The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1911-02-02
THE PIG is MIGHTiER THAN THE
PEN"

livered an address before the Upper
Iowa Editorial association recently
which entities him to a palce among
the rest of the humorists whose pic
lures are to adorn the walls OF the
Hall of Fame. Comparing the farmer
with the newspaper mar Mr.. Raun
said:
Il am here to say that the man
who owns eighty acres of Iowa land
and who has brains enough to till
it, makes the lot of country news
paper men look like the last sad rem
nants of a Dutch lunch. The farmer
has the best Of it all around. He is
as independent as the American Elk
press company. He doesn't have to
write a soulful obituary over the re-
mains of some p~eak-headed bloke who
caved his wife's ribs in with a grub
stake and kept on displaying an ex-
habit of cut plug profanity that would
make the efforts of a steamboat mate
sound like a meeting of the Epworth
League. He doesn't have to go into
raptures owe the beauty of an open
faced bride with acast of countenance
that would blow out the gas, and he
can say what he dunn pleases about
a candidate for congress, something
no editor ever dared to do unless he
bod i,tc+ 1nCf fhn nnGtnfGnn Tho
farmer isn't required to lie until his
back teeth fall out, about the sterling
manhood of a groom with ears like
a cauliiower plant, and the brain
power of a shoat. He doesn't have to
run a piano contest for the most
beautiful young lady in the commun-
ity, make everybody sore about the
winner, and then print a seventy-tive
cent half tone of the beauty that
looks like a tintype of grandma at the
age of thirteen. There is nothing in
the farmers curriculum that obliges
him to paint the local soprano as
a heaven-sent sOngster when in fact
she has a voice hat would make a
guinea hen weep. He isn't called
upon to paint the virtues Of a prom
inent citizen who earned his money
by collecting notes with a draw shave
and who would have an attack of
heart failure if suddenly separated
from two bits of real money.
"The farmer can stand on the street
corner and roar about smallpox IN
town until his whiskers curl up like
a lean man with the wind collie, and
if the newspaper man runs a three
line item to the same effect his ad-
him resemble a crushed fruit salad.
If the printer opens his head about
the presence of slot machines, penny
ante and holes-in-the-wall, every can.
didate he supports at the primary
election will have about as much
show of nomination as a o~ne-legged
man in a hurdle race. The farmer
can sit on his front porch and lam
bast the board of supervisors from
supper to breakfast, and if the news
paper man jars a board off the fence
in that direction his appeal for the
county printing will be about as eff
fective as a live broil with tobasco
sauce.
"The farmer can express his Opin-
ion of the new Methodist preacher
in a firm and loud voice, on the four
corners, and if the printer ventures
to express the view that the preacher
ought to be chasing a currycomb over
a milk cow instead Of filling a large
room with thin ozone and misinfOr
nation. he will lose subscribers so
fast that he won't have the circula-
ton of a cold-storage egg, The
farmer doesn't have to impress a
chaste kiss on the moist noise 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 careless
ly feeds a pair of pipe tongs through
the cylinder press or the rats chew
the lining off a new set Of rollers.
There is no law which compels him
to fill four columns Of space with a
clogged think-tank and a stickful of
brain-food.
"If the editor takes two days off in
fishing 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
cramps people say he is too stingy TO
hire extra help. If he contributes 81
to the w. C. T. U. and wears a boiled
shirt on Sunday, the banks call in
his mites with a noise like a wooden
legged man falling on a tin roof, and
if he refuses to dig up for the Won
ans Relief Corps super he is brand
ed as a miser and avoided as if he