Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1932-11-03
The Question Before Us is:
What is aFarm?'
DEAR MAC:

DEAh MAJ.
AS one party man to the other.
I am going to give you good bawl-
ing out. That certainly was a son-of-
a-gun of job you gave me-that of
supervising the farmers dinner at
the Candidates country estate the
other Sunday. ! had one devil of a
job trying to convince the farmers
that gathered there for the feed that
they were actually Oh farm. So
many bum plays were made during
the day that I'm still little hazy
about the whole mess. I'm afraid
that most of the farmers got the i'm
preston that the estate was golf
course, or a race track, or sum-
mer resort, or something. Don't think
for minute that | feel any too good
about the whole deal. I'm plenty
sore:
l would have gotten away with the
put-Over in good shape, if it hadn't
been for that ignoramus from the 18th
ward. You know who l mean. Mac
Joe, the guy who was to have helped
me pull the wool over the farmers
eyes. OF course. I'm not so we'll
posted on this farming business my
self. but that bird Joe-when it comes
to farming he's just plain dumb.
Joe and l dashed out to the joint
the Saturday before the meeting to
kind of look things over. After MAX
ing hasty survey, | could see that
we would have to do a few things
OF, fofn ~
of farm look. We could find plenty
of good looking horses. but not a
horse collar in sight, although saddles
were everywhere. So l says to Joe,
Joe, old boy, / don't know how much
you're up on the farming proposition,
but I've never seen farm without
a hOrse-collar, have you Joe?" Joe
wasn't quite sure whether he had
or not. In fact, he wasn't quite sure
as to what a horse collar looked like.
Well, anyway, Joe and l had a
little conference and we decided to
dig up few horse collars. We found
a bunch of them at an old livery
stable back in Minneapolis Most of
the collars were pretty old, straw
sticking out of the ragged edges and
a bit mouldy from age. You know,
Mac, it would never do to use new
collars. During this era of Hoover
and the Farm Board. the farmers are
down to haywire. To them a new
horse collar would look like the good
old days of Woodrow Wilson.
Then we decided that we would
have to dress up the yard a little.
We rounded up lot of old cultiva-
chinery and piled them up along side
of the barn. The joint was beginning
to look more and more like a farm
every minute.
When | got to thinking about the
propaganda that was going around
about the Candidates education, /
figured that we would spike that in
a hurry. So / sent Joe to town to
look up couple of old professors
who had one of those old time college
diplomas. You've seen the kind, Mac,
those that were written entirely in
Latin. Bills old man has got one.
Remember how Bill used to take us
upstairs and show us his old mans
diploma, written in Latin, which was
hanging up on the wall-an imposing
looking thing, printed in beautiful
script. "Gallia est omnis divisa in
parties tres" or something like that?
Remember how Bill used to tell us
that it was his degree? Well, / had
it all doped out. We would make a
multi-lettered gentleman out of the
Candidate yet. The idea was a good
one, but the execution was rotten.
That's where / made a bad mistake,
letting Joe execute the deal. He ex-
ecuted it alright, but how?
We left for home that night feel
ing that everything was okay was
to meet Joe at his house at five
o'clock Sunday morning. Our play
was to dress as hired farm hands and
kind of mingle with the farmers and
slip a good word in here and there
for the Candidate.
l don't claim to know much about
farming but / know this much; farm
ers get up early-which is out of
JOe's line. / waited for that gink
from five until seven Finally he
came out of the house dressed in a
white golf suit, white shoes and
everything; just as he would have
dressed to play round with the bank
ers at the club. What a farm hand:
That shows you where that guy Joe's
brains are Ruf honest Mao Won