The Mena weekly star., 1919-04-17
BOOSTER OR KNockER-WHlcH?

It would not be fair for we ants and farmers to expose our faults to the public as we did in last weeks Star and let the other side go. They have their faults also, especially when it comes to petty trickeries and unfair motives. Right off the reel, here are some of them:
 The petitions were circulated with out the Alexander road law ever hay ing been fully discussed. The peti- tions were filed with scant notice as to the date of court action and passed upon with too much haste. More than that, the petitions under Judge Wear should have been destroyed, and many signers, as evidenced by their repeti- tions, considered that they had been destroyed Going a little further, the road, as to majority in acreage and number of landowners, was granted on a mere boys report, who was hired by the boosting crowd These are facts, and the denial of them and the con tinuation and perpetuation of such seemingly harmless practices is what is causing so much grumbling anu complaining among farmers. No mat ter how essential, legitimate and righteous public cause may be. If the least bit of deception is used to bring about discontent results.
 Now some farmers may kick at any any everything, of which is doubtless the case with some, as evidenced in the case of schools, churches, dipping vats, highways and whole lot of oth- CT things But may the Lord bless them. A knocker of the right kind is the greatest thing in the world It is a pity that we haven't had more of them in the past to have checked some of this unequal distribution of wealth and useless indebtedness. ln- debtedness is ruining the whole world and the more we knock it's continua- tion the better off we will be.
 What we need more than anything else is publicity-absolute publicity especially with reference to public matters of all kinds 1t will create more confidence among the rank and file of our whole population than any thing else we can do It will remove jealousies and reduce much of this class hatred that we hear so much about. But the farmer himself needs more reforming along this line than anyone else. For he, too, is given to games. But the farmer can get by too much secrecy and side issue" on this point on the grounds that he Is not putting himself up as leader If our leaders intend to maintain and hold the confidence of their constitu- ents they must strive to sbe as near perfect as possible.
 Really it seems as tho the farmer always puts his confidence in the wrong man. It is some blue sky" oil faker or some one he never saw be- fore that invariably attracts his atten- ton. To illustrates About three years ago slick Jew came to our town of Hatfield. He was taking subscriptions paper intended solely for produce dealers, and not for the producers. This Jew, probably never having seen farm, with his yiddish and a map of some kind, caught the farmers by the dozens. Today there is probably not a single one of those papers that come to this town. P. T. Barnum said there was a sucker born every minute. He could have added that they come sometimes by trios and triples, for the world is full of them
 Now this Jew and his produce jour nal, insofar as talk is concerned, rep resents precisely what has taken place in the case of this Jefferson nlgnway Everybody knows that the Alexander road law is unjust But some people wanted a highway so bad they just simply out-taiked the farmer and got his name on the petition, and often against his will. Their daily comics sions prove it. And this is why I criticized farmers so last week. They simply will not wake up and back their own judgment So if left to us farmers a highway would never be built. After killing thing we never offer anything better as a substitute On this account our boosters are to be admired and congratulated, and they would get it if they would be a little more on the square. A farmer may be ignorant on some things, but he always smells a mouse when hy- pocracy starts up.
 Yes, we farmers need to wake up. Commonplace men, with good clothes and glib tongue often talk us into anything they want We need to mix more with our leaders and business men. They are all human to the core.
 This chasm that exists between the farmer, the laborer and the business man and the professional man. is not due to dishonesty. It is due to the difference in degrees of enlighten- ment. City people who have chanc. to do much mixing, and our leaders es. pecialiy, are wiser than we know. Some of them know us better than we know ourselves. Different shaped heads, our language, intonation ol voice, state of health. manner of dress, all indicate something. Some men read us at glance. They take our number, so to speak, if you please. pigeon-hole our type and class with as much accuracy as the astronomer reads the stars and predicts the travel of comets.
 No use of us appealing to reason