Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (June 29, 1962)
"Everyone "In Southern Oreton Rea.la The Mil Tribune" )ublihed Daily except Saturday by 83 North Fir jit., Ph;772-(I141 "n'nRFBT w RUHL Editor HERB GREY Advertlelnl Manar GERALD 1 LATHAM. Bui. Ml. VPIC W ALLEN. JR.. Mnj. Editor EARL H ADAMS, City Idltor . . . .. . 1.UIBIIIU T.I.. RMItnr RICHARD JEWETT, Sportl Ed tor ri luff c ranrwiri Women's Editor DALE ERtCONIrciUonMr; An Independent Newspaper tntered second clui matter tt Aieainra. uibiuh, Uhu. ..... - March 3. 1897 cimerRlPTION RATES By Mail In Advance. Copy 10c Daily and Bunaay i i" 2 rr Dally and Sunday moe. too naiiv and Sunday 3 moi. .lo Sunday Only One yaarM 10 ... r.rimw. In Advincl Medford. -.ntr.l Paint. E a 1 Point, jackionvllla. Cold Rill, Phoenix. Shady Covo. Rome mv . n.m An motor routei. Dally and Sunday 1 year 118 .00 Dailv and Sunday I mo. 1.30 Carriei and Dealera Copy lOo All T.rm. faah in Advance "oiflclal Paper of'Clty of MedforT" Official paper m wmqiiiiuh " United Preai International Pull faaed Wire U P 1 Telephoto Newaplcturea Member or audit bureau Uf LlltUUmtiuna 7j.,..M,l.i. n.nr.a.ntattva: -i-t tnv nnnrRTR Ar ASSOC1. ATES. Olficet In New York, Chi. ease. Detroit. San Francisco, Loi Anaelea Seattle, PorUand, Denver rUILIIHIII ASSOCIATION WATIONAl fOITOHIAl Flight o' Time Medford and Jackson County History from the files of The Vail Tribune 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago. 10 YEARS AGO June 29. 1952 (Sunday) Mayor Diamond L. Flynn announces that he will not be a candidate for reelection; he la completing hi second two-year term. A grass fire, which spread Into a shed containing a 500 gallon drum of oil, and the resulting explosion, caused damage estimated at several thousand dollars. 20 YEARS AGO June 29, 1942 (Monday) Three persons hurt In eight automobile accident. From Arthur Perry's "Ye Smudge Pot" column: "Re turning gadders from the Wil lamette valley report the heat .un. inrrifir In Salem, an at tempt to fry an egg on the sidewalk was foiled when It fried before it hit the sine walk." 30 YEARS AGO June 29, 1932 (Wednesday) W. M. Clcmcnson, manager of Jackson hotel, named to succeed W. W. Allen on Med lord city council. Two young Kansas men ar rive here to earn a living by collecting bounties on moun tain lions and other animals which they plan to kill. 40 YEARS AGO June 29, 1922 (Thursday) Slate Sen. Hugo G. A. von dcr Hcllcn, Medford resident and pioneer of southern Ore gon, dies in Portland. Medford city council clamps down on violations of water regulations; announces plans to build new reservoir next lull. SO YEARS AGO nA IQIO ICturrlavl June 3, w " ,. Members of Medford High school class of 1911 hold firsl I ninln HAD. OllO millC. annum put,,. . rr Eastern mill workers pub lish pampniei accmuiiR i.i.. ..i.rin. nf sb.78 "are no longer adequate to support a lanuiy. What's Your I.Q.7 Nina or tan toiract la superior: savan or eieht Is tMtllenti five ii is good. 1. Which U. S. governmon tal body authorlies Increases in freight rates lor railroads: 2. Of which European country are the Aioroa islands a nnssession? 3. Which of these was the earlier invention-the airplane or the military tank? 4. The area over which a masnet will exert a pull Is called what? 5. Is Montevideo the cap! lal of Chile, Peru, Paraguay or Uruguay? 6. Complete the following "Flftv-four forty or " 7 Was the Berlin airlift operated In 1956, 19-s 1950? 8. From what iniiviBl tines the so-called Hudsot) tR'ieJ ' come? 9. Moaair is ebIJ veHl ;ee!57M? It. Tela . ra e &mt oexe waer Mf.a?a at tVrWffiJBBe e n-.fret taMT."Er lj . flfcjsa?. n f fame ' i'-HV Wiskra i "' y. is. plijr FRIDAY. JUNE 29. 1961 A Spiritual Void DesDite a broiling sun. a staggering 116,000 persons jammed their way into Soldiers Field in Chicago, (capacity 92,000) to hear Evangelist Billy Graham deliver ' Chicago Crusade some days ago. Judging from the wire service accounts, and the impressive statistics that were released, the whole affair constitutes a phenomenon. A grand total of 703,000 Chicagoans turned out during the 18-day Crusade to listen to oranam flog them for moral and spiritual laxity, and warn them that this country is undergoing a "Rome like" decline. IF ONE discounts the usual curiosity seekers, and ignores what was probably a sizeable group of zealots and idolators, how