Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1919 — PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON [ARTICLE]

PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON

If I could run the weather for seasons two or three, a medal made of leather you’d doubtless hand to me. The climate now presented strikes us as being bad; most men are discontentted, and some of us are mad. When sunshines badly needed, the rain falls every day; the fields, by hard work seeded, are drowned and washed away. And when we need some water to save our oats and rye, the sun gets hot and hotter, and crops begi-n to fry. I'd get my frie'nds together and ask for their advice, if I could run the weather just once, or mjaybe twice. I’d ask the honest voters, the farmers blue and tired, the weary burden toters, to tell what they desired. I'd give them what they wanted, a cyclone or some sleet; by precedent undaunted, I’d give it and repeat. The man who runs the weather sits in a tower alone, and cares no fig or feather how weary mortals moan. He has no helpful system, no useful plan in force; though we have often hissed hun, he goes his bughouse course; he keeps the punk sun sizzling when we are needing rain, and sends the water drizzling when floods are on the plain. He combs his hangdown heather, and runs things hit or miss; if I could run the weather I'd fill your lives with bliss.