Image provided by: YMCA of Ashland; Ashland, OR
About Jacksonville miner. (Jacksonville, Or.) 1932-1935 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 22, 1932)
1 T he J acksonvii i i M inir 2 THE JACKSONVILLE MINER Published Weekly ot JACKSONVILLE. OREGON O L eonard H all Editor and Publisher bread and water rations And. a fellow would just about have to file gold bars to escape from this depression. But, personally, we couldn't even make the down pay ment on a file. * Well, folks, we’re going to give you an editorial the likes of which Address All Communication} to Box 118 you've never seen before. First SUBSCRIPTION RATES, IN ADVANCE: we'll tell you that it won't mean One Yru’ J 1.00 Si» Months 50c anything in particular which the HEADQUARTERS: NUGGET CONFECTIONERY only surprising thing is admission of it. The yarn goes like this: TELEPHONE 162 Not long ago the writer was driving on a very dark, stormy night. Visibility was nil and. when a car approached, one had to guess at the probable location of the ditch. Along this stretch of high There’s a story behind the big way it paid to be a good guesser. ! It so happened that this same eve five-cent soup sign being displayed prominently in one of Jackson- j ning, a Saturday, one proud owner ville’s downtown windows. And in of an automobile, having decided reality the soup is not soup at all— the fenders on his old bus were a just a good old-fashioned thick disgrace to the family, hied himself stew with meat, beans and vege into town and bought a new set. Nice crown type they were, too. tables. It is obvious that such a feed Figuring to save a few dollars, he couldn't be put together for a loaded them onto his car and pro nickel a bowl, and it hasn’t been. ceeded homeward where said fins A. F. Kirkpatrick, the soup maker, would be installed the next day. Driving blindly through the rain, i inaugurated the dish as an aid to the down-and-outers who are both the car struck a rough place and hungry and short of funds. Even lost the fenders in the middle of those who have no money at all the road. Before the doomed man are being served—on the house— could back up and recover them no questions asked. And to date your correspondent reached spot cash and house feeds are about marked x and innocently ran into the most deafening racket ever equally divided. Kirkpatrick stated he has found heard locally. After sliding to a quite a demand for the economical stop and running breathlessly to nourishment. Just the other eve determine how many lives were ning there were several transients lost, we discovered three of the in town who had neither food, shel shiny black pieces of steel in a va ter nor money. They spent the • riety of grotesque and unusual night in the chamber of commerce shapes. Two resembled the smooth rooms, where George Little pro- i lines displayed by a crumpled dol vided the makings for a fire. And lar bill while the third had a fur if you've ever missed a few meals row running the length of it. All in in your life you’ll understand just I all the mud guards already on vic about how they appreciated hot, tim’s car seemed likely to remain. strengthening food—without having We fully expected to be tom limb from limb for our unwitting to bow from the waist to get it. Such a move is to be commended act but, as the concluding surprise, for it is truly the most direct and the owner of the once new equip certain way of giving a hungry man ment, showing every indication of a lift—and of renewing his faith a broken heart, meekly suggested it was unavoidable and apologized in the human race. v for having taken enough pride in One old sourdough prospector, the family car to save his nickles not having a gold spoon in the to get its face lifted. Which ought to demonstrate house when he was born, put a something or other, but doesn’t. finger in his mouth. EDITORIAL IVhy the Poor Stay Poor THE PAST FURNISHES US ' A RATHER POOR GUIDE If the pendulum of extremes is still swinging, it is on the opposite end from where it was in early days in Italy. There was a time that, instead of backing loan sharks, the law punished them. The old philosophy as written into the statutes demanded all who profited from others’ misfortunes to be put to death. Merchants who lent money and charged interest were promptly done away with. The men of the times reasoned that it was criminal to take advantage of a person who had the ill luck to be in want and dire circumstances —and by all that is good and just, they were right. You or I never approach a loan company—or Shylock—unless cir cumstances dictate that as the only alternative to some great loss. Nowadays these concerns, sniffing the necessity for a loan, convert one’s situation into fat fees called carrying charges, office expense and interest. One must submit to tyrannical contracts and unreason able demands to secure funds that must be raised. Where the law le galizes a charge of about 10 per cent, by the time the account is settled it usually runs from 25 to as high as 125 per cent. And they throw in a piece of paper that gives themselves absolute control of bor rower’s collateral—the loan may be terminated at any time upon the money shark’s decision or whim. The only defense they have for this clause is their personal assurance