really, now, how is that mass of humanity explained Why were thev there? What drew them? We suspect the obvious answer isn't the right one. Graham's own statistics easily deny that they were there in response to an upsurge of Christian- ?i -ii.. ai rt itA. . Ati t "no AAfi liy wunin mem. jl uihi massive iuibi ui ivo.uuu, only 17,130 left their seats after the sermon to go forward and "make a decision for Christ." Using the very roughest of arithmetic, this breaks down to about 1 in 41 wno was movea enough by what he heard to embrace the faith. That, we submit, is not impressive. IT IS arguable, we suppose, that the vast major ity of those present were already practicing Christians, secure in their faith, who attended out of Christian duty, or to have their beliefs reinforced. But this really doesn't hold up either, if one nlaces anv stock in the message that Graham him self has been preaching the land in recent months. For it is the substance of the vital evangelist's analysis of contemporary man that he is in seri ous, perhaps fatal, trouble, and that this country is rapidly progressing toward doom. f IKE SOME all-seeing physician, Graham has examined his patient, discovered the symp toms of his illness, diagnosed the disease, and issued a gloomy prognosis. Only the miracle cure of a reawakened belief in the tenets and princi ples of Christianity can save the patient, Graham warns. One gets the distinct really expect the cure to take place. In general, the evangelist sees a "decay at the center of our society the home and admon ishes that once the infection starts, as was the case with Rome, decline and fall is all but in evitable. Graham is not the first to shout "Fire!" He is simply the latest in a string of observers of the American scene to express deep concern over the state of modern man. Several of our poets, for example, first triggered the alarm button nearly a half century ago. MO, WE would estimate ' tion, consistent with all the facts, which ex plains the size of the crowds at Graham's rally is this: The people were there in a desperate search for some means of filling a spiritual void they vaguely perceive within themselves. That this spiritual void does in fact exist is, we trust, clearly apparent to anyone who cares to look beyond the length of his own nose. By comparing contemporary mores and ac tivities with those of Americans a half dozen generations ago, does there not now seem to be: An almost frantic, hedonistic search tor pleasure, for titillation and gratification of the senses? A nearly insatiable appetite for material possessions, ranging from time-saving gadgets to expensive boats and automobiles? (The hope lessness of this situation is contained in the current sales pitch : "For the man who has every thing'). A preoccupation The creation of more and more splinter churches in a desire to find a faith that fits, rather than shaping oneself to fit a faith? A steady decline in self-reliance and in dependence, and a simultaneous increase in con formity and individual inertia? rYESPITE what he professes on Sunday morn ing, it is apparent from these and the many other examples that might be cited, that the contemporary American is no longer satisfied with actually no longer believes in the tradi tional precepts of his church. He may continue to pay them lip service, may protest that they still govern his life. But his actions belie his words. This doesn't mean, of couie, that man no longer wants to believe the traditional beliefs of his fathers. Quite the contrary. But it is the measure of his dilemma that the old answers no longer satisfy, no longer compel his mind as well as his heart, however he may desire to cling to them. JLND while the old has given way to change, thei is a yet, we think, nothing new to take its pleVe. ThloIltlianS have not kept pace with 1 ,i . . . , .1 v rtvii- i i ; th i M of !icity, though men like Tillich ami Fuatfth hiv m itj.lt brave And it it, we think, fhat when someone YJU Bil tiTWoi corns along, people flock to lutr Van iUV tm wistful hope that something & 2 w M& mtoi them to the faith of iiaax bntHZHen. cn fill the spiritual void thev .01 vib'iift tfteir hearts. II one judges only Billy Graham apparently with what they so urgently needed.j-u.H.H. the unai sermon or nis across the breadth of impression he doesn t that the only explana- with creature comforts