The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-08-13
PART I.

PART l.
Thru the wisdom of the Infinite,
which at times seems hard for us
mortals to understand, we are made
to use our talents and to key our
selves up to the greatest; capacity,
when love Of ease would make ua
lie down or 60 about the task In a
way to accomplish but little. Such
experience comes into every life that
amounts to anything, and to mil
lions that do not seem to amount to
much or to anything out Of the or
binary. As, we look about US we
can find application Of the law in an
infinite number Of ways and cir
cumstances. Here is an example:
In June, 1904, the newspaper men
Of the United States were invited
to visit the Louisiana Purchase ex-
position at st. Louis for one week,
and be the guests of the exposition
company and the concessionists. A
carload of the Idaho editors got to-
gether and went in company. and
were at st. Louis at the right time
to attend the convention of the Ma
tional Editorial association. The
president and secretary of the state
association had been twitted by
some Of their associates with the pre-
diction that they could not keep the
association alive thru their term Of
office, and they determined to get
such good speakers that all who at
tended the session would want to
90 again.
Down in California was a hand
some woman who was ever so clever
at reciting, that she could keep a
party conyulsed with laughter. She
had had wealth and lived in luxury.
but misfortune had overtaken her
husband, he was ill, their home
mortgaged for fifteen thousand dol
lars, and the prospects were dark.
The secretary of the N. E. A. asked
her IL she would 60 to st. Louis and
entertain the editors convention for
one hour for money, and she wired
that she would.
When the convention opened she
was there. She sat on the stage by
the side of (Marse) Henry Waiter
son, and when he was introduced,
a packed house rose and cheered and
did him the honor of offering him
all the seats in the house
With shaggy name and eyes flash
ing defiance, the old man talked to
the newspaper men and gave them
such a scourging as the writer nev-
er heard before nor since. He read
them the law of right and wrong
in journalism and told them of their
disregard of rectitude and of how
they soaked in "cussedness," tramp
ling the rights and feelings of their
readers under foot as if the peo-
pie were mere worms created for
them to despoil. The writer of this
article was new in the newspaper
work and it took ten years of obser-
walton to see that Watterson was
right. In all that we have ever
read and heard before and since,
we have never witnessed such an
avalanche of truth delivered into the
very teeth of body of men without
one iota of regard for what they
themselves thought of it or him.
When Watterson sat down the
audience did not rise. They had
passed the rising point for him. They
were thinking. Then the handsome
woman was presented; the woman
whose home carried a fifteen thous-
and dollar mortgage and sick hus-
band. She smiled and handed them
a Joke or two to relax the sternness
of the moment She told a short
story and they roared. She told
another and another in quick sue
cession and followed along with side
splitters till people lay down On each
others laps because they could not
sit up to laugh.
The men who had predicted the
failure of the convention were rea-
dy to wipe out the record of that
session. Henry Watterson had driv-
en- home his points, and the hand
some woman knew that if she could
make thousand angry editors laugh
to exhaustion she could go about
over the land and entertain average
audiences and cure dyspepsia and
drive away the blues, and the gate
receipts would lift the mortgage
and preserve the home over the sick
mans head.
By having misfortune come to her
own home she rose from a life Of
ease to life of service to others
-.t-
FAIR COMPETITION