, 1923-03-28

~ Aioih hoNiHS ioI u ioHS
time edited the Lowell Chronicle,
wrote an editorial with the sparks
flying off his pen and called it en-
tolerance" He said in part:
No legislator, no reformer, no zeal
Gus moralist, will admit that he is
intolerant. Yet there is more intoler-
ance in this country: intolerance
practiced by intelligent and earnest
men and women who sincerely be-
lieve that what they think is wrong
is wrong because they think so, and
who, therefore feel called upon to
make the rest of the world believe
as they do.
The same spirit of intolerance
which declares, because one man
finds rolling ivory balls over a green
cloth a crime, therefore other men
should be made to hold the same
views, could easily be considered hat
striking a white ball over a net is a
crime, or batting a baseball over a
grass plot is a crime. The spirit of
intolerance, like fire, can spread
rapidly from small beginnings, and
also like a fire, its effects are wholly
destructive when unconfined.
1t may be well to remember that
this country was founded because
the inhabitants could not stand in
tolerance of those, who abroad, leg
islated for the colonies; that certain
Pilgrims carved New England from
the wilderness because they could
not stand intolerance of religious
persecution.
Intolerance is not something re-
mote-away off in Massachusetts,,
New York State, South Carolina-it
is here in Wyoming, in Cody-that
desire to punish, to "get" the person
who holds a different opinion. We
know this out of our own experience
as the publisher of a paper opposed
to prohibition, and holding views not
in accord with a combination of per-
sons engeged in a constant struggle
to control the municipal, educational
social affairs of the town and mold
them to their own ideas. Perhaps
some examples of this spirit may be
of interest to the readers of our
"wet" column.
The local haberdasher long ago
withdrew his advertiser gfrom the
Enterprise, giving as his reason that
he would not support an anti-prohibi-
ton paper. We grant that is his pri-
vilege, though we do not get his
viewpoint. We have space to sell as
he has neckties. We might with as
much fairness declare we would not
buy his neckties because he was a
prohibitionist.
Various females representing or
CARNATIONS, and others acting upon
their own initiative, have trudged up
influence advertisers to take their
patronage elsewhere, with hints of
boycott, while more recently when
the county commissioners gave the
county printing to the Enterprise
and made it the official paper, a dele
cation consisting of nearly all the
hatchet-faced ladies in Cody-we
have never been able to learn why
it is that Ratchet faces and ostenta-
tious righteousness seem always to
go together-accompanied by two
or three of the towns male grannies,
waited upon the commissioners and
asked them to reconsider their decisi-
on.
They write us letters, and write
other people letters, and hold confer
ences, and "pull wires"-all with the
amiable intention of putting the En-
~terprise out of business. But
whether il is that the Devil looks
after his own, or for some other rea-
son, the Enterprise keeps on growing
in reputation and circulation, so we
view the activities of those who
would punish us for holding to our
own opinions with equinimity and
wen considerable amusement.