attempts at adjustment. from the empty statistics, failed to supply them "Nice Kitty Can't Come In?" ... Communications ... Letters to the Editor must bear the name and address cf the writer, although under certain circumstances the use of a pen name or initial for publication is permissible. The Mail Tribune reserves the right to edit all letters with a view io clarification and condensation. Letters submitted for publication must not exceed 400 words. The letters printed in this column do not necessarily represent the riews of the paper; in fact the contrary is often the case. Not Blind Faith To the Editor: John E. Ring's letter lakes me back 50 years, when I too wonder ed at the writing of world famous men on astronomy and anthropology. Man was so far advanced, to accept Christ and his way of life would be retro gression. Man was now civi lized and free from the great wars of the old days. I be lieved them until I was filled with fear and doubt by World War I. I continued to study, adding history and Bible prophecy. I learned that much of our science was revealed hundreds of years before in the Bible. "He hangelh the earth upon nothing" (Job 26:7) - 3,000 years later Copernicus learn ed this fact. "He makelh weight for the winds" (Job 28:25) - 3,150 years later Gali leo learned this fact. "The life of all flesh is the blood" (Lev. 17:14) - 3,115 years later, Wil liam Harvey learned this fact. "The elements shall melt with fervent heat" (2 Peter 3:10) We know this can be a fact, since our discovery ot nuclear fission. The Bible is filled with hundreds of scientific facts which man is soon to learn, with many to their great sur prise and sorrow, to others it will be only Bible prophecy fulfilled. John, don't worry about time it will tako to travel. Enoch, Moses, Elias, Jesus and many others have made the trip, some of them many times, with no record of trouble. Of course they were free from sin, so created, or cleansed by the blood of Christ. John, you say the words of the scientist are based on facts. The trouble is, scientific facts today are out moded and obsolete tomor row. With God's Word this is not so; 6,000 years ago God gave commands, as recorded in the first three chapters of Genesis. Those commands are in full force today, and are being obeyed by the animal kingdom, the vegetable king dom, as well as Gad's king dom. 'No John, religion is not a blind faith, as I once believed. If established upon the Word of God, It will lead to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. F. E. Beverly 112 Geneva St. Medford "What Fools . . ." To the Editor: Whatever has gone wrong wilh the thinking of men, the er gentler sex included, here in America? It's but a short time since our newly elected President, John Kennedy, was besoughl. challenged, demanded that he slay solidly in his dedicated 1 stand on separation of church and state. This wps highlight-1 ed by a very eminent Baptist J minister who reportedly said: "We warn him (President Kennedy) that the very first time he crooks one finger , against separation of church and stale, he is done. All i through." ' Now. we find these obvious ly emotional thinkers, by and j large, beseeching, challenging and demanding that President Kennedy use the power of his high office In condemning our supreme court ...r upholding the eoiistilulional separation of church and st.ile in Hie de cision on New York stale prayer, a prayer appealing, to one Deity only, disregarding completely those whose Diety conception is althogether dif ferent A state is supposed to rei resent all its people, to pro tect them in their relisiout n?-i;ns, hiui in in, i iiii,h'?(. selfish viewpoints on them It was Shakespeare's Puck who remarked: "What fools these mortals be." F. J. Clifford Route 2, Box 200F Central Point, Ore. Count Our Blessings To the Editor: As I read the letters in the June 3 issue I noticed one by Diane White, 1059 Morrow rd., answering the complaints someone else had evidently submitted re garding shopping in a non- metropolitan area such as Medford vs. the large cities. And as I read I thought, "How very fortunate you both are! How lightly most Americans take the privileges of our free dom, our enterprises and our way of life!" No wonder un derprivileged nations believe all Americans are rich: ac cording to their standards, we are. For nearly two years my husband