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About The gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925 | View Entire Issue (July 24, 1919)
page rom THE GAZETTE-TIMES, HEIT.VER, THTRSDAY, JTLT 24, 1919, THE GAZETTE-TIMES The Heppner Gaietto, Established March 30, 1S83. The Herrner Times, Establish November IS, 1S;7. Consolidated February 15, 191!. Published every Thursday morning by Vwter aid Speoeer Crawford and entered at the Postoffice at Hepp ner, Oregon, as second-class matter. ADVERTISING RATES GIVES OS APPLICATION". SUBSCRIPTION RATEs: Six Months Three Months Single Copies $2.00 1.00 .75 .05 MORROW COIXTY OFFICIAL PAPER THE WRONG IDEA. Some town editors still have the idea that the average farmer cannot understand words of more than one syllable, and that as a class he differs in intelligence from his town broth ers. Town editors need not worrk over the lack of intelligence of their country readers; the success of na tionally circulated farm magazines, that publish technical articles, and articles in no whit edited down to their rural readers, 'proves that the farmer as a class today is able to read big print without a reading glass. Our hunch is that the average of intelligence, of patriotism, aye of ef ficiency, is as high in the country as in town. We believe that the farmer who has sense enough to successfully manage his complicated business in these strenuous days has sense enough to understand about anything any town editor is able to dish up; and that the day of the old farm pa per, with its rehash, its sloppy edit ing, its miserable cuts, its Sis Hop kins jest columns, and its fake ads, has passed. The farmer is conservative, he has to be to remain in business, but he is not so hide-bound that he cannot progress. Indeed, when he thinks he is really headed somewhere, he can trot an amazing heat, as the recent referendum in North Dakota will indicate to the observing. And, with the increase in rural prosperity, and the formation of ju venile agricultural clubs, and the wonderful work of the county agents; the adoption of labor-saving machinery, and the magic carpet of the automobile, that brings the far mer to the city in two hours, there has come a new enlightening in even the back regions, and though the townsman may not see it those who know the country, and who are really a part of it, do. Personally our only fear is that as an editor we will not be able to do justice to the new spirit of progress of the new agriculture. We are not at all worried over the necessity of writing "down" to our readers; they are not that kind; indeed, we doubt if there are any of that sort in this enlightened country. Senator Poindexter of Washington, in enumerating the many reasons why he would be a good presidential candidate, sets forth that he is 100 American. This seems to us a su perfluous statement, in view of the fact that the American people are no longer judging a man by what he says, but by what his past record has shown him to have done. At that, the Republican party could put forth a weaker man. In building a substantial two-story business block, the pioneer firm of Gilliam & Bisbee are showing that they have faith in Heppnefs future. They are setting a good example for others. They say that Henry Ford invent ed an auto which will climb a tele graph pole, a tractor which will rear up and fall over backward, and now he has invented a libel suit which is causing Henry to, figuratively, take to the tall timber. Its one case of where the plaintiff is standing trial. Some one has asked, "What did Henry ever do?" The roads are lousy with what he has done. Out side of that he has progressed less fast than the ordinary school child, for Henry himself admits that he knows nothing about history and cares less for art. CAN WOMEN FARM? Farming, like shoeing horses and climbing telephone poles sftii play ing baseball and smoking a pipe has, until recently, been held a man's job. Serious doubts were expressed as to whether women, en masse, could manage farms, handle stock, do chores, and harvest crops in compe tition with their brothers. The farmerettes proved that wo men could do about anything on a farm that a man could, and frequent ly do it better. But the real proof of a women's adaptability on the farm will be found in the pig, bee, calf, corn and garden clubs of the country. We know that one girl took a small pig. handled it until it was of mar ketable size, and made it gain two and a half pounds a day. An average somewhat 100 per cent better than the general hog raiser contrives to reach. We see that several girls succeeded so well with bees that they convert ed their fathers to new methods, and, in some instances, took over the farm apiary for their own. A girl of 12 manages one of the prize Jersey herds of the country. The gardens of the girls produce as abundantly, and give as high quality fruit and produce as do those of their brothers. Girls raise and select seed corn that stands high enough to sell to adult corn farmers at a premium. It appears that in a few years, when these girls, thousands of them in these school clubs, grow up, the rank of producers will be augmented by skilled women workers, and in stead of the woman-managed farm being a rarity it will become com monplace. Indeed, there is no task in the field more arduous than those that for