The pioneer-review. [volume] (Philip, Haakon County, S.D.) 1920-current, 1921-01-06
HAAK0N COUNTY TYPES.
(The Booster)

Certainly Haakon county ha
III been and is, the home of the boos
II ter. There are boosters elsewher,
i OF course, but none OF them, w,
II believe, quite like ours. When tht
buffalo passed from these prairias
) the booster took his place. Whel
the rcd man stepped aside to give
: way to the heralds of the white
mans civilization, he stepped aside
TO give way to booster. The boos.
ter and his tribe have been on the
job IN Western South Dakota ever
/ since, and the indications are that
they will be here when Gabriel
blows his trumpet and the scroll
Z is rolled together for the last time,
Some of them may get hit by the
7 i 1!y.nG yS pieces, but we expect most
I of them will survive and go right
on boosting, selling real estate,
growing new kinds of alfalfa, in
Producing new and better register
1 ed cattle, putting down oil-wells,
i and the like, in the New Jerusalem
lust as they have been doing in
Haakon county.
The real simon-pure booster must
he an optinist. Our Haakon coun-
ty bosters are mostly optimism. IF
the day is cold, tomorrow will be
warmer. If the wind blows a gale.
1T is worse in the tropics. lie
Edrouth threatens, it is good for
the hay and for the alfalfa seed
Icrop, and then it is bound to rain
'sometimel So the booster trails
ever onward and upward towards
the glory-land where he hopes to
arrive some day, believing that
things are better than they are
and that tomorrow is bound to
prove it.
Boosters have made our town
and county what it is, and if they
slip up bit occasionally, it should
not be charged against them. 1t
is natural for booster to attempt
more than he can accomplish. He
ysets such pece thatttis neighbors
cannot keep up, and his hopes are
never quite realized. He is born
that way He becomes a booster
with his first meal. Not being
bottle-fed, he soon learns that there
are two of them. Emboldened by
his success, but not satisfied, he
starts nosing around to find the
third and is disappointed. And
that tragedy of infancy is simply
repeated again throuhout the life
Of the booster. He is never saris-
fed with good thing, nor two Of
them, but is ever seeking the
third.
Boosters here in Philip have not
always struck twelve. They have
built creameries, organized corpor-
atlons that came to nothing, fell \
down on one county division cam
paign, built an electric light plant
and achieved a few other things
that did not pan out as they hop
ed. But in the main they have
achieved as much as could be ex-
pected; they have always meant
we'll; and they have afforded color (
and interest to our lives which
might otherwise have been trifie
tull and uninteresting. At times
they have been a little hard on
some of the rest Of us who were
100 conservative and slow-going to
suit their high enthusiasm, and
they have called us old fogies, fos-
sils, and barnacles, and we know
not what. Some of our more
5horo-going boosters have, during
The past fifteen years, finally given
lp in disgust and left us to wad-
lie along towards the Devil and de-
'truction in our own way. We have
oeen sorry to lose them, and have
ust kept on waddling. We have
respected everyone of them for the
purity and loftiness of their mot
yes, and have regretted always
hat we were stuck so deeply in
he mud of our conservative ways.
And we rise right up now and say,
iod bless the boosters of Haakon
ounty, present and absent, here
nd gone, alive and dead; may
heir paths be pleasanter to the ,
nd of their adventuring and their
memories ever green. /.