and I have been sta tioned in the Philippines at the largest Air Force Base in the Far East. Five thousand people shop at the one com missary and one main base exchange here, for goods that have been shipped more than 8.000 miles in the holds of ships. There are no Ameri can clerks at the commissary and very few at the BX. Al though the Filipino clerks do their best, their ways are not our ways, their Ideas of good food and sanitation fall a good deal short of our standards and they often do not under stand our complaints or what we mean. What we wouldn't give for a quart of FRESH milk! A carton of FRESH cottage cheese! A pound of FRESH butter! Cuts of fresh, unfrozen meat or meat that has been newly frozen. For undented cans of milk and vegetables fruit that hasn't been shipped nearly 10,000 miles in the re frigeration department of a ship's hold four to six weeks before W'e receive it! How we would love to shop where there are American clerks to serve us, from store to store, town to town, on sidewalks and six lane free ways! What Joy to stop in at a Dairy Queen or hamburger stand, a large variety store such as Woolworth's. a shop ping center, corner drug store, or "small town shop" of any kind! If all Americans were forced to spend one year of their lives in one of the under priviliged nations of the Far East, even on a U.S. base, they would spend the rest of their lives thanking God for the privilege of living in a free counlry with no restrictions on where they can shop and no limitations on what they can buy. We will have been here two years when we return in Au gust and our sincere desire is to spend the rest of our lives in the United Stales of Amer ica, whether it be in a large city with its modern shopping center or in a small town with ils neichhorhood shops. Dell Laurie Koen, USAF Hospital Clark. Philippine Islands. Jesus Christ Outlawed? To the Editor: The issue is tiie Lord Jesus Christ! Not the "separation of Church and State"-- not whether or not "officially prescribed prayers" in public schools are Conslitu- tional. Rut whether or not Christ. His life. His teachings,; and the creat humane civiliza Hon w Inch sprang from them j shall blotted out jnd tit- j terly destroyed from the earth Thnai who cannot see that the works of Communist stem from the same Satanic. MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD. OREGON Venezuelan Trouble Of Government to Ba By PHIL NEWSOM UPI Foreign News Analyst On his 1961 visit to Vene zuela, President Kennedy said of Venezuelan President fto mulo Betancourt: "He has reestablished dem ocratic government after a decade of dic tatorship -and he has carried forward a solid and re sponsible, pro gram of eco nomlc pro gress after a decade of r Newaom fa'se show, waste and indifference to the needs of the people." Earlier, this correspondent sat in a classroom of skyscrap er Caracas University and listened as government offi cials outlined a program of so cial and economic reform which was both idealistic and ambitious. In succeeding months sub stantial progress has been made, although some of the anti-Christ force which cruci fied our Lord nearly 2000 years ago and those who can not believe that this force is powerful enough to reach into our Supreme Court and strike a crippling blow at Christian ity, are naively unaware of what is going on in the world today. To the immature and unenlightened this is an over statement. But let me point out a hard, cold fact. The name of Jesus Christ has al ready been virtually outlawed among one-half of the earth's population. Here in America, under anti-Christ pressures, certain states have outlawed the Na tivity scene, glorifying the birth of our Savior. And I have been told that In some states public officials are be ing coerced, and school teach ers intimidate, that the name of Christ must not appear in public prayers, and that "Jingle Bells" is being substi tuted for "Silent Night, Holy Night" in our schools. Now it Is official. By our Supreme Court decision pray er in our public schools is outlawed entirely! The full impact of this Decision can not be realized until you know the "Red" voting rec ords of the Justices on the bench of this Court. In cases involving Communism, four of our Justices voted from 90 to 100 per cent of the time in favor of the Communists. One voted 77 per cent of the time, one 58 per