that they will be what is, in their minds, fair and reasonable. The poor devils who can’t afford to pay two per cent for money are the ones who have to support these parasites in elaborate offices, hire clerks, buy needs and luxuries for a clique who produce nothing tan gible or work at any honest trade. Although the sharks are protected by law, contract and financial strength, they take no risk. All chance is placed on the shoulders of those who cannot afford to lose. No man with the humility and honesty necessary to attain good citizenship would indulge in a business that profits from other people’s shortcomings and trage dies. This class takes a worse ad vantage of helpless borrowers than those who rob us forcibly—gunmen at least take some personal risk and do not pose as a community necessity. Hr “Four walls do not a prison make,” but one or two tariff walls will plunge the whole country into It is difficult to reason Into the future without starting in the past; but only by leaving out large chunks of the past ca. we think clearly. The buggy whip man reasoned: Horses, why we have had horses since prehistoric times. And as long as we have horses, we’ll have buggy whips—I’m in a business that will last forever. We have always had ice and the iceman. We have always had coal and the coal man, and the ash man, and the chimney cleaner. I We have always accepted the axiom that the profit in business is what’s left after everybody and ev erything else get their share of the money that came in during the year. Until some crazy theorist came along and asked, “If profit is the first reason for going into business, why is profit the last thing you take out? It ought to be the first.” So chain store management says, “First we take the desired profit out of the incoming dollar, and with what is left we give the cus tomer the very best we know how.” ' How did the chain store come to discover that—by looking into the past? No; by kicking the past in the slats and going on to new thinking. Can this be done in general business? Can we make a profit no matter how much gross we do? Well, within limits we can. We can’t make a profit, however, by keeping our outgo higher than our income. If we are going to sell cheap, we must work cheap; and that’s where the pinch comes. We want to undersell the other fellow but we don’t want to underlive him. Still trying to undersell him, we begin to leave out the rent, or the foreman’s salary, the book keeper’s pay; the insurance, or the taxes, the power, the heat and light, and so forth. We don’t stop those expenses; we simply stop charging for them. Then we get the insidious habit of saying: If we can’t make a profit on this job we can at least minimize our losses. Again, instead of stopping the ex penses we merely stop charging them. The only check against those tendencies is to pull ourselves to gether and see where we’re headed before the creditors take us in hand. If the year’s revenue is only the sum of all the jobs delivered, it stands to reason that if we don’t raise the price on enough jobs to counteract the loss of some jobs, we won’t have the money to pay COPCO CHASING STATIC A BARNYARDTRAGEDY Sßelieve it or ^Not By R. CLAY CHAPPELL When you have an hour or so to while away in Jacksonville drop down to the old U. S. hotel and ask George to show you his pigtail. No, Mabel, George isn't a China man. He’s curator of the museum, there, and the pigtail is one of the exhibits. The curator won't speak about it unless you ask. for when he does a queer expression creeps into his listener’s eyes as if they doubted his veracity. It really is a strange looking thing to be a pigtail and visitors usually guess it to be a large pet rified apple or an anarchist’s bomb with a fuse attached. In reality the fuse was once the caudal append age of a pig and the large ball is composed of a kind of mud collo quially called "dobe,” from the Big Sticky country east of Medford. When wet this soil is the stick- lest thing known to man and dur ing the rainy season the inhabitants have to carry paddles with them to pry themselves loose from the mud that accumulates on their feet, otherwise they might become stranded even between the house and barn. It is not surprising then that these big mud balls grow upon poor piggy’s tail. Folks familiar with the country have often heard the story of how the balls used to become so large and heavy that they stretched the skin so tightly along the pigs’ backs that the poor creatures could not close their eyes and consequently died from loss of sleep. This, however, is now avoided by the simple expedient of de tailing the pigs in early youth and the porkers out there have become so used to going without tails that no doubt they will soon be born tailless. Years ago a peculiar accident happened to Peter White’s pigs too. Pete had a sow with 13 beautifuli pigs and, although they ran at large, they were very prompt to' appear at feeding time. One evening the pigs failed to come and the sow kept looking back and acting much as a dog will when he wants his master to follow. Pete followed her and she led him to a steep bank at the bot tom of which was a deep pool. There were the pigs bobbing up and down in the water like hy drometers in home brew, their snouts pointing straight