Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1910-08-25
so fast that he won't have the circula-
ton of cold storage egg. The farmer

so fast that he won't have the circula-
ton of cold storage egg. The farmer
doesn't have to impress chaste kiss on
the moist nose of his foreman in order
to keep him from getting drunk on
press day, neither does he have to get
somebody to go on his note when the
devil" carelessly feeds pair of tongs
through the cylinder press or the rats
chew the lining off new set of rollers.
There is no law which compels him to
fill four columns of space with clogged
think-tank and a stickful of brain food.
If the editor takes two days off in fish
ing, in succession, his patrons call him
a loafer and take their job work to the
other office. If he works until he is
bowed over like a fat man with the
! cramps people say he is too stingy to
hire extra help. If he contributes 50 to
the w. c. T. u. and wears boiled
shirt on Sunday, the bank calls in his
notes with a noise like a wooden-legged
man falling on a tin roof, and if he
refuses to dig up for the Woman's
Relief Corps supper he is branded as
miser and avoided as if he had the hives.
The farmer can look every man in the
face and tell him to go where there is
no premium on coal slack, and if the
printer informs a man who tries to beat
him out of four years subscription that
he is so crooked he couldn't sleep in a
roundhouse he is liable to be reduced
to the consistency of a cold starch pud-
ding.
Wky Profession Attracts
In view of these facts why is the pro-
fession Overcrowded? There are several
reasons. One is that man is a vain bird,
and is never happier than when he is
yapping in linotype slugs. Many man
would rather dispense IA columns of
crooked rhetoric and reformed spelling
once week and live on ossified liver
and iced tea than shave the warts off a
calf's head and hold pail for a sucking
calf, even though he can fill up on green
corn and side pork until he wheezes like
an accordion with the asthma. There
are others, including fair sprinkling
of jack-leg lawyers and ham-strung
school teachers, who have imbibed the
notion that the editors life is softer
than the head of two-ply sport. These
rush in with $50 outfit and wind
pressure that would blister the lining
out of a, steel range and fill long-felt
want with the grace and abandon of a
hair-lipped hired girl at a beauty show.
Nothing ever drives these starlings out
OF the profession except sudden death
or the sheriff. Then there are those
misguided, ambitious politicians who
believe that the surest way to clasp a
fat Office to your bosom is to become
the editor of newspaper. These usu-
ally fade away like goat on a string
bean diet, carrying through life look
of hopeless sorrow and remorse that
would wiring tears from a porcelain egg.
If the country newspaper man knew
the joys and independence of farmers
life, he would kick himself up to peak
until he looked like a rat-tail file for
continuing to make himself the doormat
of the stiff-necked and ungodly of the
community. Gentle communion with
the kline is far better than animated
converse with an irate subscriber with
fists like premiu ham and the dis
position of hyena. Let US reform,
brethren, and get close to natures heart
with tined pitchfork and self
feeding manure spreader. We will live
longer, or at any rate it will seem
longer, as the married man said, and if
worst comes to worst, we can live on
rutabagas and rock salt, which we have
no doubt is an improvement over our
customary diet. Then Back to the
Soip' will be the password and $50,
boss!'. the grand hailing sign of dis
tress. Publishers Auxiliary.