The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1921-08-01

world.
A 4port Of 7yrai Districts
Horseshoe pitching uau ,.s v...... =
a thousand little cr0ssrcad towns,
where, on summer eyenh:,s, 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 golf or anything
else strenuous, because they get plen-
ty Of exercise pitching hay and digging
potatoes. But now and again the spir-
it Of play strikes them in a 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 straw. There Is no.
hard feeling, no perspiration, no ex-
element, It is the typical sport Of a
well-fed. easy-going. complacent folk.
One can imagine man with revolu-
tionary thoughts In his head playing
fiery game of tennis, but one cannot
imagine him playing quoits. 1t 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.
It's pleasing but monotonous 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 it's ancestry even further
back to the days Of husking bees and
quilting frolics. 1t 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 a fried chicken din
ner on Sunday and a 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
evolutionary war. that every Ameri-
an boy has chance to be president
f he will just lie prone In front OF
lie fire and study as earnestly as Abe
lincoln did.
Such Is the environment that pro-
uced the game Of horseshoes and 1t
,urislles still In what is left Of that
environment. You do not see it played
.uch in New York or Chicago, or any
,-her big city. 1t does not fit In with
he subway rush, the roar Of lower
roadway and the elevated. Men and
omen who struggle with straining
erves for life and love and money,
s,o shimmy In jazz-racked cabarets
I'D pack the follies and the movies
re not horseshoe pitchers. They would
vote horseshoe pitching deadly bore.
Eor is 1t in tune with the mental life
# 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
as the best place this side of heaven
and gave to all foreigners rich and
condescending pity. Can America be
led back to the sweet and placid con-
tentment, the beautiful faith and ignor-
ance of the early horseshoe pitching
days?
Game Of Quoits.
But is must be added that horseshoe
pitching, to a certain extent, has kept
nm with the times. The game Of UuOitS,