerade there, but Mr.. Taft
Is very anxious to have everybody
come, and in view of the unsettled
political conditions. the Ballinger-
Pinchot controversy and some other
things, he feels that as long as nobody
can determine positively who else is
present, there will be no occasion for
anyone staying away. Pink tea will
be served, and there will be picture
of Mr.. Roosevelt under the coal pile
dn the basement. Take offs on the
consumer, illusions to June Is, cos
tune caricatures of Speaker Cannon
and other cussedness that Democrats,
insurgents or Pinchot men may be up
to. will be censored at the door.
And then the ides will come around
In sorrowful progression,
And all the peanut carts will form
In annual procession.