Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 227, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1915 — KENTLAND POSTMASTER ADVISES MUTT AND JEFF [ARTICLE]

KENTLAND POSTMASTER ADVISES MUTT AND JEFF

Hume I*. Sammons Gets Third Prize For 1 ' Letter Suggesting Investment In Farm Land.

Bud Fisher, the comic artist who draws “Mutt and Jeff,” receives a yearly salary of $78,000.00. Recently the Chicago Daily News offered prizes for the fourteen best letters telling Mr. Fisher how to invest his money to advantage. The News received 1,361 answers, and among the fourteen selected as the best is one from H. L. Sammons, of this place. Mr. Sammons received third prize and a check for $25.00. His advice to Mr. Fisher should be taken seriously, as Hume ranks as a money maker, and some day his friends will be called in to tell him how to spend his income. At any rate, this is the way Mr. Sammons maps out the expenditure of that $78,000.00:

“Assuming that our friend Bud Fisher’s total income for the year is $78,000, a part of that sum will necessarily have to be set aside for living expenses, home comforts and conveniences, and for such charitable expenditures as to him shall appear just and meet in the premises. On that score he does not need any advice, although his investment in the things that will bring to him good health and contentment are the most important of all. After deducting for the annual budget on his own aocoilnt, it is of the residue, for permanent investment, that we will offer advice.

“Manifestly Mr. Fisher should invest his net savings so that his purchases will bring about, if possible, equal 'benefits to himself and the community where such investments are made. The first impulse might be to say .to him to buy stocks, bonds, mortgages or apartment buildings, as they may be readily procured, but in directing his course we must judge from past expenrience and determine for him safe and sane investments — free from hazard, if such are procurable.

“A dozen years ago the problem confronting Bud Fisher was uppermost in the mind of America’s greatest humorist, George Ade. Like Mr. Fisher, he had gained fame in his connection with newspapers, notably the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Record. Mr. Ade, however, in building his fortune, abandoned journalism for the, at that time, more lucrative business of playwriting. His income had assumed the proportions of that of the creator of Mutt and Jeff. How Mr. Ade came back to the scenes of his boyhood days and invested his money in the lands located in the great com belt of Indiana is told, better than we can tell it, in an article published several months ago in the Gentleman Farmer entitled ‘Keeping Up With Brother Bilb 1 —

“Perhaps Bud Fisher is unfortunate in not having a Brother Bill, but in every community in the com 'belt he will be able to find, without trouble or inconvenience, men of the sterling business of George Ade’s brother Bill. If to him that would appear a difficult task, the man who made ‘Pink Marsh’ and ‘Artie’ famous, his brother Bill or the writer will be pleased to cite him. “Will Ade’s first commission was to purchase a farm for his brother where the latter copld build him a country home. This Was done by buying a tract of 411 acres which is now so well known as Hazelden farm. The purchase was made at SBO an acre. It is now worth, sound value, three times that amount. “In successive years, he added other farms to his holdings, on the advice of Brother Bill, and George Ade now owns two thousand acres of land equal in fertility and productiveness to any in the Hoosier state.

“Every year his lands have had an average increase in value to the extent of $8 an acre, and every year, on the valuation for that year, he has received in addition an average net return of 6 per cent. “His investments have benefited the community, because his tenants are amply provided with commodious buildings, with beautiful surroundings ;they share in the prosperity resultant from the wealth produced and ate a splendid type of citizenship. “Are the opportunities opeif to Bud Fisher? They are. The timeliness for investment in high grade farm lands was never better than now. When the present worldwide crisis is over, the owners of farm lands will prosper as never before, although the prosperity of the farmer, be he landlord or tenant, has exceeded that of any other line of endeayor during the past fifteen years. “So our advice to Bud Fisher is: *Go thou and do likewise.’ Put; your money into the source of all prosperity—the soil. Purchase land in the great corn belt. It can’t burn up and it can’t blow» away. Floods are unknown. If war ever comes to this country, its ravages would be less, felt in the farming district than any other, ; and, when ended, there would be some-

thing to go back to- i “Likewise, if a fickle, ever-chang-ing public should transfer its affection from f Mutt and .Jeff,’ or if their untimely end should be brought about from any cause, their creation will have produced an investment that will infallibly bring in returns. The same public, while it may change its food for thought or amusement, never changes when it comes to food for nourishment. The soil will at all times provide that. “But, to Mr. Fisher, a word of warning as well as advice. Good farmers do not make good cartoonists and the contrary is provable. On Mr. Ade’s farms are fine horses, cattle, sheep and hogs—some of the best in the land. They are hot of his selection. Be as prudent as he was—take the advice of Brother Bill.”