The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1931-01-16

is the first time ] have been able
to follow your discussions of local
matters without feeling a profound
doubt. Though my own extreme
poverty prevents me at present
from helping you with even SO
small a sum as three dollars, / do
hope that you will win this fight,
for your late issues have certainly
done great good.
Though your present stand is
more to your credit, your former
attitude was undoubtedly safer for
you. You are becoming too plain
spoken for your own good. Truth
crushed to earth will rise again,
but the man who championed it
the first time does not always rise
with it. I have learned that it is
necessary to be a little hypocritl-
cal if one is to survive among hyp-
ocrites. One cannot get on with
two-faced people unless one is a
little two-faced. If a man comes to
you and tells you that black is
white, it is prudent to agree with
him. If a second man tells you that
on the contrary, white is black and
black is nothing, by all means
agree with him, as well. Then
when a third man assures you
that there is no black and nc
white, but only an indeterminate
grey, it is best not only to agree
with him but to prove it to him
That is the way to success anC
popularity and 20 unsurpassed
irony!) the respect of the major
ity. Honesty, temperance, anC
clean living are pretty toys to pla!
with, but it is dangerous to tak'
them seriously. To be successful
do not be a good man; be yes
man.
l am not a babbling youngsteI
; playing at being a cynic, but a so
Der, mature person. / write this a
man who has already grow
: grey hairs-who at twenty-nine i
/ an old man in terms of bitter eX
5 perience-who, because he ha
= been SO extremely unwise as hon
estly to express his honest thot'
is penniless, ragged, and uncertai
c where the next shakerful of sal
o is to come from.
d While you are in this crusadin
S mood, it might be well to say
r word for that common drudge, tn
n farm laborer. / know that it is GU
f tomary to consider everything tn;
Y farmers do as sacred and not sui
r iect to criticism, but this shoul
r be mentioned, nonetheless. Durin
the five years I have lived in tn
, neighborhood, several well-to-C
# farmers hereabouts have never {
" seldom hired a man who live
IS here, but someone from some 9th
n state Year after year my neare
neighbors have hired men fro
- Minnesota or Wisconsin or N
~ braska. who, whe nwork is owe
ts invariably 90 back and spend the
10 money in their own states. Duril
- 1880, while I was endeavoring
keep nv family alive on a total
come of less than seventy-five d.
lars for the whole year, and bel
taxed for the privilege, nearly e
cry one of these people hired m
who left the state as soon as hs
vest was over. Most of these ira
sients were single men; but OF
who has had steady employing
S here every summer for three yea
DESERTED HIS WIFE AND B
BY somewhere near Shovel La
Minnesota, before he came {
u here.
D. Could the utter unfairness of
-, be more strongly stated?
g; And yet, if 1, by my own pa
III ~ full efforts in a sphere which tt
~ neither understand nor appro
y. " should happen to win a sm
.ot check from the publisher of so
- magazine down in Robbinsdale
;",, Iowa City or Detroit, these PEG
10y know exactly where and how
- ought to spend it.
"a Very truly yours,
his JOHN A. STABBED