The Butler weekly times. (Butler, Mo.) 1881-1918, 1911-05-25
The Farmers Boy.

:
twenty of the nations largest cor
porations held in New York, the other
day it was a matter Of comment that
of those present, twelve were farm
er's boys"
When the youngster at home on
the farm gets ''the blues" and fancies
that there is no longer the chance that
there used to be to rise above the
monotony and drudgery Of a tillor Of
the soil, he can think of those twelve
captains Of industry who started as
he is starting and remember that
when they were boys there was times
when they too imagined that it was a
HOPELESS ambition to aspire to win their
way to the front in the city.
He wants to remember that the
farm has evolved some of the worlds
greatest men and some of its most
conspicuously useful ones and that
with the increasing activities Of the
nation in all directions there is now,
more than ever, room at the top for
the exceptional man.
In the contemplation of the stirring
achievements of the farmers boy,
past and present, if he has magma
ton and soul he will find helpful in
spiration, when the day seems dark
and the future full of gloom. Let
him recollect-as the world surely
does-that it was the farm that gave
us Abraham Lincoln, one of the
worlds most majestic figures; that
gave US Andrew jackson, Willard
Fillmore, the martyred Garfield,
Horace Greeley, Sir Isaac Newton
and the brilliant Carlyle. 1t was a
farmers son-Eli Whitney, who
created the cotton gin, which laid the
foundation forthe growth of the cotton
industry, now worth $500, 100000 a
year to the United States and farm
er's boy-Elias Howe, who enamel
pated womanhood from the slavery
of the needle by inventing the sewing
machine.
Long before Robert Fulton sailed
his steamboat, the Clermont, up the
Hudson, John Fitch, the ingenious
product of Pennsylvania farm
demonstrated that boat could be
propelled by steam by equipping a
skiff with an engine and sailing his
craft UP the Delaware with its aid.
Another brainy farmers boy-Oliver
Evans--sometimes called the Watt of
America-was the first to build and
operate locomotive in the United
States. Cyrus Mccormick, inventor
of the reaper, the whir Of which is
to-day heard round the earth, was
the modest son of an ordinary Illinois
farmer. The first machine to make
lacks was the creation of Massa-
chusetts farm lad-Thomas Blanchard
and the device that furnished the
world with the modern screw was
the work of a poor Vermont genius
Thomas Harvey, quiet, thought
full farmers son. To the resource
fulness Of an Ohio farm boy-Charles
F. Brush-who invented the dynamo,
The world is indebted for its present
day great industrial and power plants
that give employment to millions of
hands. Thomas A. Edison, most
brilliant of the worlds inventors,
sponsor for the electric light, the
monograph and hundred other de-
vices, was the son of a poor farm
aborer. Patrick B. Delany, inventor
If the Multiplox, the Delany, the tele-
post automatic telegraph and a hun
lred other telegraph and cable inn
,rovements grew up on a New
England farm. From Wisconsin
arm came C. L. Sholos, the inventor
# the typewriter, which revolution
zed the business methods of the
world.
Where service is the only creden-
ial that commands recognition and a
mans ability must square with his
responsibility, the farmers boy"
Who has hardened to the call of the
Jig city will be found today in the
rol,t rank OF the worlds useful
in every large city on the
ace of the earth. For he makes good
nd the world needs him.
Do Ghosts Haunt Swamps?