The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1924-10-30
THE ONLY HOUSE WITH
A SOUND ROOF

Let us picture by parable, II we
can, the meaning of the major pro-
posals of the LaFollette movement,
which is strange and interesting as
semblage of Socialists and near-So-
cialists, radicals and near-radicals
and the well-meaning discontinued
who are not at heart radicals at all.
Imagine community, with house
for every family
Many houses, many kinds of
houses. Some cottages, some castles
but all alike except one in one re-
spect; every one of them except that
one is in bad repair.
Holes in the roofs let in rain and
snow and sleet. Broken windows let
in wintry blasts. Broken foundations
let floods into the Easements. Dis
comfort and hardship, there, for
most of the people; though in all of
them there are favored rooms where
few of the inhabitants live in lux
ury. THEIR windows are whole. The
roofs over THEIR rooms are sound,
no matter how leaky they may be ov-
err the other rooms in the same house
But one of the houses, the home of
one of the families of that commun-
ity, is sound from cellar to roof. The
roof is waterproof, and lets in no
rain. The windows are whole, and let
in no bitter weather.
Not all of the rooms in this house
are luxurious. Some rooms are plain,
and too crowded.
Those who live in the poorest
rooms in that home are better off
than all but the specially favored
few in all the other homes.
And
There is constant movement in that
home, as people rise from the poor
rooms to the better; for it is the
custom of that family so to reward
industry and integrity, which is not
a bad family practice.
1t is an interestingly miscellaneous
family in the one big house that is
sound. Most of the members, of
course, are members by blood.
But there is very large number
Of adopted children, too. The fam
lily that owns the house has been hos
pitable. Many of those who inhabit
er houses, the leaky and tumbledown
houses; and they have come to the
big, sound house because they were
tired of the squalor and hardship
from which they have thus escaped.
The house is sound. The windows
keep out the weather, the roof keeps
out the rain. 1t is an enterprising
family that inhabits that house, and
it is constantly improving the home,
making things more comfortable for
more members of the family.
1t is the only sound house in the
community. 1t is inhabited by the
most prosperous family. Those who
dwell in the other houses look upon
that family with envy. And often
this prosperous family, Which is also
good hearted, finds occasion to re-
lieve the worst distresses of these in
the other houses, and is we'll able to
do so.
Yet some of those who dwell in
the sound house are discontented.
Not with the calm and wise discon..
tent of those who will not be salts
fled until the house is made comfort
able for everybody in it, but with
the bitter discomfort that wants to
turn the house upside down and
wreck the furniture.
These bitter disconnected ones have
made strange proposal. They
want to put holes in the roof like the
holes in the other roofs. Because
some of them complain of lack Of
ventilation, they want to rip off part
of the roof and let in the fresh air.
They do not see that when they let
in the fresh air this way, they also
let in the rain and the snow and the
sleet; that if they have their way,
presently this house will be no bet
ter than the other houses-the di-
lapidated houses from which some of