heaven ward and their rear portions sub merged by the weight on their tails. They had played too near the bank and the dobe balls had rolled down, taking the pigs along. The dobe was very annoying to other stock, too, until preventive measures were adopted. It is said that it was common to see balls of dobe weighing from 30 to 40 pounds on the tails of horses and cattle. But this was not such a handicap, however, as might be supposed for the weight, of course, was added very gradually and ‘he tail muscles gained strength corresDondingly. It is even alleged that some of the cows became so adept that they could swing these dobe dumb-bells for hours at a time which incident ally made milking a very danger- ous occupation. Due to its adhesive qualities j when wet, Big Sticky soil is hard j to handle. It is temperamental and must be cultivated when it is in exactly the right mood Outside of this peculiarity dobe is wonderful soil and anything adapted to the climate grows to perfection. In fact the farmers out there claim it is the richest ground in the world. And one oldtimer says that once, years ago before the roads were paved, he wa# forced to leave a cart by the roadside because the mud piled up dn the wheels until it was almost buried. When he went back after it late the follow ing summer he found a fine top buggy but no sign of the cart. He asserts that the cart just grew up on account of the rich dirt. salaries with. And any accountant will tell you that paying non-pro- ducers’ salaries out of invested capital is not business at all. If these worries trouble your sleep, call in an accountant to help you set up a budget. Perhaps he will discover that you would be better off with 30 per cent less vol ume at 40 per cent less expense— Spinal Colyums. Now is the time—send in your subscription to The Miner. The paper, with your support, will con tinue to grow and improve its con tent. We’ll be calling on you soon. By MAUDE POOL It wasn't a big fire, not many things were lost and not many heard of it. That is just what hu man folks think about it, but to a patient little bantam hen it meant more than that. She lost her life in the fire which damaged the woodshed at the Walter Armpriest home at Ruch last week She was burned as she was setting under the building, hovering a few large eggs (someone had traded for her tiny ones) which would soon have made her a proud mother. The blaze started from a tub in which a fire had been placed for smoking meat in a corner of the shed. The building was slightly damaged, and there was a small loss in meat, fruit, and wood. The building was owned by Mrs. Anna Ruch.--------------------------- Ranger Immersed in Inventory I One of the most appreciated serv ices rendered the valley by the California Oregon Power company, that of tracing interference in ra dio reception, has been operating in the Jacksonville section this week. According to information given by company officials, al though less than one per cent of the trouble has been traced to their equipment, a truck and two oper ators have l>een devoted to this work for the past several years This car carries complete receiving equipment so sensitive that trouble may be detected readily and locat ed with a minimum of effort Copco has been instrumental in improv ing reception in this city for the past several seasons. Reports indicate the number of seekers for the elusive metal are increasing tremendously in the Sterling creek district. The greater part of the prospectors seem to be amateurs, but nevertheless gold Sharpening tools, painting of tool from that neighborhood is being handles, fitting of horse and mule brought in frequently and in size shoes and taking a general invoice able amounts of forest service equipment consti tutes the present winter occupation of Ranger Lee C. Port. It may sound less troublesome1 than fighting a fire, but giving a specific report on the whereabouts of 98 double bitted axes, 125 long handled shovels and 16 one-gallon canteens, to say nothing of alarm I clocks and halters is no little job, Sandwiches Ranger Port says A ranger’s work Fountain Drinks, Candy must continue right on through the winter and it doesn't all take place Cigars in the blacksmith shop either. Office work includes reports de Barber Shop and Pixil I lall manding information as to whether or not a suspected firebug was a in Connection tourist or farmer and whether a fire fighter left the ranger station on foot or on a government mule. IIAIRCI IS An annual work plan also must be sent to headquarters as a report, telling just what the ranger expects to do on certain days next year. Mr. Port also must keep his mind Headquarterf for on animals and their tracks during the summer, as well as the num T he J acksonvii it M ini r ber of cars coming to the Apple gate on Sunday so he can make out another report telling how many badgers, porcupines and tourists were in that district during a sum mer. PHONE 162 To sum it all up, Mr Port is iust doing his bit toward compiling government statistics. % •j THE NUGGET 25c Subscribe Now for The Jacksonville Miner Jacksonville’s Own Newspaper Concentrating on Local News Exclusively Join the Rapidly Growing List of Regular Subscribers One Year One Dollar Six Months Fifty Cents POSTOFFICE BOX 138 i ■
