Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1918 — PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON

I’ve made a million sad mistakes, I’ve made a million ghastly breaks. If all my bad breaks werp in view, if friends and neighbors only knew how many boneheads I have scored they’d feel they couldn’t well afford to have me on their calling list; and I’d go to the dump, I wist. When some poor delegate falls down, and puts a crimp in his renown, the wise boys, ever more on guard, come down upon him pretty hard. They hang around the marketplace and say his conduct’s a disgrace. A mighty impulse then I feel to stand among such groups and spiel, and hand out shining texts and saws, and stand up strong for virtue’s cause. But thank the gods, before I start, I always feel a change of heart. I get to thinking of my sins and errors, which are.' mostly twins, and I recall my vagrant ways; how I jumped town between two days, the sheriff half a rod behind; how I swiped pennies from the blind; how I w r as pinched for stealing hens—and then I put away* the lens that I have used to magnify the frightful deeds of t’otfier guy. I don’t believe that any gent has all the virtues in him blent to such a marvelous degree that he should feel quite prompt and free to take the hide from erring jay who’s wandered from the narrow, way.