years have been found in farm kit chens, dairies and back porches, and the woman will lose nothing by trad ing her washboard for a riding plow. GOSSIPS. A gossip is one who bears tales. Usually these tales are based on ru mor or half fact and in the popular mind, the telling of them is associated with sunbonnets, long noses and high-pitched voices. But a great many gossips are masculine, and this editorial refers to a particularly per nicious and harmful sort of male trouble maker. We are thinking of those editorial writers on city newspapers who per sist in calling the farmers of the country profiteers, and who make other vicious and ignorant charges which are widening a dangerous class-hatred breach. All the real evidence that anyone had adduced proves that farmers are not profi teers. Very few of them had suffi cient income to demand an income tax return. Such farm-management surveys and cost-accounting figures as are available show that the aver age farmer does not earn interest on his investment and establish conclu sively that' he is able to make wages only by selling off the fertility re serve in his soil and compelling his family to labor without compensa tion. Because the farmer gets most of the packer's dollar, it does not prove that he makes a large profit off his cattle. Who gets the most of the consumer's dollar? There is the trail to the skunk's den Nor was the price of wheat fixed up. It was fixed down, and everyone who pos sesses any acurate knowledge on the subject knows it. . The real profiteers, as proven by the income-tax returns, do business just around the corner from the sanc tum where the sappy newspaper economists write their drivel regard ing farms and farmers. But these editorial Samsons, casting about for subjects to fill their columns every day, possessing a mighty show of courage of any convictions they can hear of or think of for space fillers, and brave enough not to let their ig norance of farming deter them from solving the economic problems of the back county, clutch at the ru mors amout farmers' making a lot of money, and parade them before their readers with a show of strong words and ornate phrases. Their work has the high sound of truth, because of their cleverness, but it is plain bunk. Never do they refer back to the dark days of crop failure and ruinously low prices to the producer. A sample of the sort of intellectual drool dealt out by these factless light ning calculators is this phrase from a daily newspaper in one of our great cities, a city, by the way, whose prosperity is rooted in the farms about it : ". . . the best paid artisans in cities do not receive as great a wage for the year as the average farmer." farmer." If this is true the joke is on the best paid artisan. At Chicago the milk commission refused to allow farmers thirty cents an hour wages for producing milk. In various cities newspapers and other agencies have j fought the demands of milk pro ducers that they be allowed to pay themselves a managerial salary. The wages of a city plumber would seem like riches to the average farmer. Another intellectual pearl, thrown out in the same newspaper, is the as- sertion that the average farmer does not work eight hours a day the year round. , In some sections of the country "this is true. These are the same lo calities, however, in which a cus tomer is a nuisance because he dis turbs the merchant's nap. It is also true of certain one-crop areas, but for the great milk-meat-grain-general-farming area it is not true. Possibly it may surprise our city editorial gossips to learn that even in the winter time there are always duties on the farm, and the fanner arises at what they would consider an impossibly early hour. Daylight saving is nothing new to the farmer. He has saved all he could of it at both ends of the day, so much so that he has been dubbed by the jokesters, with considerable truth, the original eight-hour man, working eight hours before noon and eight hours after. No doubt it will pain these city his torians of farm life to learn that so far no plan has been devised where by the farmer can lie in bed in the morning and touch electric buttons which will feed the hogs, sheep, cat tle horses and chickens; milk the cows, including the heifer with a sore teat ; run a vacuum cleaner over the stock; haul the feed; deliver the milk; fix fences; chop wood and do the thousand and one other chores of a general farm. Instead of this ideal arrangement with which they would divide the farmer's day into eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep and eight hours for play, he finds it necessary to answer the early summons of the rooster and spend at work the eight hours which they would give him for the daily romp with the young things of the farm. Country Gentleman. . INK VS. GAB. "Every few days Portland has a big banquet at which the loquatious epicures gather and 'orate' about us ing Oregon made products," says the Canyon City Blue Mountain Eagle. That paper then continues by asking, "what are Oregon-made products?" The Eagle ventures the asesrtion that at least 50-50 on their banquet bill of fare is imported. The Grant coun ty editor believes that the inspiration back of these banquets is alright, but thinks the need is "less oratorical bullion and more printers' ink to tell the story of Oregon products, "iiu