The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-07-12
The Pig is Mightier Than the Pen
BY HOWARD KANN of Ma chester Press


II the circulation of a cold storage egg
! The farmer doesn't have to impress:
a chaste kiss on the moist nose of his
4 foreman in order to keep him from
getting drunk on press day, nelthel
L does he have to get somebody t
go on his note when the devil care
lessly feeds pair of pipe tongs
through the cylinder press or the rats
chew the lining off new set OF roll
ers. There is no law which compels
hin, to fill four columns of space with
a cloSged think-tank and stickful Of
brainfoud. If the editor takes two
days off in fishing, in succession, his
4 patrons call him a loafer and take
! their lob work to the other office. If
he works until he is bowed over like
fat man with 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 banks call in his notes with a
noise like a wooden-legged man fall
Ing on a tin roof. and if he refuses to
dig up for the Womans Relief Corps
supper he is branded as a 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 man who tries
to beat him out of four years sub
scription that he is so crooked that
he couldn't go to sleep in a round
house he Is liable to be reduced to the
consistency of a corn starch pudding.
In view of these facts, why is the
profession overcrowGed? 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
fourteen columns of crooked rhetoric
and reformed spelling once a week,
and lived on ossified liver and iced
lea than shave tie warts off a calf's
head aud held pail for sucking calf.
even though he can fill up Oh green
corn and side pork until he wheezes
like an accordion with the asthma.
There are others. including a fair
sprinkling of jack-leg lawyers and
ham-strung school teachers, who have
imbided the notion that the editors
life is softer than the head of a two
ply sport. These rush in with 500
outfit and wind pressure that would
blister the lining out of steel range
and fill a long-felt want with the grace
and abandon of d haIr-lipped hired
girl at beauty show. Nothing ever
drives these starlings out of the pro-
fession except sudden death or the
Sheriff. Then there are those mis-
guided, ambitious politicians who be-
lieve that the surest way to clasp a
tat office to your bosom is to become
the editor of newspaper. These u.s.
ually fade away like goat on string
bean diet, carrying through life a look
OF hopeless sorrow and remorse that
would wiring tears from porcelain
egg.
II the newspaper men knew the joys
and independence of the farmers life
he would kick himself up to a neak
u
until he looked like rat-tailed file
for continuing to make himself the
doormat of the stiff-necked and ungod..
~ community. Gentle communion
with the kline is far better than ami
mated converse with an irate sinh
scriber with fists like a premium Ram
ana the disposition of hyena. Let
us reform, brethren, and get to close
natures heart with a three-tined
pitchfork and self-feeding manure
spreader. We will live longer. or at
any rate it viii seem longer. as the
married man said. and if the worst
comes 10 worst we can live on ruta-
bagas and rock salt, which we have
no doubt Is an Improvement over our
customary diet, Then Back to the
Soil' viii be TIE pass word and so
Boss the grand haiIing sign OF dis
tress.