Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1915 — WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

WALT MASON

Tlie Poet Philosopher. The balmy spring should stir up all men to labors sane, but over there in Yurrnp they’re planting men, not grain. The plow’s unused and dusty, with rust the hoe is red; the cultivator trusty stands idle in the shed. Red is the stream that j washes its pathway to (he sea; I they re planting men, not squashes —-what shall the harvest be? They’re planting men, not pumpkins, bej heath the bright spring sky; they’re j sowing poor -dead bumpkins who | fought and knew not why; they’re j planting men in iarrows, among the clods and stones, and there the gopher harrows among the soldiers’ hones. Oh, what a foolish sowing, I.uropc s sodden plain, while here the crops are growing in sun and wind and rain! In this fair land the farmer is sowing wheat with drills; o'er there the gents in armor are planting men in hills; they plant, the peasant’s yard in, the victims of their biffs, the common or the garden variety of stiffs. Oh, Europe, old and hoary, you ought to have more sense; your agriculture gory, that’s now in evidence, is wicked, vain and foolish; the seed is out of style; the tools you use are ghoulish, the crops you’ll raise are vile.