The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1923-05-03
ChaDter iii

Chapter III
A Sunday school teacher In con
versation with a minister asked hin
why it is that the Lord does mo-
bring about greater progress from
year to year among the lOwly people
of earth instead of having then
linger along in the old ways of pow
erty and sickness and ignorance;
why could they not rise from pres
ent conditions, turn new leaf and
have the better things?
The old minister replied that II
changes came SO rapidly, the present
generation would become ashamed
of their parents, and parents would
feel too keenly their own isolation
as they are left behind in human
progress. The older ones would be
unable to make a living for themsel-
yes because of the improved ways
and the new devices which the young
can learn to use but which the mid
die aged and the elderly people find
confusing to them.
Applying that principal to the
days of our fathers, we find that the
introduction of the sewing machine
brought considerable hardship among
the elderly people who were making
their living by hand sewing, and of
course, it brought great relief to the
generation that was young enough to
take to the use of the machine. 1t
changed the habits of women so
quickly that the art of using the
needle suffered severe jolt. Then
came the typewriter for the next
generation, and it made handwriting
almost a lost art. Children are
learning to write, and at the same
time asking what is the use. They
are learning to add, multiply and
and calculating machines
are doing the work by merely punch
ing the keys. Farmer boys and girls
are tinkering with the problems OF
humus, bacteria and legumes and
getting astonishing results from
small tracts, while dad and mother
can't make a profit on larger tracts,
nor understand the puttering around
with these new tricks.
The people who settled the Snake
river valley were mostly poor folks
who began without capital, conquer
ed a desert in one generation, and
spanned the wide breach from going
afoot or riding a cayuse, to the lux
lry of soft cushions in the gasoline
chariot. 1t was too long step, and
hey fell back into the breach tenn
Dorarily, and now the visitor riding
among the farms sees the cayuse
again anchored at the stable and the
gas chariot with faded top and fiat
Tres standing without tying-it
wouldn't move on bet. At some
arms one sees two or three dis
,arded cars more or less demolished
,r knocked out, and if he looks over
he park of discarded farming i'm
Elements he will find quite SER
es including almost everything from
IN eggbeater up to the steam thrash
# and the Rumley oil pull tractor,
,ut in the weather, and one has to
4dmit that it takes rich farm to buy
III of that factory-made lineup and
'ay the freight on them across the
ointment.
A generation ago the government
# the United States gave railroad
ompany every alternate section of
and in a belt twenty miles wide,
made them a loan of hundred mil
lon dollars and gave them a bonus
esides, for building q railroad OF
heir own from Omaha to the Col
EN- Gate. They also agreed to
trade OUT portion of that hun
red million dollars in railroad fares
1oving troops back and forth along
he railroad quelling the Indian up
isings. There were people who be-
eyed the agitator politicians when
hey predicted that !. the railroad
vould never be profitable to operate, ]
nat it would only be operated until
hey wore out the rolling stock and
educed the road to "a right of way !
nd streak of rust" They said
ne government would never get its
undred million dollars back, and {
lat the company would sell the land '
Or whatever they could get and go s
ut Of business. The richest stock {
older in the company, who had on
lany occasions expressed the ambi-