cent, one 46 per cent, one 36 per cent, and one 35 per cent in favor of the Reds. Bear in mind that each crippling blow struck by the unconstitutional decisions of these men against our Christian based Constitution is a blow against Christ. And this is Just the begin ning. This evil, Satanic power called "Communism" will never slop until all freedom of worship, all Christian con science, honor, and decency, all Christian virtue, love, friendship, and dignity of the individual are destroyed. The heartbreaking tradgey of it is that Christians have been made to believe that they must not fight anti-Christ Communism. This is like tell ing man he must not fight the fire that is burning his house down. If ever there was a time for Christian Americans to stand up for our Lord Jesus Christ, it is now! For the fate that has already fallen on Poland. Hungary, China, Cu ba, and 50 other countries may soon fall on us. Then it will be loo late. L. C. Powell 316 S. F. Eighth St., Grants Pass, Ore. Pensioners Aid Plan To the Editor: There has been so much talk about help ing our Senior Citizens and those drawing their Social Security. What bcticr way of helping to give them more dollar power, than by estab lishing surplus stores oper ated by people on Social Se curity? At the same time this would help dispose of surpluses at a minimum cost to thos folks on small pensions, namely S S. This would not take Jobs from younger folks since it would actually create more employment. It couldn't possibly hurt our retail stores since these people on S S. have such lim ited buying power. Also, the government would realize some return on slock pile' of surpluses lhat are Just silting there. Mrs. Owen L Hardejiy. Route 1. Box 240. Rogue River. Ore earlier idealism has been forced to give way to hard reality. Why, then. Is Betancourt forced at all times, whether in his office or dedicating a new public works project, to protect himself against as sassination attempts? Why the succession of at tempted revolts? Why the noisy street dem onstrations by university stu dents and others seeking his overthrow? They are apt illustration of the problem facing a regime attempting to maintain a dem ocratic government while at the same time battling to cor rect a chronic Latin Ameri can ailment-a lopsided econ omy with entrenched privi leges on the one hand and ig norance and poverty on the other, i On the extreme right are those who regard Betancourt as a secret Communist and who oppose his reforms. On the extreme left are the Communist and Castro sup porters who oppose his policy of peaceful evolution Just as much as do the others, but for different reasons. The rlghtwing plotted to blow him up with dynamite in 1960 and has participated in at least two other attempts at his overthrow. Similar left wing attempts have been nu merous. Fortunately for Betancourt, the bulk of the armed forces have remained on his side. Strictly Personal By Sydney J. Harris ..c Field Enterprfnen Inc. BEING CANDID It is a deplorable and de- piessing fact that, for most people, the more they know, the more they pretend to know. Quite n i , IDIIUIU uuuui their ignor- 1 ance; it is the semi-educated who parade their squalid j little collec .J tion of half. know ledge often with mischievous or even disastrous results. Part of this, of course, re sults from a fiercely compe titive educational system-es- pecially at the higher levels in which any answer is con sidered better than no answer. For instance, when a professor at the University of Pennsyl vania some years ago asked a class to define "psychoter minality" two-thirds of the sludents answered. "Psychoterminality" hap pens to be a made-up word, which means exactly nothing. But 21 out of his 29 students "defined" it in an examina tion paper. Only a handful was willing to confess ignor ance of the word. About the same lime. two teachers at the Univer sity of Cincinnati tested 150 college and high school students, along with anoth er group whose members had never gone beyond grade school. The groups were asked to name charac ters using alleged quota tions from Shakespeare, to designate the authors of un written books, and to define words coined for the occa sion. The amount of bluffing done by the students ranged up to 80 per cent. Half the students bluffed half the time. One-fourth of them bluffed 60 per cent or more. And