Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1915 — WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

WALT MASON

The Poet Philosopher. There is a better wold they say, a Shining place across; the way, where ' people weep no more, and all my i days I have been told of jasper gates 1 and walls of gold, and streets of virgin ore. I'm sure there is <y better land, where well rejoice to beat the band, and lay our burdens clown; but no one there thinks gold a prize, and none will pause to analyze the metal in his crown. The pictures of that joyous place with which they bring me face to face, are sordid, gross and mean; for one, I don’t believe in sich—a heaven for the idle rich, with gold and gasoline. The truth about that land is sealed; its glories have not been revealed, men would not understand, and all the stories that we hold, of pearly gates and streets of gold, were writ by mortal hand. They do not measure values there as would a fourth-rate millionaire;- there’s no such thing as cost; if gold is valued more than zinc, up where the angels nectar drink, then heaven is a frost. Ah, no, my friends, that «_■ sunny shore,' where we shall meet when life is o’er, has ne’er a use for coin; it has no gold along its pike; it does not measure values like Chicago or Des Moines.