The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1931-02-13
A Letter to the Editor

"A Letter TO Cne EQlCOr
All sorts of mail comes to the desk Of the average
editor.
Most Of the letters are from persons seeking to con-
vince him of the merit of this or that commercial product.
Some come from cranks seeking support for various ideas
Occasionally there is a pathetic little note from a lone
some mother. saying her son has light hair, blue eyes and
is six feet tall. Won't the editor please help to locate
him and send him home because his father is i'll?
Frequently there come to the editors desk letters from
citizens expressing their views on subjects of general
interest. Many Of them contain sound common sense,
too, and shed new light on important subjects.
But recently The Tribune received a letter a little
different from all the rest. It was from LIE Roy Leitch
OF Carson, Grant County, champion boy poultry raiser
of the Missouri Slope country and winner Of . cup do
mated by The Tribune at the recent Missouri Slope poultry
show.
lie Roy said: II want to thank you for your kindness
in sending mt some extra copies Of your paper which
my picture was in.
II also want to tell you I think a lot of my cup and
want to thank you for it."
That's all there was. LIE Roy put his thoughts on
paper with the same simple directness with which he set
about to raise the chickens which brought him the prize.
For our part, We get a thrill out Of this short letter,
for it takes us back many years to our own boyhood.
Few of us ever won a handsome silver cup, but we can
remember the admiration which we felt for the boy to
whom distinction came and our secret determinations
to distinguish ourselves also.
We are glad LIE Roy won the cup and hope its pos
session will spur him on to new endeavors. After all,
winning the cup was not an achievement in Itself but
only the recognition of an achievement which would have
been fully as notable had there been no one to award q
cup and no one to put his picture in the newspaper.
Being the best boy poultry raiser in western North
Dakota is vastly more important than. possessing any
cup.
AS time goes on there will be other years and other
cups. The Tribune will donate its full share of them, for
no thinking man can escape the responsibility which we
elder folks owe to ourselves in the work Of guiding the
younger generation.
If this land is to be what we dream for the future,
the creative and constructive impulses of childhood must
be encouraged.
Had Mr.. and Mrs. George Leitch. LIE Roy,s parents,
frowned on his first suggestion that he would like to
raise a few chickens and to participate In the All club
contests, it is improbable that he would ever have won a
prize at an important exhibition. Had they smothered
that constructive urge by turning unsympathetic ears
toward his ideas there would be no championship in the
Leitch home today and lie Roys future would appear
much less bright.
The Tribune is glad to have 1Gdr letter, LIE Roy. It's
hopes for your future are the same as its hopes for the
future OF every other boy and girl in this broad land OF
ours. May you grow to be an honest, dependable and
constructive member of your community; may you make
full use of your talents; may you ever strive to be a
champion and, having won a championship, may you
strive to keep it by every honest means.
The Tribune wishes this, lie Roy, mostly for your own
sake but partly for its own benefit and the benefit of all
these other grownups in western North Dakota.
The future would be dark indeed were it not for the
certain knowledge that the coming generation is being
trained to solve its own problems and the certainty that
its members have, within themselves, the ability to do a
great many things much better than they are being done
now.