New Britain herald., 1919-08-27
COMMUNICATED.
Uncle Hiram Returns

It has been sometime since vo,,r Uncle Hiram broke out in print Fact IS, l haint wrote a word for the news papers since the "Punkintown Head ache turned up it's tees
 But seem my old friend Hank Long mas broken loose and butted into the "rltln game 1 kinder reckoned might get hearin' too.
 NOW that Hank has been mentioned 1 might just as we'll tell the folks that's interested that the picture that flank has published along with his Wrltln's was taken about fifteen years ago. | come pretty near knowin' Hanks age as him and I was boys apout the same time and went fshin' together morn cree. reckon Hanks usln' the picture as a sort of 'camOu- Hage' as they call that new war game they've invented for maxim things seem different from what they are. By the way I'll have to tell YOU about that fishln' trip sometime I wouldn't nave give Hank away on the picture but l heard a young widow say she would like to meet Hank-and know she would be dreadfully disappointed when she found out how he'd chang ed.
 But Hanks a pretty good fellow after all and he's got some first class ideas even if he has got a sort of queer way of eXpressn' 'em.
 But didn't start out to write about Hank altogether. I wanted to tell the folks a little story that's sort of bound up with the Thigh cost of Twin which seems to be interesting most people just now. Of course you all know I'm a farmer and don't do much of anything 'ceptin' raise things to eat. It's a fact I'm agettin' more money for what I have to sell I've got to in order to keep off the Town Farm. But my bank account ain't growth so terrible fast after all and my old wallet don't stretch my pock- ct any on account of it's unusual size. You see it's this way: while I get more for what | have to sell it costs me considerable more to raise it. used to pay Enoch Baxter twenty dol lars a month and board; now he gets fifty and wants sixty-fve. My mowin' machine played out last spring and I had to pay one hundred and twenty dollars cash for the same kind of machine l used to get for forty dol lars, on time. I've been stocked up pretty heavy on cows, my feed give out kinder early and I've had to pay eighty dollars a ton for feed 1 could have bought ten years ago for twen- ty dollars, and so it goes all along the lIne.
 l had big peach crop last year. Couldn't sell 'em all here in New Britain so I shipped some to Boston and New York. Between the cost of picl1in' the freight and the commits sion, to say nothin' of containers and other s1>all items I realized about thirty cents a basket; but peaches sold at ten and fifteen cents a quart retail
 My brother Amos is a Boston man. He's got d son that's in the wholesa le business. Harry dropped in to see me last week. Naturally we got to talkin' about the high cost of Twin. l kinder insnuated that the whole- salers was takin' morn their share of profit. I showed him the article writ tin by An Employe' in last Tues days Herald. He read it. then laugh ed and said: "What's the use of talk in about municipal stores. Might just as well shut up. The mddlemen are gettin' things cinched tighter every day The people howl about the high cost of liVin', but that's all it will amount to. They'll never do anything about it. They are like the politi- clans they send down to Washington to represent them. They talk and pout and get red in the face and tell what they are goin to Go for the folks back home but that ends it all. The great 'unWashed public forgets all about any troubles it's had as soon as 1t gets it's stomach filled and it's mind occupied with plenty of blood and thunder movin' pictures and a prize fight thrown in now and then by way of variety. Wly they've been yellin' about Wall Street gamblin' bein' robbed by the railroads, iron masters and oil kings fo1 years but what have they ever done to change it any? When they vote. do they vote together for any particular thing? Does one out of a dozen have the faintest idea what he's votn' for? You can bet your life they don't. You will find the noble sons of toll votin' for every blamed candidate in the field. The very place they might win out if they worked together they split all to pieces.
 "Who do they send to the state leg islatures 70 represent them or down to Washington to make laws for their benefit-some of their fellow laborins men? Not so you can notice it. They are mostly lawyers. Do the lawyers look after the interests of those who sent them? Yes, when it makes good business for lawyers to do so not otherwise.