only one fourth of them bluffed less than a third. The college freshmen bluffed most, and students who ranked high est academically averaged the lowest scores in bluff ing. In contrast, the non school group (consisting of tool - makers. chauJlers, salesmen, laundrymen and such) bluffed far lest than the college students. Their average bluffing score was only 25 per cent. In com menting on this discrepan cy, the examiners remark ed pungently: ... "It appears from tnis that our educational system0trains to dishonesty and pretentious ness, to false assumption of knowledge and concealment of ignorance, which is the oppo site of what it is intended to do. For education has for its aim quite as much the i defining of one's area of ig norance as the extending of one's area of knowledge." ! All this took place nearly a generation ago. I am sure, however, that the situation has not improved The in creasing competitiveness for college entrances, the added I pressures of passing tests, the 'sheer extra volume of Infor- awe Illustrates Attempt ttle Chronic Ills So have the peasants who have taken up machetes to help the government put down recent revolts. So is the bulk of organized labor. Despite all difficulties and despite the continued activity of rural Communist guerrilla bands, progress continues to be made. Fifty thousand farm fami lies have been settled on their own land; some 25,000 new housing units at least have Washington Report By William !cl United feature Syndicate NOT YET FORBIDDEN Washington - Those intel lectually and morally be leaguered Americans who are trying to give the supreme court the veneration it used , 1 to deserve can I surely take no I 1 haorl in iU last session of this summer. As the court adjourns until fall, however, they can find one ray of ra tional hope. This ray arises from the first clear indica tion yet given of the general attitude on great constitu tional questions of the new est man on the high bench, Byron White. Because he had not been on the court when the argument were heard, Mr. Justice White did not participate in its 6-to-1 decision that even a totally nondenominational and whol ly voluntary public school prayer daring to mention God was unconstitutional, a viola tion of the "separation of church and state." He was able, however, to put in a vigorous "no" to an other in the lengthening list of unexampled interferences by the court with what used to be the rights of the states and of people locally to con duct some of their own affairs in their own way. WHEN the court ruled that California had no right to define narcotics addiction as a punishable crime, Mr. Justice White (no relation to this columnist) refused to go along. What he said here, in his first dissenting opinion, was far more important for its future implications than for the case immediately at hand. The court, he declared, had "departed from its wise rule of not deciding constitutional questions except where neces sary and from its equally sound practice of construing state statues, where possible, in a manner saving their con stitutionality." Mr. Justice White's whole approach, in this one notable opinion at any rate, seems to put him in the small company of "conservative" judges -conservative in the sense that they believe: THE court's business Is to interpret the constitution, not to remake it to its own personal wishes. To act as a detached referee and not to go down into the playing field and make its own laws. To decide what the law is, not what it ought to be by forc ing its own moral and social and lately also political-views upon the country, the con gress and the president. A minority of the court, led by the ailing Mr. Justic Felix Frankfurter, for years has fought a lonely-and largely losing-battle on precisely the principles now newly pro claimed by the new and young Mr. Justice White. This minority has argued roughly as follows: Since its whole influence-and its whole integrity-must rest upon its wisdom and restraint, the court has no right lightly to brandish its ultimate weapon, that of destroying state laws by calling them unconstitu tional. Equally, it has no right to set itself up as leg islative as well as a judicial body. ... IIOW far Ihis sort of court intrusion now goes was never better illustrated than in the New York case. Here was the offending prayer: "Almighty God. we acknowl