Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 63, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1912 — Retired Farmers. [ARTICLE]

Retired Farmers.

An unknown “retired” farmer" has the following to say of his kind. The retired farmer has earned all he has and deserves much more than he gets. He says: “When I read In the papers and hear speakers tell that the retired farmer® are no good, I get pretty mad'. The young folks don’t want us around in the way. Wlhat are tyou going to do with us? I suppose you think we ought to be “Oslerized.” Maybe we wouldn’t be any good in heaven and possibly we would be too green In the other place. Who made your towns? You say your railroads, your factories and merchant®. Let me tell you. First us old fellows,' we weren’t so old then, came on these prairies, broke up the sod, built houses, barns and echool houses, lived on corn pond and pork, worked sixteen hours a day and saved our money. Then the railroad came, towns were built up because we needed l them. Factories were started and every* thing prospered. But we pioneers opened the way. Now we are crippled up with rheumatism, mother can not go six miles to church, so we are moving to town. We are going to sit in the park and hear the band play and 1 watch the people go hy and be just as lazy as we want to. Maybe we ill die in a few years. A year or two doesn’t make any difference to us. Our usefulness in the town or country is about over. We have worked hard, suffered privation, saved what little we have and are not very free io let go of it. Wie pay our way, and It seems to me, we are safe citizens, if not enterprising ones. Bear with us as you would with a faithful old horse, for the 'good we have done, and remember that old people do not change their ways as readily as younger ones, but they are just as sensitive to blights and slurs.—