vertise them, if you want to sell them and advertise them in the counties where the goods are expected to be sold. Advertise them in the country press." In these days of aridity, it may be remembered as a matter of history that Umatilla county once had a dis tillery. The Tribune of Pendleton notes that the county has had many breweries but only one distillery. Not taking into account, however, some of the non-revenue-payers that might have been or might, still be hidden away in their mountain re cluse. The late Hezikiah Key of Weston maintained one of those in teresting affairs many years, and the remanants of the building and ma chinery still stand. The old gentle man was reared in North Carolina, and looked upon the whiskey indus try as wholly legitimate. He did not make much of a financial success against the whiskey trust, but the boys of old will testify that he made a good kicking article. An illegitimate son of an Indiana Senator kills a girl and gets his pic ture in nearly every city daily in the country. The one sure road to no toriety. "Some of the press dope," says the Pendleton East Oregonian, "in cluding cartoons sent out by Jona than Bourne's Republican publicity service is too silly for any use. If the Republican party continues to let J. Bourne direct its publicity work the time will soon come when one of the needs of the day will be for a coffin that will hold an elephant." Here's another case of where the "wish is father of the thought" no doubt, as we have never been able to notice where the East Oregonian was genuinely interested in the wel-! fare of the G. O. P. If the facts did , exist, and the elephant was in mor tal danger, our esteemed contempor ary in the Let'er Buck city would be secretly and silently laughing up its sleeve, never uttering a word of warning to the poor benighted ani mal. l-j Our annual water shortage brings home again the ever-looming fact that we must seek a greater supply. The water bonding issue would look like a God-send to our parched throats and dry gardens and lawns if presented today. Has anyone asked the 65,000,000 Chinese residents of Shantung what they think of President Wilson's 14 points and the League of Nations? . NO EXCUSE NOW. "Come back here" were the shrill cries that overtook a crippled Ar gonne hero as he hobbled from a Chicago drug-store where he hadi purchased his favorite bunion pads to ease his remaining foot wrecked when fighting Huns in the trenches. He had deposited the regular price stamped on the box, 25 cents. "You come across with two cents more to meet the luxury war tax on corn pads for crippled soldiers," he was told. And as the hero digged down for the extra brownies, he was heard to mut ter something familiarly similar to what Sheman denominated war. American Economical. Even the children are taxed on every stick of candy they buy and ice cream they eat. During the rush of war and neces sity for raising money rapidly, the passage of this act can be excused but there is no excuse now for failure to change this "nagging tax." More Than A Million People Drink From National Forest Eighty-seven cities and towns of Oregon, Washington and Alaska de rive the water supply for their mu nicipal water works from the Nation al Forests of the North Pacific Dis trict, according to a report Just com plied in the office of District Forester George H. Cecil. Of these towns thirty-eight, having an estimated pop ulation of 392,000, are In Oregon; forty-two, with a population of 634, 000, are in Washington; and seven, with 15,000, are in Alaska. The larger towns of the district us ing National Forest water are Port land, Eugene, Oregon City, Rose burg, Albany, Medford, Ashland, Ba ker, LaGrande, The Dalles, and Bend, Oregon; Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Walla Walla, Yakima, Wenatchee, Aberdeen, Port Angeles, Ellensburg, and Roslyn, Washington; and An chorage, Cordova, Ketchikan and Pe tersburg, Alaska. The Forest Service cooperates with the towns In protecting their water sheds from fire and trespass, and every effort is made to keep the water free from any sort of contamination. Formal cooperative agreements be tween the Secretary of Agriculture and the city officials are In effect pro viding for this protection of the wa tersheds of Tacoma and Walla Walla In Washington, and Oregon City, The Dalles, Dufur, Wallowa, Baker, and Toledo In Oregon. Mrs. Emmett Cochran left Sunday for Seaside, to spend several weeks t that popular beach resort. Shf was accompanied by Master Law rence Stevenson, young son of Mr. and Mrs. George Stevenson. lllli;iiI!llllll!!lIIII!llllli:iIIIIIIIIi:iJII!!IItll!!!!IIIIIIIIII!IIIII!Illlllli:ii:!I!IIII!IIIIIII! I PACIFIC GRAIN CO. Successor to M. H. Eouser 5 GRAIN, GRAIN BAGS AND TWINE Local Agents 1 CARL YOUNT, lone T. H. LOWE, Cecil 1 ' JOS. BURGOYNE, Lexington R. V. WHITEIS; Heppher Your Patronage Will Be Appreciated vTiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii'iiiiiEiiiiiiiiiiiifi SPECIAL ATTRACTIVE PRICES ON FIVE AND TEN BARREL LOTS OF White Spray and Dements Best Flour The Northern Grain and Warehouse Co. hi have just received a carload of White Spray and Dements Best Flour from the Eureka Mills at Walla Walla. ALSO MILL FEED Grain Bags and Twine We are in the market for all kinds of grain. . C. B. 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