The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1921-06-09
pitch QUOITS? (. !.
HARDING DOES
President Fond Of 0Id-Fashioned
Game of Horseshoes.
HOPE FOR new POPULARITY

0POrS b0OAuO0 u FTO8J09uVV IuS0ts
sst-Exscutive May Indulge In
Pastlms In White Houss Yard 70
Rseupsrate From Strain of Running
the Country.
The reports having gone forth that
President Harding is very fond Of the
game Of qu0its, or horseshoe pitching
that he has Joined a national organi-
cation Of horseshoe pitchers, and that
he may pitch horseshoes In the White
House yard to recuperate from the
strain Of running the country, the
friends Of this fine old American game
hope that 1t may achieve new popu-
larity.
There is tendency in this country
to follow the lead Of the President in
matters Of sport. Mr.. Roosevelt I'M
doubtedly did much to popularize the
study of birds, and also he helped
probably by his example to swell the
army Of American hunters.
Although the game is played in
England and Scotland it is indigenous
to the United States and may be re-
garded as 100 per cent American.
Furthermore, it smacks strongly Of
that America Of yesterday. to the
spirit Of which we are trying to re-
turn-the America of peace, content
ment, normalcy-an America supreme
~ self-satisfled in the belief that 1t
is the greatest and most perfect ma
ton on earth. America DOING in the
warm sun Of prosperity untroubled by
its relations with the rest Of the
world.
A Sport Of Rural Districts.
Horseshoe pitching had its origin In
a. thousand little crossroad towns,
where, on summer evenings, well-fed
farmers gather under the tree in front
Of the blacksmith shop. For the most
part they sit and smoke and talk.
They are not restless men. They
never play tennis or golf or anything
else strenuous, because they get plen-
ty Of exercise pitching hay and digging
potatoes. But now and again the spir-
1t Of play strikes them in mild and
friendly form. Old horseshoes are
lying all about. Two pegs are driven
into the ground. and soon game is
in progress. 1t is good-natured,
easy-going game. Contested points
are decided finally by an umpire
armed with a straw. There is no
hard feeling, no perspiration, no ex-
element, It is the typical sport Of
well-fed, easy-going, complacent folk.
One can imagine man with revolu-
tionary thoughts in his. head playing
a fiery game of tennis, but one cannot
imagine him playing quoits. It Is not.
in fact, game calculated to appeal
to any man who is leading an excit-
ing life, whether its excitements are
chiefly intellectual or chiefly physical. \
Its pleasing but monot0nous move
ments and mild crisis are diverting
only by contrast with daily tasks even
more monotonous. 1t belongs in the
same school of things with the old
swimming hole, the country fair, the
church sociable.
It traces its ancestry even further
back to the days of husking bees and
quilting frolics. It is associated with
the smell Of wet black earth and
growing corn, with the long still coun-
try evenings when frogs and crickets
sing, with simple tasks and neighbor-
ly feelings, with fried chicken din
ner on Sunday and good soothing
sermon and long nap in the ham,
mock on the front porch. 1t belongs
to the good old American school of
philosophy which holds that God is in
his heaven and all is right with the
world, that civilization began after the |
revolutionary war. that every Ameri- |
can boy has chance to be president |
If he will just lie prone in front Of |
the fire and study as earnestly as Abe
Lincoln did.
Such iS the environment that pro-
duced the game Of h0rsesh0es and 1t
flourishes still in what is left Of that
You do not see it played
much in New York or Chicago, or any
other big city. 1t does not fit in with
the subway rush, the roar Of lower
and the elevated. Men and
who struggle with straining
nerves for life and love and money,
who shimmy in jazz-racked cabarets
and pack the follies and the movies
are not horseshoe pitchers. They would
vote horseshoe pitching deadly bore.
Nor is it in tune with the mental life
Of the new metropolitan America,
which is so self conscious and worried
the America that reads "Main Street"
and patronizes British high-brow lee
turers and tries hard to guess what
Is going on in Russia. Antebellum,
horseshoe pitching America barely had
heard Of Russia, regarded Main street
IS the best place this side Of heaven
ind gave to all foreigners a rich and
pity. Can America be
ed back to the sweet and placid con-
eminent, the beautiful faith and ignor-
lnce OF the early horseshoe pitching
lays?