edge our dependence upon thee, and we beg thy bles sings upon us. our parents, our teachers and our coun try." The court's majority, led by such figures as Chief Justice Earl Warren .O.d Associate Justice Hugo Black, was somehow able to find thai j this praycr-though no child I had to say it and though no teacher could comment when 'a child did not say it-amount-i ed to establishing a religion. , (mation now required - all these combine to promote de ceit, glibness. and intellectu al double-talk It is not the .reality but the "image" thai I counts - not tht knowing, merely the seeming tr know. it . Trrlll made a dent In an appalling housing thortage; the number of schools has been doubled. Two years ago the govern ment refused to believe that Communist school teachers presented a thrett. The ap. pearance of young Commu ni.ia mmlnff direct from school rooms to riot in the streets has changed the gov ernment mind. Now Commu nist teachers re being weed ed out. S. White What the Constitution for bade was not religion as such but rather the establishment, the selling up, of one religion over another by state or fed eral power. What the court has not yet forbidden Is this invocation, used in its own sessions: "God save the Unit ed States and this honorable court." It has not yet said that mention of God in the "Star Spangled Banner," in every presidential inauguration in history, and in every invoca tion in every session of con gress, is unconstitutional. In the Day's News By FRANK JENKINS Incidental information: At its 88th Annual Gnnhr Count, just completed, the state of Minnesota Mcnmun as the Gopher State) paid out S7U5 in bounties to trappers of the furrv littla critters that are anathema to Midwest farmers because of their habit of burrowing in the meadows and piling up the dirt from their burrows m mounds that Dlav hoh with the cutting bars of mowing machines. The disDatch relale. that one trapper (age not specified) got $165 in bounties at the rate of 25 cents for each striped gopher and 10 cents tor each pocket gopher. THIS question arises: Whv Hnoan't tha etal nt Minnesota POISON its pesti ferous gophers instead of trapping them? Poison should be more effective, as well as much cheaper. One doesn't know, and the news story doesn't explain. But one suspects that TRADI TION has something to do with it. There was a time when trapping gophers was a principal source of spending money for small boys back in the gopher-infested Miss issippi Valley. In those days, poisoning would have been regarded with deep suspicion and might even have been denounced as against sound public policy. It would have killed off too many gophers too quickly, thus depriving too many boys of their pocket cash. No poli tician would have dared to suggest such a thing. A NOTHER question: Why does the state of Minnesota pay two bits for striped gophers and only a dime for pocket gophers? In the olden days, at least, the pocket gophers were a great er nuisance because they built higher mounds in the hay meadows. Docs anyone know the answer to that one? HiHE economists tell us that - value is created by the application of labor to na tural resources. The accepted theory is that the more labor applied to the natural re source the ereater the value of the product. Paying a bounty of two bits for a striped gopher and only a dime for a pocket gopher is a flat violation of that supposedly basic law. The striped gopher . . . also known as the prairie squirrel (not prairie dog, he's a different critter) . . . and likewise known as the picket-pin gopher ... is easily knocked off with a .22 rifle. There is no more attractive target than a striped gopher stand ing up like a picket pin. The pocket gopher, on the other hand, has to be TRAP PED. Il stays in its burrow in the daytime and comes oil only at nighl. Trapping a pocket gopher requires both labor and ingenuity. There's a screw loose some- 0 where in the Minnesota go pher bounty system. QNE more question: Whence comes the word "gopher?" You'll be surprised. f T COMES from the French 1 word GAUFRE - which is pronounced fcjO-FER It means HONEYCOMB. What the connection? Tht early French travelers (voo ageui. coming down from Canada noticed the preva lence of these little burrowing animals - which were in num erous that their burrows HONEYCOMBED lha car-.h So they rTied t.iem Al FRE?. e 0 Oe er
