The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-18
From the Houston Post.

WHERE is current in the vernacular
 of this country one word that we
 \ have boycotted, so far as this page is concerned, and it is the excessively nauseous word "dope." which is in such general misuse. But we let down the bars for moment, just to say that the colonel stopped in Houston long enough to hand out the same old "dope's Having said this much, we relegate this offensive col loquialism back to the sporting editors sanctum.
 But we are taking occasion to perform duty that has been long delayed, ani that is to enter defense of the men who congregate at the crossroads grocery. The colonel rapped the crossroads citi- zen Sunday. He rarely fails to hit the crossroads groceryman when he sermon- izes, and we wonder if he ever really knew anything about the crossroads gro- cery as it was at the period of the coun- try's career when it almost attained unto the dignity of an institution.
 In the days of the old south there were not many railroads. The stage coach was in it's glory. Men travelled from place to place along the poorly improved high ways. Naturally these roads converged at many points, and it was usually the case that grocery and a blacksmith shop were located there and not very far away a country church nestled in the woods.
 The crossroads grocery, besides carry ing a stock of dry goods, wet goods. hard ware, groceries and Yankee notions, D contained a postoffice. Travellers would generally stop to buy crackers. cheese. sar- dimes and occasionally, when the weather was bad, a little corn Ticker, or to have their horses shod. But for the residents of the vicinity the grocery was not only a mercantile emporium and a postoffice, but it was a clearing house for news. Travellers were generally pumped dry of news before they filled up wet with any, thing else. There were few schools and many men were illiterate. Those who could read would read aloud to the gath erings there such information as the few papers contained. And but for that crude system of enlightenment, multiplied lnouSanuS oI HieH inisht nave IciHdlneu in ignorance
 That the crossroads enlightenment bu- reau, crude as it was. did disseminate in- telligence is attested by the fact that nearly every community which was sup piled with crossroads grocery invari- ably showed up at every election with a good democratic majority. tf
 s..k |. 4 { Co., 1.cf CTS would gather at the store and waste time when they should have been in the fields at work, but even here in Houston we have the Sons of Rest who devote their time to watching steam rollers or synchronizing their movements with the free lunch arrangements of the vicinity in which their aversion to toll is, mani- tested. Sometimes, crossroads habitue would get drunk, but an accident like that is liable tp happen in the best regulated cities. sf .<a
 As a rule, however, the crossroads store was not an evil. but blessing and q necessity. And, likewise, the great ma jority of men who gathered there at in- tervals to obtain what information they
 
 good men and patriots, As we recall them, most of them were old men--men who not only told how to save the coun- try. but who had carried muskets in the Revolution, in the war of 1912, in the In- dian wars, in the fray with Mexico or in the great convulsion of the sixties. Hit crate in only too many instances. they could expound principles of government more about the tarif and the principle upon which 1t rests than many man of the present time engaged in large opera tions. they could preach a lay sermon in the neighborhood church and perform many other useful public duties.
 The crossroads grocery statesman pa-