The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1951-06-27
NNTais Rock
Of Ours
BY BILL GLIB

The people of this town have
their hearts in the right place.
Their donations toward helping
Edison Knowles-the young man
with a badly multilated jawbone
has proven this. Dollars are still
coming in and The Citizen will
continue to act as intermediary as
long as you folks continue to con-
tribute.
Edison is due for a long siege
of plastic surgery but thanks to
many charitable folks at home, he
knows he will be able to come
back a whole man.
Incidently, / can tell you a little
more of his story now that the
ball has started to roll
Arthur Curry who drives a taxi
asked me a couple of weeks ago
if / would work through this col
umn to help Edison get transpor-
tationa expenses to the hospital.
Until then, had never met Edison
but his case was obviously des-
perate. An operation had cured
cancer in his jaw, but later au-
tomobile accident coupled with
the previous operation had left
his face terribly disfigured. II was
a struggle for him to even eat and
hold the food in his mouth long
enough to chew.
! wanted to make an appeal to
the public through '"This Rock of
Ours" On second thought, / real
lied that quite a few folks APP
parently dislike me so intensely,
politically speaking, that it was
better to keep completely out of
the picture Arthur and Edison
both agreed with me and Edison
came down to The Citizen where
introduced him to our editor,
The story is the editors from
there on. He came to me few
hours later and said, Bill, want
TO help that boy. AS a result, his
newspaper stories and the gener-
osity of Key West people have re-
suited in new hope and spirit for
Edison Knowles. You people have
a right to feel proud of living in
a community that never let's his
fellowman down.
BUT M
4 b
While Key westess deserve
praise for their humanity. they
should be given q good, swift kick
lin" the pants FOR theft coddling
and pampering of the pinkish ele-
ments that are growing up in our
midst.
We're long ways from the
kremlin--yes. And it's true the
Korean backgrounds are far dis
tant But right here in Key West
there are Comamunistic sympa-
thizers and adherents that can and
want to help deliver a death blow
TO these United States.
I'm writing this not to create
fear or 10 attract attention but ia
warn every loyal citizen not "a
become entangled as a 'dupe in
any pinkish social gathering The
criteria for judging such gather
ing is not the open or even sug-
! gested advocacy of communism
but the subtle deviation from nor
nal working and playing exis-
tence ! can not mention more at
the present time.
LETTER DEPARTMENT
Here is a quote from an old
timer Who hasn't been in Key
West since the railroad came to
town. Sort of before my time.
Furthermore, / admire
your backbone in making your
stand in your home town where
everybody knows you and all
about you, ! have often thought
fellow is better eff among
strangers, but usually a commun-
ity has greater percentage of
fairminded people who admire
courage and ability to get ahead.
or at least the effort, than the
other sort of knockers and crepe
hangers Key West of course in
the old days was pretty much a
family tewn and away from other
contacts. They had ideas of their