The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-08-10
USEFUL CITIZENS.

USEFUL CITIZENS.
 One of the conspicuous features of the young and growing Western or Middle Western town in the United States is the type of citizen known as the Booster. The statement, however, demands a certain qualification. The professional boomer often arrives be fore the town, or he appears upon the scene just when the streets and the pathways have been constructed, and the street names put up, and every thing in fact, is there for the purpose of the beginning of civic life, except the main essential, the houses. But it must not be supposed that the Booster, whose purpose is to boost the town" to push" it's merits, to show it to be the newest, the best, the most up-to-date dwelling spot, or site for factories on the face of the globe,ts at all embarrassed by this trifiing de- ficiency. No, on the contrary, the man who Is to push the locality so long as there Is a locality to push, knows, or believes he knows, that 1t has a golden future. which will not fail to cause those absent homes to spring out of the ground at the rub ping of modern Aladdin's lamp.
 There is hardly any end to the list of objects which Booster will boost. It may be a highway, or a county, a tract for irrigation, or site for mines. Then again, his boosting may take in whole state and its industries, and, | for the efficient conduct of his duties, | he may own Or edit or have at his beck and call a newspaper, or series of newspapers. He may stump the country to enlighten the citizens, and mark his progress throughout the state by attractive interviews in the paper, and by a. regular press cam paign. A wide-awake business man, the Booster of that type rides in a big touring car, wears kid gloves, has the finest house, the finest clothes, and the finest office. Morning, noon
 and night he booms the object to be boomed for all 1t is worth. He is well-mannered, always has a smile, and knows the commercial value of an imperturable temper and a true | breezy, business air. If 1t be a town in which he is interested, or, rather, to which he has determined to devote | his supearbundant energy, and the
 arriving stranger betrays the slightest
 interest in it, the newcomer is the
 object of his concentrated attention
 till the hour of his departure. The
 Booster whisks him off in his car tC
 the hotel, then to the mayor, the towr
 clerk, and the president of the Boart of Trade. Casually, quite casually
 the stranger learns that a big, swell ing pride animates his guide when
 ever he talks about the town. Ant he Is never tired of his pet theme.
 When the stranger has seen tn
 layout" of the town, and heard
 all the things that have been don or are to be done within 1t, or ough to be done whenever the town get ! the necessary appropriation, whe l he has heard all about the sewerine the paving, and the projected club I house, the rush on the overcrowde q "hotel," the awful inadequacies o = labor elseW here, and the increase . the population during the previou I year; when he has mentally note
 the factory facilities and the fire
 grants of building sites, and has ha
 it proved to him by incontrovertibl
 facts and figures for what the tow l. means to stanI till the end of il l. civic days, and how every citizen - fully determined to make or the pIac II the Empire or Pearl City. of the Wes c then he begins to realize that th r town and it's aggregation of bus V, huslting, patriotic humanity Is li7
 ing organism. He wants to have v stake in it's precious soil, to be of tn;
 happy few upon whom fortune
 about to bestow her most sunr T smile. He buys. Then it is that u Booster cautions the interested, u ., fascinated, newcomer to "sit tiy\lt waiting for the day when his proper . will grow in value, when envious pe ,t pie will pursue him with offers
 buy and he will smile and say not
 ing, until the day of days when
 receives that offer, which will spe
 a life competence, and he will-se - After all the Booster is a refl K of the life of the West. In his eX
 berance, his aggressive faith, the - may often be suggestion of boas I'd fitness, of shrewd commercialisn, n- selfish interest, of the unfair de; F. But there are boosters and booster n Many there are who devote their liv, . unsparingly and unselfishly, to eau lg es in which they have nothing st. gain except the job of achievemel
 but which place them indubitat . among the makers of the mode tn West.-Christian Sciance Monitor.