Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 78, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1917 — PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON

Jay walkers add to our vexations: they violate all regulations; in city streets and country byways they laugh to scorn the rules of highways. As I go chugging in my motor, I oft run down and squash some voter, some chuckle-headed human being, who goes around with eyes unseeing. I know that speed’s a thing unholy, so I drive carefully and slowly, and toot my horn at every crossing, where traffic cops the mob are bossing. But little profit is there in it, for in a sad and fateful minute the squarehead rushes, in a hurry, from back of yonder standing surrey, and lands right in the path before me; a dizzy sickness rushes o’er me, as my big car climbs up his person, and people gather round me, cursin’. They tell how they would like to lynch . me, while brassbound cops come up and pinch me. The man on foot is never erring; the motorist all blame is bearing. The walkers zizzag here and yonder, and break all bylaws as they wander, and when they get beneath a wagon, because of ziggin’ and of zaggin’, the people cry, “Let’s hang the chuffer, who thus makes worthy walkers suffer.” Engineers estimate that standing four inches away from the telephone when talking ' is equivalent to lengthening the line 218 miles. A three-story building, given by ex-Governor Mead of Vermont has been opened by the Congregational church of Rutland, Vermont, as a social center. In connection with this is a gymnasium, also the exGovernor’s gift.