Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1917 — WHAT IS YOUR-INTENTION? [ARTICLE]

WHAT IS YOUR-INTENTION?

Are you a land owner? If so, what is your intention with reggrd to the land that you own? Do you propose to regard it merely as a business investment, and to extract from it every possible dollar of profit. We have known farmers whose treatment of their land was calculated to leave the impression that they were the ones for whom it was originally created, and that when they should cease to need it no other use would ever be made' of it.

On the other hand, there are men—and many . of them—who, while striving to make their land as productive as possible, have yet an eye to the future owners. Every farmer, when he takes charge of a piece of ground, should frame this simple resolution: ■ I hereby resolve that, whether my occupancy of this land be long or short, I will use every means at my command to leave it more productive than when I found it. If this were the guiding principle of e,very farmer’s life, what a blessed and productive country ours would become in a few generations of time!

And why not? Every farmer who has worked with impoverished soil knows how discouraging and heart sickening is the struggle. And every farmer who has honestly endeavored to improve his land to a point of real productiveness knows how gratifying it is to pee his yield mount upward from year to .year and to feel that as the seasons gd by he is adding substantially to the wealth of this country—for after all is Said, land is the great tangible 'asset of the earth. The man who causes two blades of grass to grow where only one was growing is- a benefactor of mankind. The man who so' depletes his soil that only one blade of grass will grow where two formerly grew, is a thief. , Hard words—yds, hard, but true. No man has a right to impoverish the Soil, even if he does hold a title deed to it. At best it is only for a season, when- it must pass on to another rightful owner. And what about the rights of that next owner? And the next, and the next?

When you pursue a policy that impoverishes your land it goes to your sop. at your demise poorer than when you received it. Have you, in that event, been honest with your son? He had a right to receive from you what you received—certainly no less. Will the farmers of A.merica rob the unborn generations, or will they leave for them the legacy of a better land than they themselves inherited? ‘A . It is a personal question which each individual must answer for himself. \ * Madame, don’t criticize your husband’s pipe. So long as he smokes it he will not be “lifting” cigars from his friends’ pockets.

As a penalty for the playing of peanut politics of the Wood variety, and “’of which he was such an adept in the Indiana state senate, this district suffers humiliation 'in Washington, and for the next two years of his term (if he is permitted to serye that term out), the good and important Tenth congressional district of Indiana will have no representation at any affair where the administration is Concerned. It is a punishment the district,- richly ■ . i> ■ J ST • >•#>•••. deserves for electing as congressman a man known by a very conspicuous senatorial record.-—Tippe-canoe County Democrat. A resolution has been Introduced in congress by Representative Scully of New Jersey to accept Shadow Lawn, which President Wilson occupied as a summer White House last summer, as a gift to the nation. The resolution sets forth that a number of citizens of Asbury Park have underwritten a project by which the place would be given to the government without cost, but conditioned on its permanent use as a summer home for the President. If the state-wide prohibition bill which has already passed the lower house" by a 3 to 1 vote becomes a law, over 500 saloons and wholesale liquor dealers in Lake county, 175 of which are in Gary alone, will be forced olit of business. We never could abide the fellow who talks learnedly on subjects he knows nothing about. And that, gentlemen, is why we have never attempted to diagnose the mind of a woman. > ■ ■

Life may not be all roses on the farm, but there’s a heap of satisfaction in knowing that every time a hen cackles you can hear the money jingling in your pockets. The fire eater who habitually carries a chip on his shoulder often finds that he is too insignificant for a real man to even notice. •"*“ _____ We are told that an electric bulb is brightest just before it burns out. And so, we might add, is the nose of a boozer.