Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1885 — The Patent Churn. [ARTICLE]

The Patent Churn.

If anything was needed to prove that Americans are the most persevering people outside ox romance, a turn through the churn department in the Patent Office would settle the matter beyond all chance for dispute. There has never been any demand for a patent churn; nobody wants one, and ho woman who cares to make butter that will haunt the memory like a lingering dream of joy would permit one to come within a thousand yards of the milk-house, and yet, in direct opposition to all the laws of nature, including female prejudice, thousands upon thousands of men have enslaved their brains for years in the service of the great Moloch of modern times—the , patent churn. Whenever a man grows sweaty in the brain-pan, and imagines he can feel the seethings of genius within him, it is a sure sign that destiny has ordained that he must beggar his family to procure a patent on a churn. At times the mania to invent something that cannot by any earthly possibility be of service to mankind becomes epidemic, and no man is safe from the dread contagion which almost invariablv finds expression in churns. A man may be ordinarily sane on everything else, and still be only a few removes from absolute idiocy on the subject of churns. Sending a boy to college and stuffing him full of expensive education is no guarantee that he will not some day debase his brain and waste the best years of his life in trying to get up a patent churn a little more absurd than any of its predecessors. Those misguided people who fooled away their lives in seeking the philosopher’s stone were not the only examples of wasted effort with which all history teems, as the acres of churn models in Washington will show. The gospel is preached all over our broad land, and idolatry is discountenanced everywhere, outside of politics and good society, and yet in spite of all this, men will bow down to the churn of their own construction and avow that its like is not found in the earth beneath nor the heavens above, and they will worship it and put the best part of their lives into it, and then go raving crazy with despair when they try to sell it and find out what an old fraud it is. Things have got to such a pass that the day is coming over the hill when the voter will not ask concerning the candidate for whom his vote is solicited: “Is he honest? Is he able? Is he strong enough to withstand corruption? ’ But—“ Did heever invent a churn ?” And if the answer js yes, you can bet that he w'on’t get a vote, unless he buys it. The fact that a man has tried to bulldoze fate by throwing away time on a elyurn instead of bunching his energies on th&rollerskate or something that people want, will be taken' as evidence that his skull is not the right shape, and he will be treated accordingly. The churn seems to be about the only thing to which the Darwinian theory will not apply. The missing link may some day turn up to connect the chain of progress, but until then all attempts at improvement can be nothing more than wasted effort. The churn in general use, and the one that sends forth butter to gladden like the spirit of love, is the one that came over in the Mayflower. It has no cranks or springs; no wheels or pinions; no cogs or levers. All there is of it is the dasher and the concern that holds the milk, and that is enough. Main strength can do the rest, and goodness knows female labor is cheap enough, unless you have to hire it which is seldom the case on a farm. Heroism is not scarce in this country, and plenty of women can still be found with courage sufficient to marry into servitude. Churning is a simple operation that requires a good deal of muscle, superhuman patience, and some little skin—not much. A very little will do if you are strong in the arms and not easily discouraged. About all you have to do is to grab hold of the dasher and pound the cream with unrelenting vigor. The rest can be left to nature. Success is certain, even though it may be a trifle slow at times. Nothing worth having can be had without hard labor, and good butter is certainly worth having, unless you have been raised in a boarding house and don’t know what it is. Therefore it is not an exception to the rule, and the longer it takes to churn the better the butter ought to be. But butter is sometimes like hope. It promises everything and turns out a sham at last. But this is not your fault. Charge it to the butter. It is strong enough to bear it, or if not, give it time and it will be.—Chicago Ledger.