The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1910-05-20
CRAFTSMANSHIP AND POTATOES

As an instance of successful get
ting-back- to-the-soil' we hasten to
chronicle the case of the Honorable
Frederick T. Dubois, a one-time Uni
ted States senator from Idaho, grad
uate of Yale and man who long
ago learned how to fit himself into
changed and changing conditions.
Some time ago at function by the
National Press club in Washington
he made speech in which he told
1.-The boys" that he had quit states
manship as a profession or business
and had gone to raising potatoes. The
assembled newspaper men laughed
and loked incredulous at first; but
the ormer senator went into details
for their benefit and assured them
that raising potatoes beats politics
and law-making "all hollow" And
now comes unsolicited confederation
of the matter-if any were needeh-
from an Idaho man recently in the
East.
'It is a fact" he said, as quoted in
a newspaper interview, that Fred
Dubois istraising potatoes and that Ell
is making lot of money out Of the
business.'f' Not only is the former
Idaho senator raising potatoes, but
many of his neighbors have gone into
the same business. There is no Sec
ton of the, country that is better
adapted to this business than Idaho.
Our latest achievement in the food
line is potato-raising. One of the lead
ing hotels Of Chicago has on it's menu
card the Idaho potato, just as it used
to have the Arostook potato, just as
it used to have the Aroostook potato
or the Michigan potato. The best
Idaho potatoes are produced in the
Blackfoot country. These potatoes
are of as fine quality as ever were
raised in Aroostook county, Maine
and they bring thirty cents a bushel
more than the ordinary potato. Who
would be a statesman when he can
raise potatoes?"
Now, the potato is intitially meek
and lowly vegetable. From time i'm
emmorial up to comparatively rec
ent period it was looked upon by very
many highly respectedable and dis
eliminating persons here in the Uni
ted States as something to bt
eschewed-and chiefly for the reason
that it was cheap in price and con
.stituted regular item in the three
= meals-a-day menus of the work-a-day
menus ofocoojevccone- ecyeeeew
classes and the poverty stricken
These people boiled potatoes with the
Jackets" on, skinned them and ate
them in "any old way or in any com
bination that their means for furnish
ing their tables might suggest. Time
was when lots Of otherwise sensible
people protested not to like potatoe!
just as not afrther back than a gen
Grafton ago school children who real
ly liked onions used to ostracize thei
mates whose breath betrayed thu
presence of that altogether adorabl,
vegetable in their stomachs. All THU
has changed.
AS soon as potatoes in the form O
French fried au gratin, flashed
brown" and so on began to appea
to the bon vivants the eschewers o
the tubers tumbled over Themselves
to ALL into line; and nowadays no
to like potatoes is to confess one
self out of tune with modern times
eating habits. The price of the vege
table has bounded upward in conse
quence. Everybody likes potatoes
demands them and must have then
at almost any price. A good-sized pt
tato "patch" in Idaho Is as valuable
possession today as an ordinary
sized gold or silver mine. 1t is ;
big asest anywhere in the United
States. We all prate Of cooper
kings" and lumber kings" and "tur
pentine kings" and "coal barons" ant
railroad magnates" and "financia
potentates"-and all very properl!
and well enough, too.
But the day of the potato prince
is dawninv-and myriads of Ameri